• Life Advice & Visual Arts Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    🌌 Share Your Dreams! 🌌
    📸 15 Years of Photo Contests 📸
  • LAVA Moderator: Mysterier

MEGA - Drug/Legal issues impacting school/job

You could say you started a successful dog walking company or something that wouldn't take a lot of skill and wouldn't have a lot of proof behind it. Then you don't appear to have any skills you lack, and you have a credible excuse. You worked by yourself and didn't advertise, so there are no records of your past service.
 
Bob Loblaw said:
You could say you started a successful dog walking company or something that wouldn't take a lot of skill and wouldn't have a lot of proof behind it. Then you don't appear to have any skills you lack, and you have a credible excuse. You worked by yourself and didn't advertise, so there are no records of your past service.
Click to expand...

Until they ask for references. I've had some odds and ends jobs similar to dog walking (dog sitting) to earn extra cash amongst other hobbies that I have that earned me some money, and I have had people ask for references.
 
it's not as difficult as you think it would be to readjust as a participating member of this economy and this society.

you can always b/s references a little bit here and there, assuming you aren't going into an ultra-conservative office job or something.
 
Three years is a long time to be able to simply make up a creative excuse for on the spot. Any odd job out there that you can think of that still would require, say, taxes on its income, well the employer is going to want to see official information about.

Traveling for three years is a long time, and unless you're ready to start lying from day 1, I wouldn't suggest this. It would be a common topic for the workplace, and if you have to keep a bunch of stories straight about places you have not even been to, then that's just unnecessary stress.

Would your parents have your back on this? I mean have they been asking you what you've been doing for the past 3 years? What have you been telling them? I was thinking that caring for a sick relative could be the best lie you could pull off. Again, not that I am suggesting you to lie, but if you've, for example, got a supportive mother who can say that she desperately needed her son around (say due to emotional trauma), they may not get too pushy about this.


Also, the caliber of job you seek will determine how much something like this even matters. If your competition for the job will be people with very strong ambition and recent work experience, then you're going to be in a deep hole. But if it's something less white collar, then I could see you showing that you've got the skills necessary to do the job just as well as anyone else could. Just like in any situation, never let the interview go negative. Look your interviewer in the eyes and be honest and speak with confidence. "The person I am today is a person who is willing to work as hard as anybody else on this job. I hope you'll give me the chance to prove this to you."
 
All you have to do is use fake references. Give them your friends' numbers who are willing to make up stories about your work experience, pretending to be former supervisors or something.
 
^yea that will work and you can have your parents if they are managers or something have one of there friends as a reference so they can have a real background on it
 
^ There is one hidden danger in all of this. Because your earnings over the past three years have been due to illicit activities, this income was surely not taxed, nor reported to the IRS (assuming you are in the States). So in the eyes of the IRS, you have had no taxable income over the past three years. I believe it's around $3000-$5,000 a year that is the maximum amount of money you can make before having to pay taxes (and you still do have to pay taxes on jobs like dog-walker, piano teacher, etc.)

If you say "I've been pet-sitting for the past three years" to an IRS worker directly, who sees you've got a nice car and house, they might get suspicious. Tax records are public, so the fact that you have not been paying taxes for 3 years is easily obtainable. Will this come up in a job-interview? Probably not. But given that these are public records and your potential employer DOES decide to do a background check on you, I have no idea if this is something they'd look at. If you have a criminal record, this could complicate things.

Your own tax history probably wouldn't come up in any hypothetical work scenereos (for example your company gets itself into tax trouble), but there could be a situation where your employer could gain access to your tax history and then think hmm, all of those references....was he lying in the interview? Again, though, highly unlikely.
 
tank90 said:
^yea that will work and you can have your parents if they are managers or something have one of there friends as a reference so they can have a real background on it
Click to expand...

No job that this guy is going to be applying for (I'm assuming no college degree) is going to dig deep enough to find out whether the references are just friendlies on your side.

I explain holes in my resume where I was incarcerated or unemployed and travelling as that "I worked various non-professional positions in restaurants and bars. I don't put them on my resume because they don't really have anything to do with my experience as it applies to the job I'm interviewing here for now."
 
Yes, it's a pretty blatent violation.

If you let a storefront tax preparation company, for example, H&R block, help you do your taxes, they have the legal right to sell this information to third-parties. The exact same thing applies for software, such as TurboTax. This sounds outrageous, but it's true. You will sign a disclosure form in each case, and within this form is the right for the assistant to sell any information you give. Will people read the fine print? Well that's the reason why people go to H&R block in the first place, right? To avoid paperwork hastle. Think about it.

