Me: I haven't worked since March of 2020. I have a high school education and are mainly just looking for entry level jobs. Mostly any place that's hiring but there are some jobs I'd prefer to not do (at least for this month). So far, I've applied to 205 jobs, received around 10 interviews and of those interviews, most are auto-scheduled by the computer. 5 of them either cancelled, no showed or told me to come back another day.

My Uncle: An affluent, retired baby boomer with a PHD.

He's been calling me every few weeks to give me advice about how to get a job. The first thing he said was that I should definitely apply to the military base near my house because they are 'always hiring' and they have really great jobs. He made it out like this was the easiest thing. "They are always hiring." is something he continually repeats in his conversations with me. He sent me some links. One of them didn't even go to any job listings, but from the pages he did send me, most of the jobs on that base were for highly specialized labor that I'm not qualified for.

In that particular conversation, he talked about how there was a gym job "handing out towels" and how that would be perfect for me. The gym job in question, once I actually read it, was clearly a gym trainer, which required you to qualify on multiple physical fitness tests. And seeing as I am a morbidly obese man, I don't think that would be the best line of work.

There was a secretary job and a cashier job that I could have qualified for, but the former required security clearance and the latter, for some reason, required transcripts of post-secondary schooling that I'm not even sure how I would get.

I mentioned in passing that I had applied to the food court on the base and he said that I should definitely ask one of my relatives with access that lives nearby to drive me on to the base so that I could introduce myself to the manager of the food court and tell him that I'm looking for work. If I wasn't able to do that, I should email or call them.

In this most recent call, he said that I should work at a nursing home, because 'they're always hiring'. I told him that I probably shouldn't work as a caregiver because I don't have the correct amount of compassion to do that work professionally. Plus, I don't really want to have to assist people medically.

Then he said that I should just get a job in the kitchen at the nursing home because they're also 'always hiring'.

While I was on the phone with him, I was searching jobs on indeed. All the caregiver jobs required some kind of medical assistance and there were no food service position in any nearby nursing homes.

This last phone call was probably the most annoying. It's not so much the unsolicited advice that bothers me, it's the prattling on and on. The first time he called me about this, he went on for about a half hour just on this topic. This last call, I made a mental note that if he was still talking about it in fifteen minutes I would have to formally set a boundary that his advice is unsolicited.

The other thing is that I genuinely believe that someone like him (an affluent, retired baby boomer with a PHD) has, literally, no idea what it means for someone like me to look for a job.

I mean, for the whole bullshit of respecting your elders or whatever is really the only reason I tolerate it, but a part of me does wonder if maybe he does have a point and that I'm just being overly rigid and stubborn. But "introduce yourself to the manager" as job search advice is ,like, literally, a Boomer trope so idk.