Introduction aka About me

Hello Steemians!

Your responses to my first blog post exceeded all my expectations! I really appreciate the support and advice I received from this community. I’m having fun responding to all the comments, checking out the recommendations, and voting for the witnesses. While I was trying to come up with ideas for my next post, I came across something I had started over a year ago for my introduction. LOL, I’m so unorganized..ADD strikes again..but I finished it up, and posted it anyway! Check this weeks post off my to do list! Yay me!

here it is:

Hello, my name is Laura Shrout, and I live in Davenport Iowa. What I hope to accomplish with this blog is:

1. Learning how to write. I have a lot of thoughts in my head that I always think somebody else might want to hear.
2. I would like to learn to produce content that is educational and entertaining.
3. I'd like to open up about some of my challenges that I've experienced throughout my career.

My career background is quite diverse. I started out in my teens as a cook. I made breakfast for many farmers, truckers, and Lake of the Ozarks weekenders in a small, rural, south-western Missouri town. By my mid-twenties I was working in various factories, but the eighties were tough and layoffs were common. I did that for a few more years, and when the wire and cable factory that I was working at closed down in 88, I was a bartender for a little bit. I really hated dealing with drunks in that small town, so I started back to college at a small vo-tech school in 91, and graduated in 97 with a Bachelor of Science in Electronics Technology. While I was in college I worked in the lab, as a professor's assistant, and as a tutor. My final semester, I was hired by Hewlett-Packard as a Customer Engineer. I worked there for 12 years, and then in June of 2009 I was part of the dot com bust casualties.

After I got laid off I was able to draw unemployment for a couple of years, however it wasn’t enough to cover the mortgage, so I lost my home to foreclosure. I went all over the place for interviews, but no one was hiring a half deaf, late 40 something female, with a background in proprietary HP hardware. I tried to start my own repair business, but a lack of money for training made it impossible for me to compete.

The repair business wasn't paying the bills so I jumped back into the kitchen at a local restaurant that was focused on cooking from scratch. That was a lot of fun at first, but my hearing impairment caused problems on the line during busy lunch and dinner rushes. There were also some ableist co-workers who considered me inferior and not worth my position. Fighting them was not worth my time and energy so I moved on to other kitchens. Not much different, except for the bosses. I did this for a couple years, then I started picking up odd jobs cleaning, and other gig jobs like mystery shopping, gas station audits, etc.. It was pretty tough trying to cobble together a living wage to pay bills with so many different jobs.

In January of 18 I started working for a local restaurant delivery company. In March, I started with Instacart. By summer of 18, I was also doing Grubhub, Doordash, and Shipt. I was loving those jobs! Pretty flexible, and paid the bills and I was getting plenty of work. By December, I was able to get a loan to buy a 2011 Honda CRV 4WD, which I now drive. I was so lucky to get this car, it was very low mileage and looks like new. I was so excited that I signed up to drive for Uber and Lyft. I now drive exclusively for Uber, it’s my favorite, and after all the different gigs and such and spreading myself thin to manage them all, it’s so nice to just focus on one gig that I can do well.

Now that I have my income somewhat stable, I feel I can focus on becoming healthier. Part of my journey in self growth, is to pick up some healthy hobbies. I’m sure that writing and learning about crypto trading will fill that bill. I’ll be writing more about what I’ve learned so far in my next blog entry!

peace out y'all!

Laura, the hustler