The end of 2014 brought about a lot of changes in my life, all carefully considered and mapped out to a tee. The end of a long career, jumping straight into an immersive web development bootcamp (including moving 4 hours away from home for 3 months) which introduced a dump truck load of information that was poured straight into my brain, leading to a huge final project. After a brief Christmas break, it was on to the job search portion of the program, the step to my next big adventure, a cool new job in a cool new career. This is where the map takes a decidedly “Blair Witch Project” turn and ends up in a creek, at which point a wee bit of panicking ensues. The job search/ application/interview process has been challenging. I will leave it at that, as to not take you down past that dark bend in the road where I’ve resided for the last 5 months.
I will say I’m learning a lot from this process. While I still dread technical interviews, I become less anxious with each one. I’ve never been unemployed before, so I’m learning some survival skills that I didn’t know existed and learning about myself. I realized how much of my personal worth was based on career accomplishments, having already proven to being bad at relationships and other general “life” stuff. Now I’m having to dig a little deeper to find the warrior.
This is also giving me the opportunity to expand my horizons even more than I originally expected to do. I’m not only learning more about JavaScript and the other tools I learned in school, I’m learning new frameworks and libraries and even expanding into WordPress and eventually other languages and databases. I’ve also met some really awesome developers, who continually remind me that I’m not alone. I’ve realized that I just may need more time to learn things at the level I am comfortable with. And that’s okay. So I may end up with a job that looks a little different than I started out looking for. It could be a junior position, or even in another area of tech. Or, gasp, I may continue in broadcasting while I continue to build my programming skills on the side.
This also leads to the question of the direction of my blog. I’ve been undecided as to whether I should turn this into a tech-centric blog or if I should create a separate one. Let’s be honest, I’ve not been great about updating one, so I’m not sure how trying to maintain two would work out. I may just keep posting here, whatever feels organic to post at the time.
So, the crossroads that I so carefully prepared for turned out to be a full blown Magic Roundabout. I accept the challenge, and will chart the new course. It just adds to the adventure, after all. The destination remains the same. Happiness.
Shannon, I’m proud of you for being able to look at the difficult and find the unexpected, but possible. You’re a smart cookie, don’t forget that! God will continue to lead you as you allow and I believe in time, the road will offer some very worthy possibilities. Thinking of my little long ago neighbor. Keep your chin up!
I feel your pain. We’ve all been there. If I have anything come up that requires your skill set or anything like it, I will let you know. In the meantime, have you registered with headhunters or subcontracting companies? You work for them as their employee and then they send you out on long-term job contracts. My brother has had some luck with them. Not as good as regular gig with a first generation employer, but it’s a start and helps with networking.
Thank you so much, Judy!! You are an amazing warrior! Good, strong and amazing people, like you, inspire me every day and make me realize my obstacles are surmountable. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Thanks, Maureen. I appreciate you keeping me in mind. I have registered with some tech recruiter agencies and applied for some contract work. You are right that networking is the key. The challenges are multi-faceted, but I know I will be the right fit for someone. I just hope it’s soon. Thank you again, friend.
Shannon, life is an adventure and full of changes and challenges. Those that take the safe route never experience the thrills and anxiety of the unknown. Be yourself, your rainbow is just over the horizon .
Thank you, Shelley!