Hey Everyone! I’m Wade and I’ve been a member of the Steemit community for about 2 days, and thus far everything has been great. I love the feeling of togetherness, we have such a great community of awesome people. I must admit that Steemit has been rather addictive, I’ve spent countless hours over the last 48 hours checking different articles, and contributing to the community. I also discovered a mobile app called Esteem, this will certainly help my addiction while I’m mobile and away from my desktop.
So, who is Wade? I’m originally from Antigua & Barbuda (go ahead look it up on the map). I’m a scorpio and I enjoy long walks on the beach, (not really). I am a scorpio however, so don't judge me based on that bit of information. My mother immigrated to the United States when I was 12 years old to make a better life for us, I soon joined her 2 years later. We settled in Florida, a little town called Titusville, known for the Kennedy Space Center right across the river from my High School. I left Titusville after graduating from high school and briefly lived in Gainesville with an older sister, but my desire to see more of this great country took over and I moved to New England to live with a friend. Before I proceed any further, I would like to share a photo, this way you can put a face with a name.
So where were we? Oh yeah!! I moved to Massachusetts the summer of 1996, What an interesting place, the people were a bit more ‘animated’ and ‘aggressive’ than they were in Florida. I’ve come to understand most New Englanders had this attitude that set them apart from the rest of the country. They are mostly competitive and aren’t afraid to speak their minds. While in Mass, I started working a few odds and ends jobs, first a retail store that sold household goods and electronics and later a local family ‘Mom and Pop’ Pharmacy. I learned allot in this role, but it soon became a dead end position, the pay wasn’t very competitive and there wasn’t any benefits. The next year I landed a job at a wireless phone company called CellularOne, I was tasked with customer service and handling billing inquiries, this was my start in the wireless industry and I guess as they say the ‘Bug’ bit me. Through various roles and responsibilities, I got promoted to Manager and remained in that office for about 2 years. In corporate America there are often times lots of changes, all due to the ‘needs of the business’ and we learned that our jobs were being eliminated and was being transitioned to Texas and Arkansas. Around this time CellularOne was being rebranded as Cingular (yeah little orange guy) and I received the opportunity to relocate to either TX or AR, it so happened at this time my cousin was attending school in Texas, the same city which my job was being relocated so I opted for this little town in North Texas.
The year is now 2000 and ‘Everything's bigger in Texas’ as the saying goes, the food portions, the trucks, the hair and the people were certainly much friendlier there than in Massachusetts, people actually waved at you when they passed you on the road, (What was that about? LOL) Fast forward to 2009 and the economy had taken a turn for the worst and I was faced with another layoff, at this point Cingular was AT&T aka (death star) and after 12.5 years, I was faced unemployment for the first time. During my career I’ve taken online college courses, but never managed to complete my studies. I was never really that excited about being a student and hated studying, I enjoyed learning from what life had to offer and on the job training, I absorbed as much as possible and it has proven to be beneficial. My career at AT&T had provided me with many transferrable skills that I will forever be grateful. So AT&T offered a great severance package and I took almost a year off from work, enjoying my freedom and doing a little bit of traveling.
Getting back into the workforce wasn’t very easy after leaving AT&T and I soon found a job at a hotel management company called Starwood Resort, I was working from home assisting customer with hotel reservation sales and general customer support. Working from home was amazing at first, didn’t have to drive into the office and I could sit in my under-wear while talking to people. The pay wasn’t amazing, but It got me by until I landed the job that would change my life for the better. It was now January 2011 and I was working at another wireless phone company, this time it was the company known as ‘Big Red’ the one with the most reliable coverage and that is all I’ll say. I was working inside a retail store for the first time, customer facing in all of its glory. The general public can be very scary, but some people tend to be more vicious over the phone than when they are standing in your presence. Two years later, history repeated itself in the way of being declared ‘surplus’ aka laid off. For those of you keeping track, this was layoff nombre trois (3) in my short lucky 13 year career.
Since I held this job for such a short time frame, the severance package wasn’t nearly as attractive as the one that I was offered at AT&T 2 years prior. Someone upstairs must have been looking down at me, because I found another job with ‘Big Red’ in one of the most beautiful places on earth, HAWAII!!!!. WHAT?? A great friend from back in high school, was also living in Hawaii at the time and I was able to move out and crashed with her and family for a month until I could find my own apartment, the company did also offer a relocation stipend that got me started, but trust me that money went rather quickly in Hawaii.
So how did I get into cryptocurrency? About 3 years ago it kinda landed in my lap, I started purchasing various types of currencies, just as a way of experimenting and trying to be forward thinking, that perhaps one day in the future these virtual things I'm holding will have some kind of value. I then stumbled upon Genesis mining, and have invested into Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum etc. I try to have a diversified portfolio and will be in this ‘funny money’ for the long run. I have since returned to the mainland after living in Hawaii for 3 years, when people ask me about living in Hawaii, I tell them it's a great place to visit, but not to live. I’m now living in the state of Nevada, talk about one big circle, I’ve since gotten the wireless bug out of my system and now focusing on something else. For now I’m living each day to the fullest and a little bit better than the prior.
In closing, while I was living in Hawaii I did have the opportunity to travel to several countries due to their close proximity. Those countries included Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Cambodia, New Zealand and Australia. You’ll find some of my vacation pics here on Steem, please take a look and upvote if you like them, I’ll eternally be grateful for your support. If you've gotten this far, thanks for taking the time to read my bio and together we'll leave Steem better than the day we joined, although not for a very long time to come.