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are you sure you don't have a learning disability or even dislexia? if you can pinpoint the issue, it might make finding a suitable profession easier. My sister worked with people with disabilities before her untimely death and she said many people in prison had learning disabilities, so you're already better off than many people.
here's a few jobs that come to mind.
Landscaping
Sanitation
driving (my brother in law has dislexia and drives a camera truck for a movie studio)
photocopy guy
mailroom guy ( I have another friend whose son has dislexia and does this)
President of the United States (just kidding)
I'm not dumb or not mechanically inclined, and I often consider driving a truck. It sounds peaceful, or at least moreso than the tense office environments that I've dealt with. I'm very much a loner, which would be necessary for that kind of job.
My story is not quite the same as the janitor. I am a dropout.
I studied for Comptia A, which is a pc desktop support. I got a low level customer tech suport for internet.
I was let go and ended up as a shipping clerk. To track the shipments, we had to use a MS Access database to log the tracking numbet, file number, destination address, etc. I made around 11-12/hr in 2008. The economy busted and company closed its doors.
Next job, I got a business analyst ob to do Access Reports. I went from 11-12/hr shipping clerk to $50k/year business analyst.
That company was aold 3 years later and everybody was laid off with 2 montha notice. I studied sql reporting, since I heard it was better pay than MS Access.
After the layoff, I landed a 75k Senior Business Analyst job. I wenr from $11-12 to 50k to 75k in 3 years.
Nowadays, I am at 120k+ and do not live in the west or east coast urban centers.
I have worked with other data entry clerks. They made simlar trajectory or in the early stages of it. One fella has gone up 30k in a year. Clerks make nothing.
That's awesome. You where able to find an underserved skillset in the market and took full advantage.
So if someone was able to teach themselves the basics of SQL from those books, how do you go about building up some experience in the beginning? Are there open source type projects or volunteering jobs you could do?
You basically have two choices in life, 1) go to college and earn a degree 2) go to a vocational school, learn a trade, be a skilled worker, etc.
What if you're not smart enough for college, (barely made it through public school, hate school, math is like a 4th grade level), overall would be a huge struggle....
But you're also not mechanically inclined/no good with your hands/working on things/taking things apart. That's basically what #2 is all about right? I guess you can learn, but I feel like you should be able to do certain things on your own. I mean what kind of 'skilled labor' is out there where you're not fixing something/taking things apart?
So if you're no good at either of the two things...then what? Be poor, stupid, unskilled?
In my area, what guys did that didn't have an education or special skills was get on with the local industrial plants. Conoco, PPG, etc. It took a while to get hired there, but if you got hired, they were good jobs. Great benefits, retirement plans, perks, good pay with chances for overtime.
Try to get hired by a large co., whatever you do. So much better pay and benefits and job security.
OR...
How about working your way up to management in retail or something like that? IF they promote from within and you don't have to have a degree for the promotion. Or in the restaurant business?
UPS or FedEx deliverer? Hard, long hours. I'd hate it, but some like it. Big companies, which is good.
U S postal service? Great benefits & retirement.
Manual labor...even civil service. Work on a road crew. Things like that. THIS WOULD BE TOUGH WORK. Bear in mind that this sort of work takes a toll on the body over the years.
Do you have any office skills? I worked for a large law firm that had guys working in the records department, the mail room, and the like. Good pay, decent benefits, nice work environment. Some jobs needed basic computer skills, but nothing fancy.
Figure out what your strengths are. What you like to do. What you have an interest in. What kind of a work environment would make you happy.
That's awesome. You where able to find an underserved skillset in the market and took full advantage.
So if someone was able to teach themselves the basics of SQL from those books, how do you go about building up some experience in the beginning? Are there open source type projects or volunteering jobs you could do?
I think you are confusing SQL with application development. There is no open source project. At the business level, it's a data dump into Excel spreadsheets for most clerical positions or business analyst roles.
The video is enough to run queries on a single table. It will get fancier with 2 or more tables. It's pretty easy to learn from their books. He doesn't have the best speaking voice.
Those data entry jobs that pay $10-15/hr. The software saves that information into a database. To get that information into Excel format for other departments to use, you use SQL.
The manager will have IT run SQL to pull that information. If you want to run it yourself, it's just asking the manager if they need help.
That's what all the data entry guys did to move up in SQL. Of course, your pay is still data entry level. They did it for a year and quit for 60-100% salary increase. After another 2 years, they quit again for another 50% increase.
When I was in shipping, we created our own excel reports by using Microsoft Access connected to a SQL server database. The manager thought it was a waste of time to use IT to run shipping reports. There were 3 shipping clerks. All 3 shipping clerks were given instructions on how to run it.
Steps to run reports.
Step 1: Open this query.
Step 2: Click run.
Step 3: Copy and paste rows to Excel.
Then, we needed to add some columns to Excel. It wasn't much different than editing the column names to match what Excel should look like.
When I was laid off, I put all the MS Access reporting experience at the top of the position. I made a one-line mention of shipping files at the bottom of the job duties. I had 2 job offers in 3 interviews in 2008, during the economic meltdown.
I had stayed in that shipping job for over 3 years, so the interviews were a piece of cake. I was too dumb to know that MS Access reporting was worth a lot of money to a $11-12/hr. It was no surprise, that I aced the interviews. If I had known better, I would have left after a year. Another shipping clerk on my team landed a new job and doubled his pay to $50k to be a Data Analyst at a Fortune 100 healthcare company. We were scared during the layoff. We had no idea people would pay so much money office software. We were always paid for slinging boxes around. We would still be slinging boxes for years, if it wasn't for the company going out of business in 2008.
Last edited by move4ward; 01-25-2018 at 03:22 AM..
What about a mom that stayed home for many years
Nowdivorced and kids grown
High school graduate been working as a bank teller but that doesn't pay much
I am looking for a change and willing to work and learn
Problem is at age 58, companies not willing to train and think you are old
I need a job with health benefits and solid long term employment
If I loose my job I loose my house
Where do I turn?
Thanx
Northern NJ
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Along those lines
