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Transcript:

Nyasha Green (00:00)
Hey, Rodney, how are you doing today?

Rodney (00:02)
I’m good, Nyasha how are you doing today?

Nyasha Green (00:05)
I’m doing well. I’m so excited for this episode. ⁓ People, I am here with Chef Rodney Gray, best cook in the South and one of my best, best friends. I’m so happy he could join me here today because we are going to talk about the craziest jobs or positions we’ve had and things we’ve had to do to keep the money going during unemployment layoffs, all of that, all of the above.

So Rodney, first I want you to introduce yourself and tell us what you do.

Rodney (00:36)
Well, thank you, Nyasha. I’m sorry, I would have been on here a little earlier, but my application for the Pope was denied, obviously. So back to the grind of the usual. for me, for all the listeners, I am Chef Rod. I am a professional chef and caterer and event planner located in beautiful Charleston, South Carolina. So I do all types of weddings, events, birthday parties, anything that you can pay me to do, I will probably do it outside of

a few illegal activities besides that in relation to food, I’m probably one of the best guys you can get to do that.

Nyasha Green (01:13)
He is not lying. Rodney’s food is so good. I’m actually having withdrawals right now. I need some of that rice. I will be in Charleston soon. Don’t worry, you will see me. So I want to jump into it. So Rodney, what inspired me to do this episode was, as Rodney knows, ⁓ I was laid off last year, last January of 2024.

And it had been my second layoff in six months. I had been laid off six months before, am I doing that math right? I had been laid off June of 2023. So not even a full year, I go through two layoffs. The first layoff, it was from a job where I was making the most money I ever made in my entire life. ⁓ The second job, not so much, but still money. And I was in the position of,

I moved out of South Carolina. went to an expensive city or more expensive city. I had all these bills and I had debt and I had to make money. And so what I did was I applied for many different jobs, but I applied for one specific job and I’ll reveal that in a few moments, but it was one of the craziest jobs I’ve ever worked. It was my first time working overnight and

It just, a series of things happened that I could probably write a book about. But before I dive into that, Rodney, What is, like, what are some of the craziest jobs or positions you’ve had to take when you were in a situation where you needed the money?

Rodney (02:54)
So in terms of situations of needing money, of course, being in the food and beverage industry, going back all the way, jump back to COVID for a little bit, a lot of us either lost our jobs or were physically unable to do our jobs because of being sick. I was one of those people that lost his job because the restaurant I was working at closed. And kind of when you get like a good ecosystem for…

I’m working in restaurant. It’s kind of best to kind of stick by that as long as you can. And when I say I had a good set up going, I had a good set up going. I was making really decent money. I was the executive chef. I was catering from the restaurant I was working at and making buku extra untaxed dollars. I’m sorry, Uncle Sam. ⁓ But yeah, so I guess for starters from my own kind of like my extra extracurricular income doing like private events.

And I know that’s kind of like a popular thing now and people see that a lot, but a lot of people maybe not know what that all entails. So like kind of marketing yourself and making your money on your own is so glamorous and so wanted, but in reality, that’s not always the case for everybody. So when I lost that job, I kind of bounced around for a little bit. I actually ended up working for the Americorps

I’m sure you’ve probably heard of that and I was a social media manager for about two and a half months and ⁓ I know that’s another one of those buzz buzz feed words and kind of trendy jobs like social media management. ⁓ you were you’re online posting all day and like well ⁓ when the older generations need social media management and you’re the social media manager that doesn’t always bode very well for a healthy work environment.

I ended up working for a very rude, very misogynistic older gentleman from New York. he did, of course, he, of course, it’s never any smoke with Rodney. But the late, lady I was working with, he was dismissive and rude and she actually had more experience with the subject matter. I was very much just hustling at that point. I’m like, I’m here to get this paycheck every two weeks. It is.

