Catching 22

I have never understood the phrase “Catch 22,” and where it came from…at least until Wikipedia.com came into my life.Catch-22 means a no-win situation, which is sometimes what people ironically describe my Wiki-website of choice. Apparently, the phrase came from a military novel by Joseph Heller.

Well, I am happy someone put a name to this no-win situation, because I have beef to pick with Catch 22.

Situation A

Folks, we live in a recession. As you are reading this, the United State’s unemployment rate is hovering just below 10%, and I believe most of this 10% to be college graduates with “not enough experience to get a job.” If any job employers are reading this…I want to know what that is suppose to mean. For those of us who paid the 60 G’s or more to attend a university, and learn how to study economics while being peer pressured into doing a 10-second keg stand…we are often devastated when we graduate and employers say “Our company decided to go with a more experienced candidate.” What about my degree? My internships? My planting-trees-instead-of-getting-paid community service? Listen employers: We need a chance. In order for us to GET experience, someone needs to GIVE us experience.

Situation B

If situation A relates to you, then you have probably considered this route; “If American companies won’t give me experience, I’m going overseas!” That is exactly what I did. Even though I did some freelance work in my travels, which you can read about all over this blog, I was always running around trying to catch 22.In order to legally work overseas, you must somehow get your hands on a work visa. This of course if you are not having duel-citizenship with any country you are looking to relocate in. I am saying that companies who are willing to hire you already want you to have a work visa. HOWEVER, the government always says you must have a WORK VISA to apply for WORK in their country! So they are saying, in order to apply for a company, I need to have a work visa, but in order to have the government issue me a work visa, I must already have an offer from the company.Has anyone else found any discoveries to this situation? Or will Catch-22 never be caught?