2020 has been a pretty hard year on me and my family. What with the COVID-19 pandemic, my dad has been out of work, save for some occasional gigs with a recycling company, but this may not be enough to support us soon. And my brother, who works as a high school paraprofessional, is currently getting work done, partly on-site at the school campus (even if students aren't allowed back in yet) and partly remote. So generally he's been the breadwinner in our family for some time, even if this summer he got NO work due to the school district's summer programs not operating, and I wasn't getting any work as K-O the Kangaroo.
BUT... since I had gotten my Associate's Degree in Computer Information: User Support earlier this year (BEFORE the pandemic broke out, too!) I had been job-hunting for months, looking for a computer-related job that would fit me. And this week, I had a great stroke of luck! I finally have my first I.T.-related job!
Today was my first day of work. My job is in Berkley, MA, so it's quite a distance away, but since I have a driver's license (that I recently renewed) and my own car, it's not that much of a problem for me, like roughly a 30-minute drive. Plus, I feel even more independent this way, driving to and from such a job, compared to my retail days when I had to get a lift from one of my parents or brother (or take the crosstown bus in some cases.) Also, now having this job gives me more the good reason to have my own car, as once I've made enough I can finally get a couple of the tires replaced (as they are getting pretty worn lately.)
My workplace is in a warehouse of sorts, with a couple of offices and the main warehouse area FULL of electronic devices. They recycle and resell electronics, and today they had me go through a bunch of all-in-one desktops they recently got, including some fairly old PC ones (so old they came with optical disc drives!) and a few iMacs from the last decade. Booting the iMacs from USB was easy for me, but the Windows ones were a little tricky at times due to many of them being made from a variety of manufacturers, but I caught on quickly with the Dells and HPs, given my experience with both comapnies' products. The ones that could work, we'd wipe the hard drives with a special DOS type of software that is both PC and Mac-compatible from a USB thumb drive. Any that were broken in some way (like not powering on or the screen was so cracked you couldn't see a thing) I would disassemble and salvage the hard drives and RAM from (if any), then dump the rest of the parts in a bin for recycling them. What I do will vary each day; tomorrow with the desktops we wiped the hard drives from, we will label the machines with their specifications to prepare for re-selling.
During much of the shift, the supervisor plays podcasts and some music of various types (today it was 90s music that i remember from my elementary school years), which I am sure I will get used to and should most likely not be monotonous the way it was with the limited music playlists from my retail days. One of the employees also brought in his little dog today, and at first said dog was a little intimidated by me but halfway through the shift got used to me enough to let me pet him! He won't be there every day, which I don't mind much, as I did often have to look where I was walking to avoid tripping over him at times!
Punching in and out is also very easy. Generally my shifts will be from 9 AM to 3:30 PM, three days a week (maybe even four if applicable), and I get good pay as well.
I guess I can say I really found my calling with this job! In a way I don't even mind the 2020 Presidental Election as much since I finally have an I.T. job and things should get much better for me over time. I had a hunch this year, where I get my Computer Information degree, would be the year I get my first job relating to said degree, even with the pandemic!