$500 but it’s $500 more than I had and like when you go when you’re on a round sir I’m asking this woman all types of questions and she’s very much the leader like granted Can I do social media management sure but when you’re not particularly well versed in the realm? Having the skills to do it and having the skills to do it and apply it are two very different things and she was already kind of entrenched in it So I thought that was I thought that was interesting going for one

toxic work environment to another slightly more toxic work environment. This one was work from home and I was sitting down most of the day sending out tweets to people that have no chance in the world of ever replying. So a little backstory on the organization. I won’t say the organization’s name, but the organization was a kid-centric social media.

and sports hub. So they wanted to give kids on job training to be sports journalists, sports analysts and do kind of that whole ESPN kind of first tape type of a deal. And that sounds completely great. And his coup de grace of what he wanted to do, he wanted to do a live streaming platform for himself and his company. And I told him, no matter how much we told him and begged, I’m like, well,

Nyasha Green (06:19)
Hmm.

Rodney (06:46)
You don’t need to do that. We have many, many, many, many more avenues. I trust me. I get it. You want to make all the money, but you are not YouTube. You are not Facebook. You’re not TikTok. You’re not Instagram. There’s no reason for the kids to download your app versus downloading your basically Instagram, TikTok account, Yeah. He made, he made an app.

Nyasha Green (07:10)
so he wanted to make like an entire app to do this.

Rodney (07:16)
If you can call in an app, you made an app the same way I would make an app and it would be really janky and probably probably not very working very well. And it was when we did do some good work. I did reach out to some of his former players and kids that were in the program. And it was at the base of it. It was really. Wholesome and really well thought out, but for me, the feasibility just wasn’t there for what he wanted to accomplish.

Yeah, I did that for a while. I mean, did. So now I have social media manager on my resume. I bounced around at several other restaurants, of course. As you as nice as you may know, I was a photographer for many years. Did that freelance and a lot of freelance work. I was a bouncer in college and that was I did. I only did that once because I’m it was terrifying. Because I am.

I got in the car with this random stranger I met once because I was big and he was big so that meant safety for the patrons and those page I feel so bad for those patrons that night because they were in the most danger ever because if something pop off not only was I leaving I was leaving everybody and I wanted to be the first I wanted to be first out of the building I was my mom mom was the only child I’m like I cannot die in South Carolina not like this I don’t want to die to a very

Gucci mane in 2016 soundtrack. I just can’t not like that Like I like look if I had to make a soundtrack to my life and like me like the ending it’d be like the Sonic the Hedgehog theme like I want to upbeat I don’t want to seem like I’m going out fighting nuts Gucci bandana or something of the sort

Nyasha Green (09:07)
I’m glad you brought this up because one, it’s hilarious, but two, that kind of seg ways into what I was doing last year. I hadn’t gone without consistent pay, which when you freelance, you don’t know when you’re gonna get paid, but I hadn’t gone without consistent pay since 2017. And that’s when I was in insurance. And I left insurance to…

join the tech industry. you know, that it’s almost been a decade now. So it had been a long time since I had not had consistent income. And when I was laid off, unemployment is $350 a week in the state of North Carolina. South Carolina where I came from, where Rodney’s from, it’s 300, I believe, or 325. Do you know Rod?

Rodney (10:01)
I do not know. that’s 325 man. could go please continue. Don’t mind.

Nyasha Green (10:04)
Well, it’s around.

Yeah, it’s better than nothing, but for me going from making six figures in tech to making $350 a week, it didn’t pay for anything. It didn’t even cover what I was paying for groceries. But you make it work. But that wasn’t enough and it ran out quickly. There’s a cap on unemployment if you’ve never been on it, which was like, think $1,200. So I wasn’t on it long.

or maybe it was 3000. I don’t remember. It wasn’t a long time, but ⁓ I go back to Rodney bringing up Bouncer because I had freelance work, but I needed consistent pay. needed something. I needed to know I would have money for rent. I would have money to pay off my car. I almost paid off my car. I thought I would lose my car. After almost paying off my car, thought I would lose my car, and I just really needed that consistent income. So.