The IRS itself is not allowed to disclose personal information, however third parties are. In that disclosure you sign something along the lines of

"Warning: Once your tax return information is disclosed to a third party per your consent, we have no control over what that third party does with your tax return information. If the third party uses or discloses your tax return information for purposes other than the purpose for which you authorized the disclosure, under Federal tax law, we are not responsible for that subsequent use or disclosure, and Federal tax law may not protect you from that disclosure."
Click to expand...

It is not possible file your taxes directly to the IRS electronicly. If you want to e-file, you must use some type of service. Filing taxes manually is both 1) prone to error 2) a pain and 3) will delay the time it takes to get you your tax return (but it should maintain your privacy). The government definately wants to push for electronic tax filing. In the end, taxation is a governmental responsibility, and we all know that our government (whether they deny it or not) loves outsourcing - if some guy in Bangladore does your taxes for you, it's cheaper than if the IRS developed its own electronic-filing system, which WOULD then keep your information private.

*Note: This is how it was around 2 years ago. I haven't paid US taxes in that period,so I don't know about any legislation that has been passed since.
 
Last edited:
Wow, thanks for the info Redleader. I didn't realize they made you sign your right to privacy away to use the service. I usually file taxes manually, but I e-filed the past couple years to get the return quicker.

I am going back to doing it by hand. I do a better job manually than any software or website has ever done, and I've tried a lot without submitting to see how they all fared.
 
Note: I shouldn't have exactly said "tax records are public." That's a lie, since they are privitized by the IRS. What I meant is that 99% of people file taxes in a way that allows for legal loopholes in the steps between you wanting to file your taxes and the IRS giving you your refund.

UPDATE: This has now got me all interested, and the web is not giving any clear answers. I have a friend who is an accountant, so I may try and stop over her place later and ask her about the most current laws concerning this all. So I should have a better answer within 24 hours!
 
Dude, say you were going to school for two semesters, then changed majors and did that another 2 semesters then finally dropped out and got an OFF THE BOOKS job since then. This is exactly what I've done and as far as being able to prove what we've done for the last three years, well there aint shit to show for it, so we're in the same hole.
And if they ask for references from the off the books job (I know it might look bad, but compared to what everybody else has to say, its safely sounds like your best bet) just have a friend lie for you.
I tried this one time to get into walmart as a manager, passed the interviews, the background check, the references, everything, had 3 friends lie about my prior work experience, and everything went great until i had to take that *surprise* drug test (surprise! not really if your expecting it but still as naive as i am).
My point being, not graduating school and an off the books job sounds like it would be your best, because thats exactly what Ive been through since 2006 and we're in the same hole.
 
I like Redleader's sick relative explanation. Say you took care of an ailing family member.

Whatever you do -- do not tell the truth, and make sure it never gets out. I have a position where I do recruiting for a company and we had an amazing candidate in who was very honest about a hole in his resume (oxy addiction) and he never had a chance. Otherwise, he was the ideal candidate. The interviewere didn't think an ex-addict could be trustworthy/dependable/able to deal with stress. Really lame considering half of the people at this firm are cokeheads!
 
neener said:
I like Redleader's sick relative explanation. Say you took care of an ailing family member.

Whatever you do -- do not tell the truth, and make sure it never gets out. I have a position where I do recruiting for a company and we had an amazing candidate in who was very honest about a hole in his resume (oxy addiction) and he never had a chance. Otherwise, he was the ideal candidate. The interviewere didn't think an ex-addict could be trustworthy/dependable/able to deal with stress. Really lame considering half of the people at this firm are cokeheads!
Click to expand...

neener, if you don't mind me asking, how long was the hole in this "amazing candidate"'s resume? Also, do you feel as if he would have been given the job, given the case that he both witheld the oxy addiction information and instead said something akin to my sick relative story?


Another thing to add for the OP - Be prepared to pass a drug test right around the time of the interview. I don't know if you are still using or not, but this is for the case where you are. For all you know, they will give you the job right then and there at the inverview, but you'll have to turn around and be tested very shortly thereafter. That is, unless you know it's not a company that tests (there are databases for this kind of thing, but I'm playing it safe and not posting links since I believe it would be against the rules of BL). 95% of jobs (which test) just will test urine, but still if you fail the test, that can come back to haunt you down the line. There are OTC products for testing for a few of the big street drugs, and then there are anonymous places you can be tested at (you might have to pay a fee, but it's worth it) a la STD checking. If I were hypothetically taking a drug test for a job tomorrow, you'd bet your behind I'd be taking one on my own initiative today!
 
