Some Updates
When I started this post, I’m not sure I had any real idea of what it was going to be about, other than making a few notes about where I think I’m up to with my journey into the world of web development. For anyone who’s taken a look at my LinkedIn profile recently, it will be reasonably apparent that the anticipated trajectory after doing the Web Dev Immersive at General Assembly has fallen a little short. It’s never been much of a secret that my first role was a bit of a blow-out, wrong choice on both our parts, and one that left me a little shell-shocked to be quite honest.
From there, I threw myself into working on re-building a house my wife and I had bought. Taking a house back to bare brick ahead of the arrival of the builders does tend to take your mind off things somewhat and kept me busy whilst I regained focus.
That focus was well and truly shattered in September 2017 when, whilst out mountain biking, I had a heart attack, followed by bypass surgery a week later. I still can’t thank those who got me down off the hillside (MTB Monster) and into the massively professional hands of the NHS enough - the Lancashire Cardiac Centre did a brilliant job, and it’s hard to believe that from an operation on Monday, I was back home and in my own bed on the Friday. It’s fair to say that the week’s wait for the op had me imagining all sorts as well as an expectation of significant pain to come during the recovery. In hindsight, I’m able to pretty much dismiss all that with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight, and the pain such as it was I can safely dismiss as being as close to non-existant as you could imagine.
By the time I’d put in the requisite 3-month recovery and rehabilitation, I genuinely was sure whether I was even able to try and work meaningfully again. I did though manage to get back to going to Meetups and applying for a few roles, and even getting the odd interview here and there. The biggest break I think I got though, was being fortunate enough to be at a Manchester Tech for Good Live event where Anna Holland Smith did a lightning talk on the newly formed branch of CodeYourFuture (CYF) and a call for extra volunteers. It didn’t take long before I was attending my first Saturday session and within minutes was asked to sit in with one of the students and do a some pair programming with them. That first experience wasn’t at all hurt by it being the last of the year and effectively their Christmas party.
What I love about CYF is being able to make a difference to the lives of others. I really do believe in the ‘bootcamp’ concept as a way of being able to bring those with little or no programming experience up to the point where they can confidently start applying for web development roles, with every expectation that they will be taken seriously by those they’re applying to. Being able to carry my own bootcamp experience into one with the aims CodeYourFuture has, has been very rewarding. Though I’d anticipated spending rather more time on the technical side of things, I feel like I’m closer to being an organiser than anything - apparently you can take the boy out of project management, but you cannot take the project management out of the boy… Either way, some 18+ months later, I’m still actively involved and hope to be so until I can no longer draw breath (tempts fate again).
But I digress…
At some point of not knowing whether I could work or not, an ad popped up on my Facebook feed for a part-time role at the Lancaster branch of the bicycle retailers, Leisure Lakes Bikes. I applied in person with the comment that “…this CV makes no sense in the context of this job, so you may as well not bother reading it, but I’m interested if you’d like to give me a call”. They called me a couple of months later. Part-time turned to full-time, turned into the last 16 months, and I guess proved I could work. Hauling eBikes and hires out of a basement umpteen times a week will do that for you.
None of this of course gets me any closer to finding that web development job I’d imagined for myself, but don’t dismay yourselves, I’m not done yet. Having got over the slight health hiccup, I’m on the case again. I have begun to look rather more closely at what’s currently being advertised, I’m making applications again and, said rather tentatively, there seems to be a bit more traction this time round. Alongside this, I’m working through a couple of courses covering ReactJS, Angular, and .Net Core / C#. I’m hoping that these in conjunction with what I’m doing with CYF will help get me moving again in the direction I’d been planning all along.
Keep an eye out for more from me here, as I plot my way forward.