I need to do an in person boot camp if I’m ever going to get into tech
To be completely honest, my GitHub page sucks and that’s not okay. At the start of the year, I was determined to make an effort to take the necessary steps to land a developer job. Eleven months have passed and no progress. The reasons summed up to; fear(again), my father being diagnosed with cancer, working full time hours as a food slave, getting caught up in “learn this tech in 2019” lists, precarious sobriety, being fired as said food slave, income searching, having to consider the military as an employer of last resort and starting/quitting a job as a B2B sales rep.
There aren’t a lot of attractive options for a 29 year old high school graduate.Credits across multiple subjects but no credentials to get a better job. It was clear I need to do an in person boot camp if I’m ever going to get into tech.
What happened to the Algorithm and Data Structures course?
I managed to complete the data structures and algorithms course. I learned it in javascript and had a number of code snippets implemented on my git repo. Once the course was completed, I hadn’t done any of the practice questions.I need to do an in person boot camp if I’m ever going to get into tech. Which are kind of important if I want to even get to the interview stage.Life has a habit of hitting you at your most vulnerable. Leading to another hurdle, my father’s cancer diagnosis.
Father’s Cancer, a devastating diagnosis, a treatment plan and a sign of hope
Spending eight hours a day in a class room while not getting paid was getting old. Dad’s diagnosis made it all the easier to leave as my family would need all the income available to get through this.In desperation and with great reluctance, I took to working full-time hours. While my family was grateful that I was actually stepping up to help, I was just crushed knowing that I’d have be stuck in this place. I hated everything about this situation because I was living the reality that I had always thought was for losers and now I was exactly the type of person I didn’t want to become. Which lead to a negative coping mechanism for 4 months.The thought came up again, I need to do an in person bootcamp if I’m ever going to get into tech. Not financially feasible I told myself.
Fortunately the treatments are going well, at least that’s one major worry taken care of.
Negative coping methods aka drinking to numb my pain
Drinking would silence the doubt, sadness and anger. I stopped drawing and just accepted the blur of ten hour shifts, slaving.
I was resentful that I had to cook for people.Resented covering people’s shifts throwing off the few plans I make. Resented organizing the kitchen daily only to find that it’s a complete mess by my next shift(I was the opener). Resentful of the fact that I’d have to stay back because people with cars were showing up and hour late to shifts, yet my broke ass with no car having to rely on public transit, could always make it on time. Resented being expendable. Resentful of my days missing days off. Resentful of not making enough and when I finally get a dollar more raise, I get terminated. During these resentments the thought came back again.
I need to do an in person boot camp if I’m ever going to get into tech
But during all this time, I was still coding, in fact I’d made a couple of repositories.Nearly every day I made sure to make commits.Those commits were driven by resentment of being expendable. That anger drove me for quite a while and I knew I had to makechanges. I didn’t make a plan like my last post here, but I started small a month before my termination.
Exercising, new courses, more repos, more commits and no booze for 90 days…so far so good, still thinking
Towards the end of August, sitting at the bar after another 10 hour day. I was still trying to justify it to myself because honestly fuck life at this point. There is no settling or happily ever after so long as I’m slaving here. So on September 1st, 2019 I decided to stop drinking for 90 days. I’m 73 days in with 17 left. I started back exercising because I needed to replace that habit with something positive. So far it is working and I definitely improves my mood. The downside is that now I’m activiely aware of how shit my life is but I won’t drink. The exercising is going well, even when not at the gym, I do calisthetics at home. My mind continues to be restless however. I started writing on dev.to and actually got some suggestions for what to put in my portfolio. The resources were helpful but I fouinnd myself in tutorial purgatory,( thanks to Andy Sterkowitz for wording it better than I ever could ).
The two maps I decided upon are the road map to backend web development and the road map to dev ops. The languages selected are C/C++, Python,Javascript and Java. Yet the thought persisted, I need to do an in person boot camp if I’m ever going to get into tech
Starting as a Self-Employed B2B sales rep, the easiest job I ever got……I GOT OUT AFTER A WEEK!!!
This heading should say it all. New experience and a new opportunity. There was definite path to growth and more money than I ever could have made. But it was a sales job.
Rejection and income volatility, since it was commision based .Though I understand the importance of sales, it’s not how I want to make money.
The senior people I talked to say bring your personality and stick to the pitch script. Well my personality is I hate bothering people and approaching them, period. No amount of actual or potential money will ever make me excited to talk to people. Especially when my income is dependent on establishing a relationship for someone else to close at a later date. I am an introvert and I hate being dishonest.
ADMITTING THIS DOESN’T ALIGN WITH MY VALUES
I won’t make my money this way. There’s no sense of accomplishment in what I’ve done. I even got on a company conference meeting next week for free, yet I felt nothing. At the end of the day there was no excitement about leadership or management I called it quits just before leaving for the field yesterday. Once again the thought returned, I need to do an in person boot camp if I’m ever going to get into tech
WHAT NOW? USE EI, GET A NEW LAPTOP, FIND AN IN PERSON BOOTCAMP WITH SCHOLARSHIP/INCOME SHARING AND MENTORSHIP, WRITE MORE AND BUILD AN ART PORTFOLIO
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again. My insanity is trying to be self-taught.I don’t focus on one area of software engineering. I need to stop jumping to higher concepts.
Without truly understanding what’s happening in the projects I build (or should be building).The truth is I need one on one coaching.I admit that I can’t do it on my own and I need help.If that means finding funding for a 10 to 12 week boot camp to make me more employable so be it.
One take away from the five days at the sales job was trying to find my why. In past posts I was able to get close to finding this out, but never knew what I was looking for.I love possibilty now it’s taking the next steps. I need to do an in person boot camp if I’m ever going to get into tech. The next steps for now are researching what I can afford, rigor, mentorship and job assitance. It’s a good thing I love research. We’ll leve those results for another post, for now the next step is to continue research what will work for me.
Thanks for reading