What I did was I thought, hey, I need a job where can sit and do other work as I do that job as well. People glamorize this during the pandemic as over-employment, but that’s because they were making like double six-figure jobs and making like a lot of money. I got a job that was paying $16 an hour, which I hadn’t made that little in a decade. It was overnight. So I would work overnight.

eight hours by myself in a six story building and I was a security guard. So that’s what I did most of 2024. I was a security guard. I won’t say the name of the company because they are very like, don’t mention us on social media, but I worked for a very famous one. And yeah, I worked overnight, ⁓ ironically in a tech building. This was a, I worked for a company. was a security guard for a tech company.

⁓ It was some of the mentally, that was one of the hardest, that was some of hardest things I’ve ever done because you go from being a tech professional, I was still a LinkedIn learning instructor. ⁓ I had a freelance tech job, but I did not have any consistent tech pay. So I had to go work as a security guard in a tech building and watch all these engineers and ⁓ walk past me every day or at night when they were going home and see all these inspirational tech quotes and

on the walls and girls who code and watch these people drive off in their Porsches and things like that while I struggled and made $16 an hour. So yeah, that was, that’s what I did. the ⁓ security guard is something I never thought I would be doing. So again, it’s kind of like a bouncer. I had a uniform, it was not very flattering. ⁓

I was humiliated. Everyone had jokes. ⁓ Rodney, you’ve seen Friday After Next. Everybody, it’s a popular movie. You haven’t?

Rodney (13:11)
Yeah,

I’ve seen what happens without the security guard.

Nyasha Green (13:16)
Yeah, top flight security of the world, Craig. I had a security officer friend. He was such a sweet guy. His name was Craig. I know he was tired of the jokes. It was one of the craziest jobs I’ve ever had. And I’ll go into why later on, but it was, yeah, I went from six figures in tech to $17 an hour overnight in a six story building that was haunted.

And it was just crazy.

Rodney (13:51)
Now it’s always interesting how life can change and kind of almost in an instant for no matter who you are, because you can go from being comfortable to in positions you never thought you’d find yourself in and seemingly overnight these days because it seems like nobody is safe for very long.

Nyasha Green (14:12)
Yes, you’re right. And I feel like, you know, I’m a millennial. I was always told that if you work hard and you get a good education, which I got my college degree and I feel like I’ve worked hard, I’ve always worked, you know, you’ll be comfortable. You’ll be able to have that American dream, which used to be a dog, a house, two and a half kids, which I don’t know where the half came from, but two and a half kids, a white picket fence. And you can…

It just, to me, it felt like it was luck. Like you could have that, you could get close to it, which I don’t even think I was close. Maybe financially, if you look at my financials on paper, I was close, but I worked hard, I did everything I was told, I was a obedient little millennial and nothing. I literally lost all of that within two to three months. In two to three months, I had debt collectors calling me. ⁓

In two to three months, I didn’t know how I would get groceries if I could pay my car off, things of that nature. So it was eye opening. And yeah, like one thing I really want people to take from this is it really can happen to anybody. I’ve seen owners, businesses go under and they be in the same situations as me. And I also want to make this disclaimer, I’m not disparaging security guards or the profession at all. That is a

very hard and very dangerous job, very dangerous. I was terrified a lot. I worked ⁓ in a tech building, but it was at night, which was also located in an entertainment district. So Rodney, you remember Five Points in Columbia, South Carolina. It was kind of like working outside of Five Points. it was, I experienced everything, ⁓ harassment, sexual harassment.

Drunk people, people taking off their clothes. Okay, we’re in a surveillance state y’all, it’s 2025. Do not take your clothes off to use the restroom in public. Don’t use the restroom in public. It’s illegal, but also there are cameras everywhere. A big part of my job was looking at cameras and people take their clothes off everywhere. And it was, don’t do it. Somebody’s watching you. I would turn the camera, but technically,

I was not supposed to, but I wasn’t going to look at that. But don’t take your clothes off in public. ⁓ The job was crazy, but I’ll get to the, it was also a haunted building I was in, but I’ll tell that story at the end because my gosh. But what are some, that wasn’t the craziest job I’ve ever had either, but that was the craziest most recent job I had. What are some of like the crazier jobs you’ve had, Rodney?

