Job Details and Lack of Specialized Skills
No, there were no letters, it was just a square number pad.And there was a stack of drug tests and I just flipped through it and punched in the numbers.for 8 hours.Then I went on to working in a medical transcription department for the next 10 years.Risks of Unskilled Career Paths
Now the problem with this approach to life is that if you're ever faced with the unfortunate circumstances of being laid off, you will realize that you are left void of any skill set to move forward with.You don't have any particular place to go after that.If you're in a job that's not specialized and really anyone can do it, and you stay there for too long and you move up the ladder, when your days are over there, you have nowhere to go.You have no specific skill set or experience to shift into something later.I didn't go to school for anything particular.I worked jobs that could be replaced easily.And when they announced that they were laying off our entire department, except my boss and I, then I knew my days were numbered.Encouragement and Realization
Now in all this, my wife was my biggest asset.She kept telling me, hey, you're fixing everyone's computers in the office.You spend a lot of time on computers at home.Why don't you do some training in computers or programming?And she said this multiple times over those years.But I worked around very unambitious people, eight hours a day, and just thought it was impossible.Looking back, she was right.all along, but that's another story.Learning Programming and Career Transition
So in those latter years in that job, I started reading, I started studying, I learned to write code, and I got into software development.In the whole story, all of the details are found in this video, so I won't repeat that here.But be sure to go watch that if you're interested.