This is going to be a long one - be warned. Somehow putting it out there helps even if there is no practical advice to be got.
So going back around 2 weeks I got the sack - there’s a post kicking about re that so I’ll spare you the details. Since then I’ve put my cv out there - got overwhelmed by the bloody recruitment vultures, attended an interview which led to a 3 hour technical test where I got pretty negative feedback on the basis that I wasn’t where they expected me to be, applied for a part-time MSc in mobile web dev, applied for a trainee developers post and now I suppose I’m really feeling at the point of completely giving up and have just applied for a job on the production line of a local factory.
I keep swinging from the viewpoint that I should just pull the curtains on development as I seem to have been studying it and working at it for years now and not making any significant progress, and the idea of working harder to get better.
A little bit of background for some context. I was always good at school, top of the class, but by the time I was in high school I hated it - I had good friends but I just couldn’t handle it as an institution - for some reason I just can’t take to situations where you need to bow down to your ‘superiors’. I ended up spending my days travelling around the city all day staring out bus windows - and went through quite a serious stage of buzzing gas to kill the boredom. When I was officially old enough to leave school at 16 I started working and just really worked for the weekend. Ironically I did a computing and business government training scheme where the trainer reckoned I could be a programmer to which I basically thought fuck that - I couldn’t have imagined anything more boring at that time - and anyway I had it in my head I wanted to be a hairdresser and eventually I got the opportunity to train for that (only gave that up after about 4 months when my inability to take orders kicked in again). After a couple years of working in pubs and factories at 19 I decided to go back to my high school whilst I was working nights, and study for my h’grades. Ended up I did really well and was persuaded to apply for uni - which I did and ended up studying Social Anthropology and Sociology. Managed to fuck that up too being a complete hash head then falling pregnant to …well that’s another story:) After a while I got my head together and decided I had to make a living to support my daughter and did a post grad in IT - I did really well and walked into a job on a shit hot recommendation from the uni. However, I feel I have never got anywhere with it. I have moved about on projects and technologies constantly have never spent more that 6 months in a single language or environment and basically feel at the same level as what I was when I started.
This industry has been crazy though for the effect it has had on my self-confidence. The one thing I never doubted was my ability to learn as I had always excelled academically - or at least when I put my mind to it. There is so much to learn in this game though and to be honest I’m probably not that interested in learning it. I force myself to and have been very proactive in my learning but honestly I’m not that into it - I can’t focus my attention on it. I like building software - I like that a lot - but having to read technical stuff I struggle.
Anyway I’m now coming close to throwing in the towel. The thing is I can be a pretty determined fucker so is likely that I try and put my head down and try to fill the gaps - I’m afraid though that will just lead to more wasted years with not much to show at the end of it.