Rodney (17:05)
Hmm, summon the crazier job that I’ve had.

Nyasha Green (17:10)
Or maybe not even crazy, unique or really out there jobs you might not have thought you would see yourself in, positions like that. Quirky jobs.

Rodney (17:27)
Man, not me drawing a blank in my my own work history.

Nyasha Green (17:33)
No, no, it’s like for me, when I was in college, I sold auto glass to people. We would go up to people because in the state of South Carolina, if you have full coverage insurance, you can replace your glass in your car for free. And we would go look and see if people had cracks in their windshields and things like that. Like a lot of people didn’t know that. And we would try to get them to replace their windshields and we would get commission from that. That was probably the strangest job I’ve ever had in my entire life.

And I’ve had, I feel like most of my jobs have been strange and crazy, but that was like the strangest.

Rodney (18:08)
All right. I guess I can touch on one, maybe not a strange job, but kind of a more of a humbling job. So of course, oh, you know what? I do have a strange job. I work, I worked for a Medicare company right out of college. And of course it was at a call center. And I don’t know if maybe any of the viewers or listeners have ever worked on the call center, but it’s one of the

If high school had a 13th and 14th grade, it would be your local call center that’s in your town. Every town has one. It’s probably in the hood ⁓ somewhere where they can solicit and pay you next to nothing. And yeah, I was working in a call center. And when I say it was one of the…

It was one of the mentally challenging, most mentally challenging jobs I’ve ever had. was like another college class that I was just not prepared for because you would work. I’d work, I think I worked, that was my first time working 100 hours in a week. And I don’t, I want to say my check did not break $500.

And between, so of course you’re at the call center, so you’re sitting down all day and of course like you’re one of the things that can happen to you, like your health can kind of kind of nose dive because you’re not active and you’re leaving. you’re mentally tired, you’re maybe you’re physically just fine and you’re wired. So you’re hungry and you’re eating terrible. And then you’re eating McDonald’s every night and then kind of your health takes the tumble as well. So that’s when I’m

I’m nice, you know this, that’s when I was first diagnosed with diabetes. And I want to say that didn’t help me. I’m working that job and drinking Mountain Dew every day. ⁓ I became the Mountain Dew guy. like, I gotta have my Mountain Dew before I start my work, bro. And I had to have me a cold, red. It was a Arby’s and there was a Exxon gas station right across the street. ⁓ I thought my life was going to be me working at the call center and

flirting with the attractive young lady at the Arby’s and getting them out and do every day. And that was my life for a complete, I think it might have been a year. And one of my friends told me like, see you around. That sounds pretty terrible, but imagine how good you could be if you worked at, if you could work that hard at that bad job. Imagine how hard you could work at a good job. And when I say I’ve held onto that,

That was my lifeline. think I bought them out of that job when, so like Lenny just said, I’m in Charleston, South Carolina. The one thing about Charleston, South Carolina is that it’s hot nearly year round. And we have about a day and a half of winter. Well, that day and a half of winter came one night and all the roads from where the call center was to my home was iced over. And not only were they iced over, I had promised to give a friend a ride home that day. So.

my silly self Mario Cartmai behind from Charleston to Somerville. what I say, what I say is that my old, you remember my old blue Impala. It was that old blue and color with the bad transmission. Sonic, Sonic, good old recipe Sonic. Good old Sonic with the, with the terrible, terrible transmission. I glided my way the entire way home. And I’m like, I’m not only good, not only in my.

Nyasha Green (21:22)
You

Sonic

Rodney (21:46)
at a terrible job. I’m dying. I’m nearly going to die over this terrible job. And like I have to do something different. This is this is not going to work forever. So you have to cause her in the job. But definitely threatened to fight a few people there. So I saw people’s marriages fall apart there. Yeah, to people out there, don’t don’t cheat on your spouse and.

