Now let's talk about my job

Blog 35 
Date:March 8,2022 
Time:4:41pm

As they say, love your job so you will enjoy what you are doing. We all know that during this pandemic it's really hard to find a job. So I feel blessed that I still have a job even after the lockdown in our place.

The year 2012, September 7 when I started working at the computer shop as a regular employee. I was been working part-time before at the computer shop. To be honest I don't really have an idea of how to operate a computer. Not only that but my job is not only to monitor the computer usage of the customers but our computer shop also accepts Lamination, Photo and document printing, scanning, and encoding. Encoding is one of the services that I don't like to do. It's not that I am not fast in typing but it's time-consuming and I am busy with other stuff.

I remember the very first day of my job it was really a disaster lol. Imagine I don't even know how to log in to my Facebook account in Google Chrome. If you might be wondering why I get hired as an internet Cafe attendant even if I am not really good at computers, the reason is the owner of the computer shop is my first-degree cousin. Flashback story about how she ended up hiring me as her employee. I was in Cebu with my daughter living with my ex-lesbian boyfriend when they decided to temporarily close the computer shop because she trusted the wrong person on her business. She hired my other cousin (boy). That cousin of ours has lots of friends and he just let his friends use the computer for free and not only that but he also doesn't report all the sales from the cafe. In short, he is corrupting the money of my cousin. My cousin was still living and working in Cebu at that time with her own family. My cousin decided to temporarily close the computer shop because the sales can't pay the rental or even the electricity bill every month.

I've included the story of how I ended up working at the computer shop in my previous article, Being in a relationship with a woman. I accepted the offer of my cousin to work at the computer shop even if I don't really have any idea how it goes. She oriented me through phone calls saying this and that and I was like whoah! I thought it was an easy job. Just sitting at the server area waiting for the customers. I don't even know how to copy files from a flash drive to another flash drive. If a customer asks me to do copy files I will let them do it using my server. By that, I was curious about how they did it. I learn new things by observing them. I don't know about computers but I know everything can be learned. Since I am the kind of person who wants to learn new things so yeah basically after working there for almost a decade, yeah suppose to be a decade in September but because of my impulsive decision, we'll Let's forget the mistake remember the lesson.

However, my working hours before is 10 am to 10 pm Monday to Sunday. It was my choice not to take a day off. When I started at the computer shop my salary was only 10% of my sales. Imagine the computer shop was just trying to recover that time. The computer shop was almost bankrupt before I take over. Sales are not that high. I have to work 12 hours a day. I have to earn more so I can have a bigger salary. It was tiring to work 12 hours a day. My daughter was always with me even at work. She was still four years old at that time and she was in her preschool years. It wasn't easy to work while taking care of my daughter at the same. I am just blessed that my daughter is independent and responsible at her age.

After several months of working, I am thankful that my cousin increased my salary from 10% from my daily sales to $2(100pesos) per day. It's not that huge amount but at least my salary is already fixed per day.

As I was still a single mom at that time. And sometimes I have to attend some school activities or meetings I will ask my cousin if I can close the computer shop for a while. But then attending meetings in school is really time-consuming. Other parents had that habit of Filipino time. Instead of starting the meeting around 9 am they will arrive around 10 am. That's the reason why I choose not to attend meetings anymore. I don't mind paying penalties at the end of the school year. About school activities, I really have to take a day off from work just to be there for my daughter. I want to see her performing in their school.

I learned a lot of different kinds of stuff As years had passed of working at the computer shop from being noob about the computer. I also do some minor troubleshooting at work like changing Rj45 of the cable connected to each computer. At first, I was just being curious about how it was done by the technician. I told my boss (cousin's hubby)if he can teach me how to do it. Cousin's hubby is also a technician. With proper tools and I did some research on Google the proper way to do it, I learn it eventually by testing it on my own. That way we save $8(400pesos) for the charge to a technician. If ever I need some help with troubleshooting I will just chat with my boss because my cousin and her family are living in the city just a few minutes drives from where I work.

Working at the computer shop for almost a decade. My cousin increased my salary from $2(P100) to $4(P200) to $5(P250) to $5.50(P275) until just last year they increase it to $6(P300). My working hours have changed too. From 10am- 10pm to 9am-9pm until it was changed to 9am - 7pm. But then due to the strict curfew because of Covid 19, my working hours and working days were adjusted. If I work 7 days a week before now I work from 8 am - 4:30 pm from Monday till Saturday only. It's only until 4:30 pm because the Market is open only up to 5 pm. I still don't know when they will adjust the curfew time inside the supermarket. I only have 30 minutes to count my sales, log my sales into the spreadsheets and throw the garbage before I can close the cafe. Luckily the computer shop is using roll-up doors now so it's way easier to close it unlike before that we are using the kahoy. It takes time to close it.

My daily is sometimes boring and sometimes stressful especially if I am busy. Customers use computers in and out, take pictures, cut pictures, laminate, xerox copying, and print documents. That's my daily routine while I am doing noisecash and readcash. The computer shop is very noisy. It hasn't changed since I started working there. Especially gamers kept on shouting, can't get rid of bystanders too, you know it's more fun when playing while you have an audience cheering at you Lol. Honestly, my job looks hayahay(easy peasy) just sitting down but tbh. It's stressful too especially if I have lots of pictures to edit before I print it. I have to crop the picture before changing the background then set up the sizes. My mind and my eyes are used all the time and that makes me feel dizzy and tired after.

There was a time that the BIR agent ask me a favor if I can produce BIR forms for the taxpayers. At first, I was hesitant to accept it because I know I will be busier but then I just accept that offer, it will add more income to the computer shop. But then there are hundreds of taxpayers in our town. I have to overtime at work until 10 pm just to finish all the BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue)forms, there were also times that I had to bring the printer at home since I have a laptop so I can finish all the forms. Until the lockdown happened. So it made me stop accommodating the taxpayers. Phew!! Finally no stress from doing all those BIR forms.

I have more time to find extra money online. If online paying applications and sites are very rampant before maybe it was not that hard for me to budget my salary. If you might be wondering how I discover CryptoCurrency I wrote my very first article about it.

Captcha typing was very common at that time, I think it was around the year 2012 but our internet connection at that time was very slow. Pldt fiber is not yet available at that time. We change the internet provider three times and we are glad that year 2020 when Pldt fiber is already available in our town. I remember before when we are still using Globe WiFi if one customer is streaming YouTube the Dota2 gamers or the ROS gamers will shout and said 'Yawa pa ng ga YouTube' (coursing telling that the one streaming YouTube will die) because their games will keep on lagging. One time the one who stream YouTube answered back 'Who cares I am the one paying my time here.. honestly even younger kids like 7 or 8 years old know the how-to course or say bad words. I honestly don't like hearing them that's why I have to tell them that it's not good. Anyway most of my customer's first impression about me is I am strict, especially the way I look and my loud voice. Sorry about my loud voice, this is just the normal voice I have. Oh well, I think I've said a lot about my job.

Ending thoughts

If you are interested to learn new things eventually you will definitely learn. You can't learn everything in school but mostly you can learn through experiences in the actual world. Just like what I learned from Nick, don't answer me with I don't know only, but instead why not say I don't know but I will try to know or learn about it.

We all experience that first time in our life but it's up to us to develop our knowledge and skills in one certain thing. I am beyond thankful that I got the chance to work and expand my knowledge and skills about computers.

Again and again Thank you for spending your precious time.And I'm sorry if this article is a bit long.

Photos used in this article are all owned by yours truly unless it is stated.

To my sponsors old and new thank you for your unending support on my readcash journey.May God will shower you all blessings in life.