>May I ask what industry you're in?

I clear international freight through customs, paperwork. I had no desire to do this job, 13 years ago I was unemployed and this was the first place to call me for an interview and the only to make me an offer. I'm days away from 13 years of being here, in that time I've had exactly 1 company make me another job offer - paying me less and requiring some international travel, in the same industry. I declined.

I had another interview me, it was mostly the same industry but doing a different role. When the guy told me "now I don't offer my employees insurance because my wife works at Lilly's and I'm on hers" I thanked him for his time and said no thank you, turns out aside from 2 warehouses in Georgia (the country) he only had a few employees.

I've tried and tried and tried to get a job in any industry making the same as I do now and nothing. It's always no reply, sorry you don't have a degree, sorry you filed bankruptcy, you're great but we went with someone else try again in 12 month.

I had one company hire me for remote customer service, just trying to diversify my CV since it is absurdly narrow after 13 years doing the same thing, but never once did they ask me if I'd filed bankruptcy after a handful of interviews. They issued me equipment, trained me, and had me do a day of work. The next morning I tried to log on and my credentials were invalid... had no way to contact anyone since I couldn't even boot the Chromebook to use the chat tools to contact the manager. With some great effort I finally got someone to reply to me from the company after a few days "you need to return your equipment immediately or we will bill you for it, we sent the label to your email" uhhh the email I can't access "ugh, I will see what I can do".

Never once explained why but I have no criminal record and no legal anything against me except my bankruptcy and they didn't have me fill out the background check form until AFTER I started working for them. A few days after I got mailed them the (filthy, sticky, dead battery, heavily used) chromebook back I got a nice envelope from their outside legal counsel with print outs of my social media, me posting in their subreddit weeks and I think even months before even interviewing for them defending and praising them, my LinkedIn, my AngelList profile with a cease and desist stating I do not work for them, I was an independent contractor, and my contract was terminated and that I needed to immediately stop referring to them by name online as well as remove any claim that I was ever in their employ or legal action would be taken against me. They were in the financial sector. I'm still afraid to even mention their name online, it was disturbingly creepy how much printed screenshots they sent.

So yeah, even when I do find something that doesn't care about the degree, then I have the stigma of a bankruptcy which apparently as far as the government (for security clearances) and for most companies dealing with finances makes you wholly untrustworthy and ineligible for employment.

Sorry for the semi-tangent there, I'm still very bitter about that because I was so excited that I could get remote and customer service for a tech-co experience and used a favor to get an introduction to the company/founder to help get me that job and kinda went off on a rant.