First of all cordial greetings to the We Are Alive community, this is my first post in Vivo y Prospero, but the truth is that there are times that life sometimes gives one surprises, that depending on how one takes them can good or bad situations, however, as long as one decides to live, prosper and move forward, with faith work and perseverance, nothing can stop us.

In a few days, on August 16, I will be 55 years old and at this point in my life, after having a profession, having a university master's degree and after having taught at a university and having written and published two books, and being writing the third, I have to start practically from scratch at the labor level.

I studied social communication, but I specialized in the area of health and safety at work and I had the opportunity to work in both the public and private sectors, in addition to teaching. There came a time when I decided to open my own company and teach and I actually did very well, until two life-changing situations occurred that changed my life in terms of work and income.

The first was an accident that kept me in bed for a long time. In the case of the university, I was under contract, since I did not want to work as a full-time professor, and at the time I was going to enter the competition to become a permanent professor, I suffered the accident, which is why I was out of the university sector.

In the case of my company, I managed to sustain it even when I was in bed and then in the months of recovery to be able to walk again. But when I was active again and I was going to start running my company again, the Covid 19 epidemic broke out and my clients closed and I had to close my company.

In the middle of the epidemic, they called me to offer me a management position in the area of occupational safety in a state-owned shipping company, which I accepted. After that time, there was a change in the management of the company, and as usual in the Latin American socialism in which we live, they put as president of the company a military man who had no idea of what he was doing and was more concerned about becoming a millionaire than about his work. So with these new people, I refused to sign some fictitious budgets and they asked me to resign, I gave it to them immediately and I was unemployed.

Then I was in several small businesses, until the country's economy started to improve a bit.

After certain quite strong family situations, among them the death of my brother and the illness of the old man, I ended up eating my savings. Seeing this economic situation and the current reality, I started looking for a job.

The job search has been very interesting, especially in a country like Venezuela, where we are in an accumulation of very interesting situations, among them, inflation, corruption, economic sanctions, service failures and let's stop counting.

The truth is that I was called for several positions, both in the government and in private enterprise, in the government I decided not to work, since the monthly salary is between 80 and 90 dollars a month, that is between 0.10 and 0.15 cents an hour of work. And I really did not study for years, I did not have a master's degree and more than 8 diplomas, to work for that amount of money and even less to have superiors, who have positions for political ties without knowing anything about the institutions they lead.

In the private company, they have called me several times, but they have still offered me miserable salaries for a manager position and they tell me that they can not offer me more money, because of my age 54 years, I am really out of the staff they are looking for.

The last thing was, I got a call from a transportation, freight forwarding and national and international moving company for a manager position in occupational health and safety. I had a good laugh, as the interviewer had my two books on his desk and actually treated me very well and with a lot of respect. However, at the close of the meeting and upon hearing their offer, which was a contract position, where I was also to train the young people who were going to be managers in the regions, and for that they were offering me a salary of $100 and a bi-monthly bonus of $30 and the contract was for 6 months.

When they asked me what I thought of the offer, I told the interviewer that I thought it was totally and utterly disrespectful to offer me that amount of money for a temporary position, where I also had to prepare the young people who would later occupy my position. I told him that I was not interested and when I left, the interviewer apologized and told me that he could not offer me a permanent position, since the age limit to enter the company was 45 years old and that he could not do anything else for me, due to my age.