Jerrico Usher,
Quick Resume
I started my writing career many years ago as a hobby, but today it’s my full time career. I remember when I crystallized the idea that I wanted to write for a living, and it’s truly funny how we always get what we ask “the universe” for (at least I always have in one way or another if it was good for my growth).
Let me give you a little bit of background before I get into what I do now, and how I turned a lot of bad luck into a lot of good luck (opportunities in disguise, or rather opportunity in work clothes I always say).
I hated living in the rat race life, not having a career I loved, and well working for someone else…
I was working at Wal*Mart as a CSM (customer service manager) one of those guys walking around with a clipboard and Radio, giving the cashiers breaks, changing out money, conflict management, customer conflict resolving and so on. I actually loved the job itself but the company has absolutely no respect for its employees. I actually got fired for having integrity and treating my subordinates like human beings. Just before I was let go I remember standing there contemplating what I really wanted to do with my life. I knew Wal*mart would only last so long before I got tired of the politics and I’d always wanted to do something where I could control my employment and especially my income. I spent far too many years wasting my talents and skill sets on companies who didn’t exploit it, or rather that did but didn’t compensate me for my input. When I was let go I spent a month off to reset my mind, I’d saved enough money to not have to work for about 3 months and took full advantage of my “vacation” from the rat race. Life really came in to test me, or was it to grant my wish? (I wrote an article about this if you care to read it just click the link) During that time however a few other things happened that were a bit jarring. I was at the time living in a house renting a room from a couple of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder nutcases and as much as I couldn’t stand the bickering because the spoons in the drawer were not stacked (it was much worse than that too), I liked the place I lived in because the roomies were not there when I was. I figured the universe was just teaching me “tolerance” so I endured, but planning to move out soon. I got a shocking blow when the guy who owned the house said that it wasn’t working out and I had 30 days to leave! Right after getting fired?! I didn’t have a problem with moving out (god I wanted to!), but the timing was a bit off. In fact it crushed ALL of my plans to get back on my feet and forced me to go into survival mode instead of building my dominoes towards the career of my dreams (which I really had no idea back then what that was but I asked the universe while working at Wally World to show me what that was, I didn’t know it at the time but all of the things that happened next were based on making that happen!) I lived in Roseville and wanted to remain there (I knew my future was there), so I started looking in the paper for a place to live but didn’t find anything good. I was going to Wal-Mart to get some groceries and ran into an old friend/subordinate a woman who was a cashier working under me, and that was so sweet one day when I was starving and broke she gave me 20.00 to live on for the week, I never forgot that kindness. I ended up in Rocklin in a house that was 100% better and my new roommate was a very nice lady- the woman who loaned me 20.00!!. She asked me what I was doing and overheard me telling another cashier in line that I was looking for a room to rent, and she told me about this one she had. The rent she wanted was HIGH I was looking for something half as steep but I thought why not take a look anyway (she bragged about how great this house was). When I got there I was in shock. This was not the home of a Wal-Mart cashier. I discovered that she was a corporate president once upon a time but got out of that life (but still lives the lifestyle as she saved a lot of money over the years). I couldn’t turn it down, the price she wanted was in my eyes more than fair for what I got. Right now I pay as much rent as someone renting their own apartment but I love it here, its such a great environment. (especially for dating although I haven’t dated in the year I’ve lived here, but I’m getting ahead of myself) Me and Pat (she’s 60+ but looks and acts about 40 high strung very happy person) got along smashingly but after I gave her the first and last months rent I discovered that I was almost broke. I needed a job in the next month or I’d be on the street. She had three roommates before me and they all screwed her on the rent so in a way I felt I needed to move in here if for no other reason than to show her she can trust people again. She was very leery of anyone but not anymore. Moved in and got comfortable, but needed a job quick to pay the rent! To my surprise it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be to get another job. Living in this house was a godsend, the environment really helped me feel ambitious and inspired me (my roommate is very positive and the house is gorgeous (see pictures in my MySpace albums). I had enough to go 3 months on my last roommates rent price, living here was three times as expensive but I figured it would motivate me to work harder to find a job that would support me at a higher lifestyle, and I was right. I knew I was going to put myself in a pickle by moving in here financial wise but I felt it was time to stop living crappy and move to a nicer home, environment, and to live with someone I could get along with and this was it. I’ve always figured you don’t always plan then do, sometimes you do then plan. I moved in here knowing that it would motivate me to better myself to sustain this lifestyle. Honestly living here is like living on a 3,000.00 lifestyle on less than 1500, and I learned from my little brother that you have to first get into the environment then it will make you ambitious to stay there so that’s what I did. Pat ended up floating me for 3 months but was getting a bit leery again. I was going out every day looking but nobody was hiring. I had to get a job that paid my rent so I couldn’t just take any minimum wage job, although she told me to get whatever I could to get out there, bring something in while I look at least. A friend of mine turned me on to a site where they Hired people to write blog content (100 word