Nyasha Green (21:56)
Yes.

Rodney (22:12)
If you’re not good at cheating on your spouse, don’t cheat on your spouse. If you’re working at the call center, then you don’t make enough money to cheat on your spouse. All of us collectively made between about $14 to $17, $18 an hour. If you’re a manager, I think you got $20. So we were all pretty broke. None of us were, by no means, we all were pretty broke and we all look pretty broke.

Nyasha Green (22:39)
gotta cut it.

Rodney (22:40)
⁓ okay.

You

Nyasha Green (22:47)
So the moral of the story, Rodney, the moral you’re giving us is don’t work at call centers that are bad and don’t cheat on your partner. Don’t get a boyfriend or a girlfriend if you can’t afford it, right? Okay.

my goodness, my goodness. All right, wanna, do you have any other jobs you wanna share before I jump back in to, how’s I say, bottom out the security job?

Rodney (23:20)
I wanna hear the ghost story.

Nyasha Green (23:23)
The security job? Okay, okay, well. So I was a security guard and ⁓ I wore a uniform that one of my friends said wasn’t the most flattering. ⁓ Wasn’t trying to look too sexy for the ghost, but you know, it’s okay. ⁓ This six story building was a modern building, I believe, ⁓ but it was huge. It had hundreds of workers, maybe even a couple thousand.

Rodney (23:24)
Yes.

Nyasha Green (23:52)
⁓ And it was in an interesting part of the city. everyone’s, I live in Charlotte, North Carolina and Charlotte’s being gentrified. Charlotte really grew a lot and lots of people have moved here and they’ve developed lots of communities. This area of Charlotte, I was not familiar with at the time, but the outside area I was, it’s near.

I don’t want to give it away. I’m talking being too specific, but it’s near an area where I know people live that wasn’t a great area. So in addition to the partiers, got people from, you know, we had just lots of people come try to get in the building with me while I was there alone from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. And that in itself was scary. But let’s talk about what was happening in the building. So a few weeks into

working there and let me say I every shift wasn’t overnight I had two shifts that were like a mid shift from like 3 to 11 and then I had the other shifts were the 11 to 7 So a few weeks into the job, but you go through training first to be a security guard I didn’t get a gun. I was like Craig and Day-Day from Friday after next I didn’t even get a whistle like I would have liked to whistle. I got a flashlight

And it was a heavy flashlight. Like I could have taken somebody out with that flashlight. Like I’m pretty strong. But I didn’t get a weapon or anything like that. ⁓ Actually, if I got caught carrying a weapon, I would have been fired on the spot. ⁓ So it was inside the building though, where the scariest things happen. So you would go in and lock the building down. And then you would make sure the building was locked. ⁓ I wasn’t a security guard for people. I was a security guard for property. And we could talk about that in another episode. Capitalism is crazy.

⁓ cause I didn’t even think that, you know, you would be securing a building, not a person, place or thing. ⁓ but yeah, that’s what I did. And I was alone there. They did not pay enough or as frequent to have two people on night shift. So I was alone, which I also didn’t know what would happen. So a few weeks into the shift, ⁓ I was talking to a few of the cleaners, the cleaners always came in late at night. ⁓ technically the building was

24 hours. If you were an employee of the building, you could get in with your badge 24 hours. If you wanted to come use the gym, they had a bar you can come drink at. It was so nice. Just tech stuff I had not experienced being in tech yet. I was hating so badly on, but yeah, you could come in and some people went to party at the entertainment district outside of it. So they came in too. So sometimes the building, the doors could open.

So if you’re keeping up with me, so I’m securing this building, it’s locked, I have to make sure everything’s safe in the building, but sometimes the doors can open, sometimes people can get in, some people can get out. But it’s my job to make sure the right people are getting in, the right people are getting out. So that’s a lot in itself. The cleaners who would come at night, ⁓ they would one day, they asked me how long I had there. Did I leave it like midnight? Did I leave it like 11, 10? What was my shift?

