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5 days agoAnother good thing that came out of covid: yours truly got laid off from retail/sales/customer service after ten years, giving him the first time off in ages to reflect on how long he’d been doing it and that he was still getting paid minimum wage. His time, experience and work was worthless. So he went back to college, worked hard on an IT degree and now a little under a year after graduation he’s got a great job in cybersecurity for municipal government.
It might not mean anything to you it its a big silver lining to having basically completely missed 3 years of my life thanks to covid. But yeah, fuck covid.
I just wanted something to show for my time at the end of lockdown. The first month of lockdown was a lovely staycation, but by month two I was ready to do something. People were picking up hobbies and getting I to exercise and whatnow, but I wanted a significant accomplishment, I wanted to get my life together. I was still living at home (24 but couldn’t afford my own place) with my mother, I’d struggled with school before, never being much of an academic success.
But it wasn’t lost on me that for the first and basically only time in my life I could go to school, get paid while doing so (Say what you will, CERB was huge for peace of mind), and I could be utterly ironclad I wasn’t missing out on anything while working on my classes. I felt I couldn’t waste the opportunity. I guess something about the change in circumstances worked because i did better than ever before grades wise.
I always think about this when people say Universal Basic Income wouldn’t work, because people are naturally driven to do things and want better for themselves. We had only a glimmer of it, but it was enough to transform my life forever.
Anyways, ramble over. I’m glad my story could help brighten your day :)