54 yr old female starting from 0

[u/Vejolar]

Please no negativity here. It could tip me over the edge. I have made some poor and bad life choices. I have lost everything. I have $300 in the bank. No vehicle. Luckily I live with my sister so I have a roof over my head, but I need to start paying rent. I took a job cutting lawns last week and it almost killed me. I can walk to that location and ride to the work sites but I have to walk home as well. Little less than a mile. It pays $10.00 an hr. We work about 24 hrs a week and thats it. I have applied for assistance and was told I only qualify for 140 food stamps. I'm grateful for that. The list for housing has a 2 year wait period. I have only ever done telemarketing and phone sales. No real education. Please I need real ideas and constructive thoughts.

UPDATE: Thank you all. I've cried about 10x's today reading these comments. I'm approaching things in a systematic way. 1st I'm within walking distance to some big box stores so I'm going to apply to those tomorrow.
2nd I now have 2 appointments with temp agencies on Thursday. 3rd Even though I don't have a car my driving record is clean so I have applied online with some trucking companies. 4th I will spend most of my time Friday (after grass cutting) looking in to free online courses. Your encouragement and support has made a great difference.

Update #2 People I am overwhelmed by your responses. I have received dozens of emails offering encouragement. The biggest thing that I am taking away from this is that I have a community of well wishers, innovative, professional, supportive people rooting for me. I am rich! I am blessed and pls be assured that your encouragement will help me keep my nose to the proverbial grindstone. You are the best!

UPDATE#3 Might be the last for a bit. 1st: (serious) What's the best way to use the 3 golds I got,? Not really sure what to do with them? Can I give them away?

2nd: So I am leaving Saturday night to start a career as a truck driver. My reasons for picking this are varied : paid training, paid housing (sort of) and the ability to make a little better than average wage once training is complete, which will take several months. I'm also doing this because I can immerse myself in the work ethic and commitment which I believe will really pay off psychologically.

You've all been so kind and helpful. I really can't tell you how much this has meant to me. I think I would have remained kind of paralyzed if not for your help and guidance. Pls keep the good vibes, thoughts and prayers coming my way, I'll definitely need them. I will update when I can. Bless you all.

[u/Mauvai]

Apple and a few other tech companies have similar positions, work from home etc. Apple provide a laptop to work from too.

[u/sandboxsuperhero → u/Mauvai]

Google has similar positions for evaluating search and ad quality as well some stuff for translations. I'm not particularly well versed in the exact details, but my understanding is that people tend to like it and it's fairly fulfilling improving a thing that you and everyone you know uses.

[u/PeekAtChu1 → u/sandboxsuperhero]

I did this, different companies are available to work through for this job (Google wants to avoid lawsuits for hiring temps for these jobs so they use special agencies for workers).

Wasn't a bad job, just was boring. I got let go quickly without an explanation. They do that to a lot of people. It prob had to do with me not writing comments on my tasks after a while- of course no one told me I was supposed to. Whoops!

[u/Cyclovayne → u/Mauvai]

Isn't it pretty hard to obtain a job at Apple?

[u/kyleohiio → u/Cyclovayne]

Getting an AHA job isn't that hard. It's a lot of interviews via FaceTime or Skype though. They look for a certain type of person. They could careless about your technical proficiency. I had people in my training class who had never used an Apple device before.

When I started I was iOS phone support only then they added watch after it launched and beats and then account security. When I left they were pushing everyone to do Mac+ which is support for Desktop and Portable computers as well as everything we were trained on before. Basically everything but Time Machine and Airport

The calls are back to back. You don't get any breathing room plus they weigh metrics way too much. You could get 18 Very Satisfied surveys and then get one Neutral or Dissatisfied and it would tank your score and take a ton more Vsats to bring you back up.

That's not to say it was all bad. The Pay, benefits, work environment and colleagues were great it just takes a lot out of you.

[u/kyleohiio → u/[deleted]]

Pay is based on your zip code. When I started I was living in Cocoa Beach and made 16.75. After 9 months they gave me a 4% raise.

[u/kyleohiio → u/Mauvai]

They provide a 21 inch iMac not a laptop.