Last night I contacted on-line chat support for a major computer/printer company. Not only did the support person not patronize me (i.e. "is the cable plugged in?"), but the 2nd solution offered actually fixed the problem! Could this be the first positive customer support experience in the history of computing? Perhaps. Certainly we can find some encouragement in this.

After months and months of waiting, my fiance and I finally have an interview date at the American Embassy in London at the end of this month. I've not seen him since January 3.

So hard slogs (especially through bureaucracies) can pay off!

Wazza matter, mulpy? You need cheering up?

Yes yes, I do. I've been looking for work since January. Having not been hired, there has been a steady downward progression in the jobs for which I have been looking. I started with office assistant type work, then data entry, shipping/receiving, inventory control, retail ... now it looks like I'm down to some sort of ... fast food or something like that which won't pay me enough to survive, now that I've nearly completely depleted my savings. Pretty pathetic for a 27 year old.

Alright, enough with the self-pity, me.
(yessir!)

mulp, i'm in pretty much the same boat. the only upside i can see from this is that i have a little bit of cash saved up, and i'm getting in mad training miles on the bike, tho i haven't had the funds to do much racing with all the fitness i've been building.

although the mister insisted on registering me for a bike race on sunday with money out of his own pocket, and shot me down with a full-frontal tickling assault when i tried to stop him.

My puppy's walking on all 4 paws now.

Well that's the suck, mulp. I hope you've just broadened your search to include the lesser stuff and haven't ruled out the good stuff entirely. Have you considered a temp agency? Mr. rossi actually signed on with one right out of college, impressed his first placement so much they hired him permanently and has been there for over a decade.

Mulp--when I was 25 and had no work, I registered temp with all the universities in my metro area. It was better, a much more sure-thing, than a regular temp agency. Pay was great and there was a greater lag between assignments, but (having done the temp with a university HR department three times and gotten hired 2x) also more likely to lead to fulltime employment.