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I had switched away from Dreamwidth for a while (like - 5 to 8 years, depending on how you count... XD) because everyone I knew was moving to Tumblr. But it seems to be a good moment to reevaluate my options in online presence.
So how have the last couple of years been?
After I switched jobs in 2009 I found out that you can have shitty management anywhere. My father died over the Christmas holidays in 2010 and I had tons of stress at work, so the combination led to a bout of hearing loss (without recovery - I lost a good chunk of my high frequency hearing in my left ear within ~2 seconds). Making music became emotionally difficult around that time - I wonder why. I practically stopped making music at all.
I switched to a new employer in 2011 and intentionally ignored all the red flags that those people were throwing around - I wouldn't call the experience traumatic, but my boss from those days is still the only person in the world to whose assassination fund I would gladly contribute.
I went unemployed for 9 months, dove into quite a bit of a depression, missed a few deadlines with the employment agency (didn't apply to enough jobs because depressed), was reassigned to a different department inside the employment office and was immediately offered to get an actual education. So, from early 2013 to early 2015, I went back to school for an apprenticeship to become a certified sysadmin (or "IT specialist systems integration" as it is more formally known). During this time I was in a 6 month internship in a data center - cool stuff! Somewhat shitty company, though - could have gone there after the end of the apprenticeship program, but I decided against it.
After that, I was shortly employed by an IT service company that does Windows administration for small businesses.
While I was in that place (was rather cool, nice people and the job was decent) a different company called me back - I had applied there earlier for a sysadmin position, but they were looking for people with Mac Server knowledge, which I couldn't provide. Instead, they were now looking for a project manager who would build a support team in order to clearly split responsibilities in one of their biggest projects.
That sounded super cool, and I was really interested in that. But One of the bosses asked the fated question: "Do you have any experience with programming?" - I explained that I had never done it in a professional capacity, but that I could probably tell them what a piece of code did, if I looked at it.
So, instead of support manager, they took me on as a junior developer.
The beginning was tough - I didn't feel too good in this position, because I was lacking any and all qualification. I needed to quickly learn the basics of maybe a dozen computer languages, development tools, virtual machine environments and automated server management programs.
Analyzing my past behaviors and my current struggles led me to seek out a psychiatrist in 2016 and I was diagnosed with adult ADHD - fuckin' hell! My life through school could have been so much better, I could have second-guessed so many of my bad life decisions, university could have been a success (well... that one, maybe not...). I went on medication and HOLY SHIT life became better instantly. I got better at my job, I felt better about myself and I was able to view my own achievements through a more objective lens. I slowly got back into making music.
Then I had my second round of hearing loss (again, without recovery), which means I now have less hearing on my left ear than an average person wearing hearing protection. Making music became emotionally challenging again. Fuckin' shit!
Somewhere on the way I made a few friends, got closer to some, grew more distant from others, life happened.
I am playing a very irregular D&D game with a few people from work, I'm playing a quite regular game of D&D (DM'd by Ten) and Star Wars (GM'd by me) over the internet with a good friend from Canada (greetings to Ophexis =3).
So at the end of 2018 I'm (still) a junior developer in a web development agency with a boss who reads the same type of books I do, a manager who is in my D&D group and a lot of people who are genuinely nice. Both our cats are well (Axys has somewhat too much tummy, but there are worse fates than that), my relationship with Ten has not changed much over the years (if anything, we grew even closer together) and I'm looking forward to the RPG system, that he developed over the past year, being released to the world.
Personal life is looking good.
So how have the last couple of years been?
After I switched jobs in 2009 I found out that you can have shitty management anywhere. My father died over the Christmas holidays in 2010 and I had tons of stress at work, so the combination led to a bout of hearing loss (without recovery - I lost a good chunk of my high frequency hearing in my left ear within ~2 seconds). Making music became emotionally difficult around that time - I wonder why. I practically stopped making music at all.
I switched to a new employer in 2011 and intentionally ignored all the red flags that those people were throwing around - I wouldn't call the experience traumatic, but my boss from those days is still the only person in the world to whose assassination fund I would gladly contribute.
I went unemployed for 9 months, dove into quite a bit of a depression, missed a few deadlines with the employment agency (didn't apply to enough jobs because depressed), was reassigned to a different department inside the employment office and was immediately offered to get an actual education. So, from early 2013 to early 2015, I went back to school for an apprenticeship to become a certified sysadmin (or "IT specialist systems integration" as it is more formally known). During this time I was in a 6 month internship in a data center - cool stuff! Somewhat shitty company, though - could have gone there after the end of the apprenticeship program, but I decided against it.
After that, I was shortly employed by an IT service company that does Windows administration for small businesses.
While I was in that place (was rather cool, nice people and the job was decent) a different company called me back - I had applied there earlier for a sysadmin position, but they were looking for people with Mac Server knowledge, which I couldn't provide. Instead, they were now looking for a project manager who would build a support team in order to clearly split responsibilities in one of their biggest projects.
That sounded super cool, and I was really interested in that. But One of the bosses asked the fated question: "Do you have any experience with programming?" - I explained that I had never done it in a professional capacity, but that I could probably tell them what a piece of code did, if I looked at it.
So, instead of support manager, they took me on as a junior developer.
The beginning was tough - I didn't feel too good in this position, because I was lacking any and all qualification. I needed to quickly learn the basics of maybe a dozen computer languages, development tools, virtual machine environments and automated server management programs.
Analyzing my past behaviors and my current struggles led me to seek out a psychiatrist in 2016 and I was diagnosed with adult ADHD - fuckin' hell! My life through school could have been so much better, I could have second-guessed so many of my bad life decisions, university could have been a success (well... that one, maybe not...). I went on medication and HOLY SHIT life became better instantly. I got better at my job, I felt better about myself and I was able to view my own achievements through a more objective lens. I slowly got back into making music.
Then I had my second round of hearing loss (again, without recovery), which means I now have less hearing on my left ear than an average person wearing hearing protection. Making music became emotionally challenging again. Fuckin' shit!
Somewhere on the way I made a few friends, got closer to some, grew more distant from others, life happened.
I am playing a very irregular D&D game with a few people from work, I'm playing a quite regular game of D&D (DM'd by Ten) and Star Wars (GM'd by me) over the internet with a good friend from Canada (greetings to Ophexis =3).
So at the end of 2018 I'm (still) a junior developer in a web development agency with a boss who reads the same type of books I do, a manager who is in my D&D group and a lot of people who are genuinely nice. Both our cats are well (Axys has somewhat too much tummy, but there are worse fates than that), my relationship with Ten has not changed much over the years (if anything, we grew even closer together) and I'm looking forward to the RPG system, that he developed over the past year, being released to the world.
Personal life is looking good.