And I said, well, on this day I leave at this time, but on the weekends when I don’t see y’all during the day, I’m working overnight. So everybody stopped. Like it was a group. And they were like, what? And I was like, yeah, I’m here overnight. And they were like, in the building, it’s all of y’all. Do y’all come and meet up? Because I had a crew of security guards that I worked with, and they were wonderful people, by the way. I still keep in touch with them. And I said, no, it’s just me.

And one of the girls said, with all the stuff that happens in this building, you’re here by yourself. So up until that point, of course, like you work overnight and like I’d never worked overnight and I’m a sleeper. I’m a sleepy person. When I get sleepy, I need to sleep. So of course you hear things and it’s a big building and it’s computers and all this technology going, you’re going to hear sounds and you’re going to hear things. You’re going to hear the wind, I assume. You’re going to hear stuff. And that can really mess with you in the middle of the night.

But I was fine because I kept that in mind. But when she said that, I was like, wait a minute, what do you mean? What happens in this building? And so that’s when I got the story about one of the people I was replacing. I replaced another security guard who actually passed away in that building. Nobody told me this. Would have not taken the job. So I can’t be mad at them, completely understand, but you know, that-

That’s a lot. This person, unfortunately, was found in the building and they had passed away. And that in itself to me, know, right? don’t know. I don’t even know what the word would mean. I am terrified of ghosts and stuff like that. I’m pretty like, I believe in science. A skeptic, I believe, but I don’t play with ghosts. So I verified the story with one of the other guards. They said, yeah, unfortunately.

And that was it. So now I’m working my overnight shifts and I have that in mind. And I swear when I heard that story, the noises in the building, they just magnified times 10. Like every night I worked the night shift at 3 a.m. I would hear sounds like somebody was trying to open one of the doors. Now this is a six story building. There are like 20 doors in the bottom area where I’m at. So which door? I couldn’t tell you. Did I go check? No.

Was I supposed to check? Yes. ⁓ When I would walk on a certain hallway, because we would have to do a sweep of the building three times a night. When I would walk on a certain hallway, there was a doll there. It looked like a Chucky doll, but it was like Chucky’s son. Have you ever seen the seed of Chucky, Rodney? Yeah.

Rodney (29:50)
I did see the the seed of chucky Chuckie’s son

would have brought back my sage and my flashlight, my juju beans.

Nyasha Green (29:59)
So it looked like him, I can’t remember his name, but it was even scarier. It was like a scary doll. And it was on the fourth floor. ⁓ If anybody’s like into ⁓ like folklore or superstition, four is an unlucky number in some Asian* countries. Whereas in the United States, when we don’t have a 13th floor, they don’t have fourth floors. Because it’s a, what’s the word? It sounds like death. It sounds like I know the Mandarin word for death, but in different Asian countries like.

Yeah, there’s no four. So the fourth floor was spooky. Every time I inspected that floor at night, I heard something. And it’s like I would round these corners and I would always feel like I saw something out the corner of my eyes. So six story building between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., pitch dark.

a spooky sound, someone trying to get in the building, someone passed away in that building, a spooky doll, and just stuff out the corner of your eyes. And I did this job because again, ⁓ I had been making six figures. I had been taking care of multiple people, not just my immediate family, other people depended on me. ⁓ I was too nice. And that was another lesson. That’s another lesson for another.

episode, but ⁓ I needed that money. And with all of the spookiness happening, I pushed through it. I am a person who loves horror. I love scary stuff. I go to haunted houses every year. I love scary movies. That was terrifying. That was so terrifying. And I end my journey with that terrifying thing by saying ⁓ that was my first time working in person also in nearly a decade.

And I met some amazing people. The cleaners who were my buds, they were amazing and they were so sweet. And after they terrified me with the ghost stories, they told me that they were praying for me every night, like even outside of that, because I was sweet. They thought I was sweet. And I thought they were sweet as well. And, you know, it was nighttime and most of the techies were gone and there was nobody to look down on us because we got looked down on security and cleaners. We got looked down on bad. So that was another.

