Hello! I wish that I was healthy enough to go back to work I miss it a lot. Unfortunately I have to many health issues. Most of my time is spent on dialysis or to fatigued or in pain to work. I try to write or volunteer when I am physically able to.

I never know when I will be in to much pain or to tired so I can not conform to a schedule.

Maybe if I get a transplant that will change.

But I have no idea what type of work since I now have to use a wheelchair or scooter for distances. My old work was with developmentally disabled adults in a group home. One needs to be able to go up and down stairs and have energy to chase them.

Oh well.

Vchen, thank you for your reply to this discussion topic.

Volunteering is an important type of work. Volunteers use their abilities to teach someone a skill or subject, listen to or counsel someone who is troubled, mentor someone who needs a good role model, call on people who are lonely, use their professional skills or hobbies to help others, assist with the collection and distribution of food, clothes, and other needs of the destitute, and do so much else to help in the world. Thank you for being one of them, Vchen.

I have failed to mention other things someone might want to consider before seeking employment. One of the most basic is having a means by which employers can contact you for interviews and also during your employment. You don't have to spend a lot of money for good personal and private methods of contact.

If you don't have your own personal telephone, you might consider getting a prepaid cell phone. I have one that costs about $10 (U.S.) a month. You go to a store, buy your choice of cell phones from a prepaid cell phone service provider, ranging in price from about $15 to just over $100, and then buy airtime cards at the store. If you buy the cheapest airtime card from one service provider, Tracfone, you pay $20 for 60 minutes of airtime, which is good for 90 days. Before the 90 days are up, you buy another airtime card and add it to your total airtime, thus allowing you to keep any of your original remaining airtime while keep the service going. I am not endorsing or promoting any particular provider, but the website for Tracfone is www.tracfone.com. Other companies may provide service to you in your part of the world. Because I am a cheapskate, I generally use my cell phone only for dire emergencies or so that other people can contact me; when I make a call, I try to use a cheaper-rate pay phone, home phone, or other available phone.

The nice thing about pre-paid cell phones is that they are cheap, I don't have to give personal information about myself to the company (such as my address or name or bank account information), and they are disposable items. Their are also some built-in features that I find useful, such as a calculator that I use to make up my tiny budget, a calendar, and texting. I have learned to store my shopping list and to do list on my cell phone by saving them as text drafts (which I never send to anyone, except once, when I accidently sent my shopping list to someone instead of the text message I intended to send to them).

Some of the best things in life are free. You can have as many free email accounts as you like. Many people like to use the services of major technology companies such as Microsoft or America Online. I have a couple of free email accounts at www.mail.com that I use. It's good to have more than one email address, so that you can use one for family and friends, and others for commercial transactions or other uses.

I also rent a post office box from the United States Postal Service for about $47 for each six month period, or $94 a year. You can rent post office boxes from private companies at varying rates. Another option is to use a friend or relative's address or a social service agency such as a homeless shelter, if you do not have a stable living situation or if you just want more privacy than your current situation affords you. Although General Delivery is available throughout the United States and in some other locations in the world, I do not recommend its use as mail can be too easily 'misplaced' or 'lost' by postal workers. However, general delivery may serve you if you have no other options. It works by you using the address of the local post office as your mail delivery address, and you visit them to pick up your mail.

Now I hand this topic back over to the group. Please feel free to add anything you like. Remember, this group belongs to you, the member.