You have spent the beginning of the new year extending your thanks and gratitude to all of the individuals and families who hired you to do some work for them. Over the course of the last eight months you have tutored a few high schoolers whose parents you met on a neighborhood website. I did all kinds of projects and jobs for people, ranging from simple drywall patches and painting, to building a stand-alone shack from scratch, to helping people move furniture and belongings. In addition, you made many runs to the dump, fixed fences, and replaced mailboxes.
Since so many of the tasks were new to you, not every job was a complete success, but on those rare occasions you took no money and helped the clients find someone who cold solve their problems. Some jobs, upon digging into the details, were outside of your wheelhouse and attempting to proceed further would have gone against your personal rule of “first, do no harm.” For instance, you are not an electrician, and you are glad those neighbors were able to find someone else who specialized in solving those kinds of problems, and still feel a small pang of regret that you could not help more.
On a personal note, the skills you developed this year will serve you for life. The labor of it all has motivated you to return to school to finish your formal education degree. And the experiences and memories from this have made all of it more than worthwhile. As a result of your hybrid income, you were able to afford better tools and you expanded your abilities as a home brewing expert by building a kegerator for under $200, thanks to the guy who wanted to get rid of his freezer. You met, worked with, and on behalf of some amazing people. You expanded your capabilities as a pandemic tutor by building and framing my your whiteboards.
The more you reflect on the odd jobs you have taken up after being laid off from your job of more than two decades, the more you realize that you will walk away from this pandemic with so many newly improved skills. This year would have been pretty miserable had it not been for the meaningful connections and fun projects that the neighborhood app and word of mouth let you be a part of.
When all of the work for the day was done, however, you were able to spend time on one of your favorite actives. With some newly created rolled bats for hitting practice you were able to host one on one batting practices in one of the local parks. The softball bat shaving and rolling skills that you picked up while you were in college have been especially helpful in a time when there are so many players without a full schedule of games to play. With the season ending even before it began, the use of softball bat shaving and rolling services provided a great way for hitters to get the practice and confidence that they needed. Keeping hitting, pitching, and fielding skills sharp in a time when the thrill of the competitive play is not available is not easy, but you have found that one on one practice sessions have helped many players manage their time away from the diamond.
Many coaches have long know that softball bat shaving and rolling techniques can help their players get the confidence they need to face real pitchers once season arrives. As the pandemic arrived, however, rolled and shaved baseball bats for sale were in even higher demand. With so many new customers, however, it was also important for parents and athletes who were new to this equipment to know that using these bats in certain conditions could be dangerous to both the batter and the bat. In fact, since shaved bats do not do well in cold temperatures, manufacturers recommend that hitters not use their softball bat shaving and rolling equipment if it is colder than 65 degrees outside.
The pandemic has created many kinds of new jobs for teachers and coaches alike.