Another humbling experience. It’s like six figure tech speaker and writer and educator. When you come in this building, you’re nobody. You’re nothing. ⁓ Hard, but we’ve never felt like that together. And sometimes we ordered pizza and we ate together and we had a good time. And the security guards too, they enabled me to, I took this job so I would have time to code at my freelance job and write LinkedIn learning courses.

And I did that. And when I had to go speak at these conferences and when I had to go record for LinkedIn Learning, my coworkers came together and made sure my shifts were covered and they made sure that I was okay. And when stuff happened at night where I wasn’t sure of something or when I was scared, I could always depend on one of them calling them in the middle of the night. I cannot call any of my coworkers, my tech coworkers in the middle of the night right now. They would probably cuss me out, understandably. ⁓ But I met some really good people. ⁓

I again, being a security guard was not in the cards for me and I was scared, not of just ghosts, of drunk people and drunk men asking me to expose myself to them and crazy things that I hadn’t experienced since probably college that happened at that job that made me so depressed. But I had a lot of good people there ⁓ to help me and.

I think that’s a blessing from the universe or whatever you believe in that wherever I’ve gone, I’ve always had a family of innocence. I’ve always had people that care about me and I’ve always had people looking out for me. And a lot of people can’t say that. And my message on this is like, it’s, I’ve met so many people in tech that are getting laid off. The economy is bad. People are getting laid off all over and they’re too proud to take a job like this. I was too proud to even tell anybody. Alrighty. I don’t know if you remember, like I wouldn’t even tell y’all. I would just say I’m working overnight.

Like, I wouldn’t even tell my close friends. I didn’t tell, like I told my family and some of them like had the jokes, Barney Fife, like that’s such an old ass joke. Like, are you a hundred? But Top Flight Security of the World, I didn’t want people to know that. I was doing well and then I wasn’t, but I was because I kept food on my table. I paid my car off. I fully paid off car. ⁓ I still live in my nice apartment in a nice area of Charlotte.

⁓ I got to travel. went to Canada last year and spoke at a conference and I went to South Korea. I was okay. I was blessed and I was in a better position than a lot of other people have been since their layoffs. So I say, if you think you’re too proud to take these jobs, it doesn’t have to just be security. It can be jobs that people traditionally look down on. If you think you’re too proud to do that, then you know, it goes before the fall. I did what I had to do and I’m okay. And I’m back in tech today and I’m

making a lot more money and ⁓ I have these spooky but life-changing and life-learning experiences to grow from.

What are your thoughts, Rod

Rodney (35:33)
Yeah, the first night the ghost would have popped up. ⁓ I had a return with, ⁓ a praying grandmother, ⁓ a local New Orleans resident and the sunglasses from the blade movie. Cause while I’m more of the thought that.

But I say this to say before we have to go, I’m proud of you and everything that you always accomplish. And not only that you overcome, but you always do it with a kind heart and you’re always kind to the people that are around you. let, beside my silliness, besides I want to give you your flowers and give you kudos for that.

Nyasha Green (36:12)
Thank you, Rod

I appreciate that and

Rodney (36:18)
Yeah, would’ve called me, if you would’ve called me, I’d have sent my grandma to North Carolina and she would’ve, she’d have prayed right there on the spot. You just gotta feed her though.

Nyasha Green (36:28)
I would have, I would have taken her out to eat.

Rodney (36:30)
You say

that now, but ⁓ you know what? come get, come get her. This is expensive. Didn’t I tell you I was making less? And you think you send a black hole up here?

