My problem isn't really qualification or job history - I've had plenty of jobs before and fairly long-term as well.

One of the issues is community. I'm looking for clerical or administrative, anything that will give me office experience. The best I have right now are the multiple newspapers I've worked on and run at one point or another.

But, no one's hiring anything like that here. In fact, very little of that even exists here. There are no office-based companies, other than single-practice law offices, that I can think of, and I've lived here for over ten years.

I live in a town of just under 5000 people (an 'everybody knows everybody' type town), outside a town outside a town. There are two types of jobs you can have here:

1. Farmer 2. Factory Worker

The law offices I've been applying to, often with personal connections and references on both sides from a long-term friend and "Village Clerk" (a city job) aren't hiring because they're simply not big enough to need any help. Several of them are one man bands with a secretary. I actually called one office the other day, who's been practicing here for something like 15 or 20 years, and he didn't even have a secretary - and wouldn't hear out any sort of interest or questions.

The factories have some offices, but most of the administration is handled elsewhere. For instance, I just got off the phone this morning with the HR Director of the biggest factory here in town - a headlight and pedal manufacturer. I worked there before as a temp and built up a pretty good repertoire with the Plant Engineer, the HR Director (who's sister had me in class when I was a small child), and the Plant Manager's assistant (a woman who insisted on flirting with me at every possible encounter). The HR Director was surprised to even hear someone ask about an office job. What they need, they get out of the local high school in the form of unpaid co-op students who show up two hours in the afternoon.

As a result, I've been branching out my search to include the three nearest "slightly bigger" towns - the biggest of which is only barely over 10,000 people. They're over an hour's drive away, and even they don't have anything very promising. I'm about to call another law office, this one bigger. I was directed there from a local branch, but was told pretty blatantly that they "don't really need anything."

I always hesitate to complain about job seeking because I always get the same advice, and all of it would be useful if I lived in an area that had hundreds of people that actually sent in resumes. But I'm in an area where staffing agencies do have power. Every factory here hires exclusively through them, and everywhere else that isn't Wal-Mart is too small to afford additional employees. I've asked friends about jobs locally or places who could potentially use some help, but aside from the village clerk I mentioned, they're at a complete loss. The town is just small. The area around it, in all directions for hours, is corn and soybeans.

I'm not ungrateful, I appreciate the advice. But I've been at this for so long, and had the help of so many people, that I'm all but positive that I'll end up working in a factory for the next forty years before I get drunk one night and step in front of the one train route that passes through here.