paragraphs surrounding a keyword) and paid based on what you did. You pick the work from a queue and you get paid once a month on the first for all last months work. It paid 1.00 per 100 word blurb we wrote and it had an endless queue of work available. This was my first career in writing for a living. We could write these blogs about anything so long as we included the keyword and they made sense. (Yes we got paid to bullshitJ) We could make them up so it was more of a creative writing skill set than anything. I though this was a scam at first, it seemed to easy and good to be true, but it really wasn’t, it was the real deal! My brother and dad are now working there too, and several of my friends. I was stoked about the writing opportunity but Pat my roommate/friend/landlord wasn’t convinced and actually gave me an ultimatum, get a job in 2 weeks or move out. She didn’t realize that the money was real but I didn’t have a months pay to prove it so… I ended up getting two jobs a week later (Mel’s called right after I got hired at Lowe’s so I went from not being able to find ANY job to now having THREE JOBS. One was at Lowe’s Home Improvement store as a cashier. It paid 12.00 an hour but was a very boring job and aggravating because their computer system was still using D.O.S., the credit card machine never worked so I had to listen to customers complain all day… Then I took another job where I worked at Mel’s Diner graveyard, I was a waiter for 5 years but hadn’t done it in 5 years and quickly realized I hated this work. I was in mortal hell as both these jobs sucked and I was barely pulling in 1100.00! (I made a rental agreement, including food, bills, internet, cable, etc.. for 1300.00 a month). I was renting a room but realistically I had full run of the house, and we also had 4 house cleaners come once a month to clean our house top to bottom, a gardener, pool guy, so I was still getting a deal (oh and 300.00 in personal food a month was part of that deal). I was so tired everyday and I didn’t know how much longer I could float all three jobs. The real world jobs were taking all of my time and energy, the writing job was mentally draining (but I loved it the most!). I learned that mental energy and creativity and physical strength go hand in hand! I was juiced about the writing money though, I was really doing well, and I started doing this before either Lowe’s or Mel’s called me so I had about 3 solid weeks (one was the last week of the first month so I made a small check there and the next was 2 weeks into my first big writing for money check) of just writing 14 hours a day. I really enjoyed this and ended up writing 2,170 blogs my second month (well first full month of working for them). That is 2,170 x 100 words (usually a bit more) which turned out to be 217,000 typed words! That’s about two full published books worth of typing and all creative work. When I got that first $2,000 check something flipped in my head and I realized that I was wasting my time at Lowe’s as a cashier, and Mel’s diner as a waiter (both jobs I HATED). I made more writing blurbs than both jobs paid me combined and I actually made less money overall if I kept working at the two jobs because they sucked out all my time and energy so I couldn’t do anything with the writing job because I was too tired! I was pardoned from the rat race (finally!) The real world jobs were becoming a liability and an annoyance. I soon quit them to do this full time and it was the best decision I ever made. I felt like I was released from the rat race prison finally, and I was! With this kind of freedom comes a price – You have to have good self discipline! That was a little over a year ago November (2007). I’ve been writing for them for a year and have really enjoyed my freedom, earning power, and the fact that I control my life now. I work when I want, how much I want, I wake up when I want, take breaks, days off, and can even make up my own holidays, after all I don’t have to call in sick, or tell anyone I don’t want to work. The only down side (and upside) is that my income is in direct proportion to my work done. If I don’t work I don’t make money, so there was still some boundaries I needed to make but still, my freedom was in tact. The beauty is there is more work than I can physically do so if I want more money I just have to work harder, no asking for overtime, or a raise, I just work MORE! Having that kind of control over your financial earnings is incredible. If need a surge of money I just write more work! These days when I see something I want to buy I just think ok I’ll need to write 100.00 more in blogs. I started to equate things this way too. For example a number 2 at MacDonald’s is 4 blurbs J! I could work for 10 hours and write like mad and then take the whole next day off if I wanted to. I could write nonstop for 2 weeks then take two weeks off. Essentially I had to put in the work but I put it in on my terms, my time schedule, and not once did a manager ever yell at me, tell me how to do it, or give me crap. In fact I did have a boss online, but he was the coolest cat I’d ever worked for. It was nothing like the outside world; it was an incredible way to make a living. I also learned a great deal more than how to make money doing this but that’s another page. It’s funny that when I hear those infomercials on television late night and they say things like “fire your boss, spend more time with your family, regain your freedom and work when you want to” I used to listen to those thinking, that would be nice, but year right, and today I’m living that life style! If my friends call up last minute and want to go out, I can blow off writing and go out What job can you do that with? I make more money than ever too, this kind of freedom does take self discipline but it’s very inspirational to earn money this way, I easily put in 110% because I feel appreciated. My boss doesn’t yell and only tell me what I did wrong, he tells me what I did right and they (he and his boss the owner of the company) are always telling me when I did good, even giving me bonus checks (really good bonus checks sometimes 300.00 or more, JUST FOR DOING MY JOB WELL)! There was much more about to happen, and it seems the universe had plans for me because although I thought this was great, it was nothing compared to my next promotion in life…
Read about this on the next page here - Current Employment
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