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August 14, 2014 6:02 AM   Subscribe

Asking for a 21 year old friend. What things can my friend recovering from surgery do to earn a little money and/or prepare for a better job (currently works retail).

My friend is 21 and last week had knee surgery. She will be in an immobilizer and doing phys therapy for a while.

She currently works retail and won't be getting any hours for 6-8 weeks probably.

Do you have any suggestions on things she can do to make a little cash on the side while at home (full access to computer/internet).

I suggested she look into Amazon's Mechanical Turk, but I haven't seriously looked at that in a few years.

In conjunction or alternatively what can a HS Grad (and most likely future college goer) do NOW to help perk up her resume and become more desirable for better paying jobs. She's not looking for a career, but a decent part time or full time job she can do while taking some classes would be great.

My advice was to go through and do a bunch of Excel and Office tutorials.

She has a flare for presentations (and PowerPoint) and enjoys that as well.

BONUS QUESTION: If you had knee surgery, what did someone do for you that was super awesome or appreciated?
posted by PlutoniumX to Work & Money (7 answers total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
Transcription work could be an option, if she can type fast enough and has good spelling and grammar.
posted by kinddieserzeit at 6:13 AM on August 14, 2014


I'm a big fan of the training on Udemy. The training is self paced, and if she's put off by the prices, she should just sign up anyway, because they always have 65% off, 95% off and Any Class for $19 sales.

For the Bonus Question: Spend time with her. If she's going to be laid up for 6-8 weeks, she might get a bit stir crazy or get cabin fever, and would probably love to get out and about. A movie, shopping at the mall, something, ANYTHING to get out of the house.
posted by John Kennedy Toole Box at 6:18 AM on August 14, 2014


And for learning: Code Academy is pretty good if she is interesting in learning about web development. Perhaps she could transfer her flare for making presentations to designing websites?
posted by kinddieserzeit at 6:26 AM on August 14, 2014


I've been doing a web development class on Treehouse. I don't know if it will lead to anything - I'm not going to declare myself a web developer anytime soon - but I've enjoyed it so far. I found a free sign-up on The Muse. It says it's limited to the first 1,000 people to click on the link but maybe it still works. There are a lot of other classes besides web development but I thought I'd start there.

Also, The Muse has a bunch of classes you can take online. I haven't tried them yet but they look compelling.
posted by kat518 at 7:30 AM on August 14, 2014


Learn some Spanish. I wish I had some. Always will make you more
Marketable no matter what.
posted by sully75 at 7:31 AM on August 14, 2014 [1 favorite]


Ask her to check out the beer money sub on reddit -- http://www.reddit.com/r/beermoney/ if she's in the US.
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 9:29 AM on August 14, 2014 [1 favorite]


Since she'll have access to a bunch of physical therapists and physical therapist assistants for advice, if that interests her maybe she can look into jobs related to physical therapy. Evidently a PTA requires a two-year degree but they might have advice on non-degree positions in the field and how to strategerize to get them. Or actually be able to provide job leads.
posted by XMLicious at 10:15 AM on August 14, 2014


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