I think your biggest worry is not going to be getting the job. Anybody determined enough can get a job. It may not be your dream job but it will be a job. Ex-cons get jobs when they get out of prison. Your biggest concern is going to be settling for the full-time employment lifestyle.

I moved to Florida when I was 18 years old, straight out of rehab, and lived in halfway houses for about a year and a half. I worked a variety of unskilled positions and made barely enough money to pay my weekly rent and buy groceries.

Eventually I just got sick and tired of being broke. I moved out on my own, stopped hanging out with the AA people, and got into dealing as a full-time business. I told myself it was just going to be until I could earn enough seed money to start a full-time business as a club/party promoter. I always said when I was getting high that if I could sell shit sober I would make a killing. I was not wrong.

I sold shit for about 2 1/2 years, strictly wholesale business within 6 months. I never touched anything, not even a beer. I hung out at clubs and strip clubs every day but I always drank soda, never smoked weed and took significant precautions to avoid incidental exposure to the shit I worked with. And I made insane money, or at least insane money for an 18 year old with no degree, work experience, or marketable skills to speak of.

I bought a car and a condo, ate out for every meal and spent money like it was free. I was taking a few classes at the community college throughout all of this. Looking back I'm astonished that I somehow got 60 hours of credits and maintained a decent GPA throughout. I remember one time I was coming back on a run from up north, hauling ass down 1-95 through SC with $25,000 cash in the trunk and running late for a philosophy exam the next morning. I got pulled over at around 1:00 am by a State Trooper in a Camaro. I stopped at the next exit and bought a $200 radar detector at a truck stop. When I finally got to the exam the next morning, I was 20 minutes late and just happy to have made it. I ended up with a B-. It was always stupid shit like that.

Eventually I finished my Associates degree and wanted to transfer to University, so I gave it up. It was a good time to get out anyway. Everything was going to shit. The hardest part was adjusting to not being able to spend whatever money I wanted and live on whatever schedule I wanted. If I had not gone to college, I never would've been able to force myself to give up that lifestyle.

I sold the condo and used that money, and my surprisingly meager savings, to pay tuition and living expenses for the next 4 years. I earned a pair of graduate degrees and a highly esteemed and valuable professional license. With three years of experience, I now make somewhere between 1/6th and 1/8th pre-tax of what I made annually over that 2 1/2 years from the ages of 19-22. And even though I still miss it like hell on a regular basis (not just the money but the freedom) I now feel as though I have something to lose. And maybe I'm just a little older and less invincible.

From time to time I fuck around on the DOC website and check on my old associates, some of whom are doing time through 2018 (I retired in 2002). And I try with miniscule success to invoke even a small fraction of the appropriate appreciation and good fortune that I should feel for having avoided the same fate or worse.
 
Redleader said:
neener, if you don't mind me asking, how long was the hole in this "amazing candidate"'s resume? Also, do you feel as if he would have been given the job, given the case that he both witheld the oxy addiction information and instead said something akin to my sick relative story?
Click to expand...


The resume hole was 3 years. In my opinion, I do believe he would have been hired if he had a better story. Several of his interviewers praised his candor, yet noted that they were hesitant to highly recommend someone with his background. This was a high-stress position in a large corporate environment and many of them questioned his coping skills. Many of the individulas who make hiring decisions at large companies are pretty straight-laced and would not even consider a candidate with a spotty background; They consider drug use/abuse to be a sign of character weakness.
 
any opiate addict teachers/white collar jobs?

my psych (who obviously is rather anti-drug; parents are forcing me to see her) says if i am on maintenance or any drugs i'll never be able to complete my degree and get into the working world as a teacher or scientists or whatever job i may pick

she said, of course i wouldn't find any teachers etc with addictions. so this is sort of a tiny bet with her. i said of course there'd be plenty, eg one just as to ask an internet community full of druggies and there's bound to be plenty teachers scientists or whatever, plenty with any job!

so perhaps we could make an anonymously-voting income poll? and/or, just share your career

personally i am in school to get my degree for the above
 
IDK if this is allowed, since it will incriminate others.

I'll move it to DC and see what they do with it.

(i hate doing this to moderator started threads...lol)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top