Nyasha Green (36:42)
you

So what’s your advice to people who may be struggling and they’re looking, yeah, dang, I wanted to offer like different ways. Let’s end this on different ways to make money while you’re experiencing these hardships. My advice is to, if you can only freelance, freelance, get multiple freelance jobs if you can handle it. I speak from a place of privilege that I do not have children, so I did not have to worry about babysitters and things like that. But ⁓ I knew.

that I needed a job that I could sit down and I could do other work. And this provided a way for me to make that extra money. So if you are someone where you can only work for a strict eight hours, try to find a job that’s flexible that’ll let you do other work. Try to sell things. Let’s do another, I’ll do another episode on different side hustles and hustles I’ve done and hustles I’m doing. But that’s my advice, Rod. What advice do you have?

Rodney (37:42)
My advice is to don’t be too proud to take another position. If you are freelancing, ⁓ collaborate. Collaboration is how I get through. As you probably know, I work full time for myself. If you ever do an episode of Entrepreneurial Life and my antidepressant medicines have kicked in, I will gladly be on. If you’re struggling right now, don’t be too proud to ask for help. ⁓

freelance, collaborate with people that are maybe doing better than you, that may be in the industry that you want to be in, that are taking the steps or have taken the steps and are further along than you. And don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty if you need to do something that may be outside of your wheelhouse. You really never know who you’ll meet. I’d say a lot about my call center job, but I’d also met some really, really solid people there that I’m…

I talk to from time to time and it’s always good laughs and good people because generally the type of energy you put out in situations is what you receive back. So if you go into a less than ideal situation with kind of a good mindset, maybe you take some jokes with some family members or even from yourself and your friends to kind of help you get through it. Just don’t be, don’t be too proud to work. Bills don’t care that your ego is hurt and that’s

Nyasha Green (39:03)
Mm-hmm.

Rodney (39:08)
You’ve been doing this for how many some years and how talented you are. ⁓ Talented people go bankrupt all the time and talent doesn’t necessarily equal to dollars in your bank account or food on your table. So don’t be too proud. ⁓ whatever job you can. Well, I don’t want to say whatever job you can find. Whatever job you can handle and you can do and have a plan. ⁓

Nyasha Green (39:16)
Mm-hmm.

Rodney (39:33)
have like a exit plan when you’re doing something like, I want to do this for this amount of time, I’ll put this amount of money aside and kind of work. That’s kind of how, what you have to do to kind of work your way out of the hole if you don’t have an uncle that randomly dies or takes you to Bel Air or whatever.

So yeah, because the onus is always gonna be on you to do this. So just have a try to make a plan try and still and I Like this is the last thing I’ll say they still try to find some kind of joy Why because I know it’s hard and I know Tell you saying had find some kind of joy find something you can laugh about Grab a five ten dollar burger. That’s that’s saying a lot Rodney prices these days, but find you a good a good cheap meal somewhere

Nyasha Green (40:08)
Hmm.

Rodney (40:23)
find community with whoever you’re around. Don’t be too proud to talk to the people around you because you’re you know, we’re no better than anybody else because your bank account is only reflective on the wages that you make, not the character in your heart. So if you’re able to, mean, not if you’re able to just find a way just to communicate because nyasha knows I’m probably the ultimate people person. I will talk to anybody ⁓ at all times and I have

When I say, yeah, I know that person. Like, Rodney, how did you meet them? Like, well, he was here at the same time and I just talked to him. And I get so many opportunities just because I was kind to somebody else. And if you have the opportunity, if you have these opportunities to do something else, I mean, it may not be the best, it may not be the best pay, but it’s something in the universe. It seems like the universe helps you out when you try to help yourself out sometimes.

Nyasha Green (41:20)
I agree. And this is a great, great, great, great thing to end on. I hope if you listen today to the entire podcast, thank you. And I hope that you get some value out of this. As always, it was so great Rod. I’m gonna have you back on, because I do wanna do an episode on entrepreneurship. I can’t say that, can’t speak. It’s late today. ⁓ But thank you so much and it was great having you.

Rodney (41:49)
Thank you for having me and it’s always a pleasure. If I ever need to come back on, just let me know and I’ll be here quick, fast and in a hurry.

Nyasha Green (41:58)
Great.