My watch has ended in Malta.
I lived as a nomad in Malta for 6 months, and a new journey has begun in the Netherlands.
Hoi!
My friend, I hope you’ve been well. I’d love to hear from you one of these days, too. When do you plan to write back? I’d appreciate it if you wrote replies and told me how you’re doing and the lessons you’ve learned.
The last time we talked about gratitude. How is your practice coming? I am more soaked into the culture of gratitude now than I could imagine. Maybe because I figured that’s the best I could do because this Netherlands house-hunting drives me insane. As some of you requested, this piece concerns my new role as a contract technical writer at ABN AMRO.
This piece attempts to explain how I got this job and why I even took it in the first place, thereby cutting my digital nomad journey short.
Some back story …
I spent the last 6 months being a nomad with my partner, David Anierobi. We traveled and lived a quiet life in Nadur, Gozo.
The year started like every year, and on the first day of work — 3rd January, I got the news that my working hours were cut from 36 to 8 hours per week because the company pivoted. I almost died from crying because how would I survive in a new country if I lost my source of income?
Regardless, with the help of my friends and family, I stood firm and moved to Malta in February 2023. When we moved, it was a breath of fresh air, and I just immersed myself into my new fate.
Dave and I traveled to Malta, visited new places, and built new relationships. During this time, I sat down and decided not to start interviewing immediately. I spent time analyzing myself and my skills to determine how to improve.
After taking time to understand where I needed to upskill, I registered and started taking courses to improve my knowledge of APIs, technical writing, and everything I found in a job description as a requirement. I studied hard, joined open-source communities, and volunteered.
I should've taken the time off to rest, but I couldn’t. It was time to upskill and compensate for my bad grades from my first trimester at #Uniderby. And that I did.
The 6 months were perfect…
This unplanned sabbatical was precisely what I needed to figure myself out and break out of burnout because I was burnt out from everything. School, doing DevRel, juggling gigs because I can’t count on just one, getting married, and moving to a new country.
During this time, I decided to focus on myself, have fun, build new relationships, and upskill. I did many new things and even tried things I did 10 or 15 years ago, like crocheting, painting, and reading books daily. I even learned to ride a bicycle.
How did it happen? Amsterdam? What? How?
Ok, I know what it looks like, but I can explain. For most people who follow my musings here, they already got the memo, but because I don’t feel like announcing it on Twitter just yet, I am writing to explain a couple more things.
Honestly, I didn’t think I’d have a job in July, let alone move to Amsterdam.
Do you know how I shared with you in a previous piece about how I wanted to spend the rest of the year attending conferences, taking courses, upskilling, building a network, and focusing on my studies?
I joined Focused Conversations, a bi-weekly chat hosted by folks from Write the Docs (WTD) in Florida and New England. I loved the conversations because they were authentic and unfiltered, and everyone got a chance to share how they understood or tried everything.
During one of those calls, someone mentioned he was attending a conference, and that was it. Content-focused conference? I was gonna be there. I shared more about this in this piece.
During the API The Docs conference, I joined conversations, shared ideas, cracked jokes, went to dinner, and laughed hard. On the last day, I grabbed several glasses of wine and laughed hard at jokes. That evening, one of the co-organizers introduced me to someone who said that they would be hiring soon for a technical writer (Let’s say Eve).
She said, “Hey Cynthia, meet Eve. She works at ABN AMRO, and I think they’re about to put out an ad to hire a tech writer”.
Seeing how busy Eve was, we had a quick chat about my digital nomad life, and we exchanged LinkedIn profiles; she promised to make an introduction to the hiring team. Later that week, Eve reached out to ask for my email address.
On Monday, she introduced me, and I met my current manager (Steven). Steven scheduled our first call, and to be honest, all I did was look him up to understand his kind of person and the company too (I do this for every interview. It is part of my prep. Understanding my interviewer and the company).
During our call, we laughed a lot. It felt like we were just mates or something. We spent more time chatting about travel, kids, and the weather than anything. It was a good call.
Long story short, I had 2 more calls after that, one with the senior technical writer on the team and another with the department lead, who happens to have worked at the company for over 27 years. I learned that while looking him up, which made a good conversation. I asked him why he'd stayed this long and asked many follow-up questions, and we ended up extending our time.
After the interview rounds, they emailed me that they needed to interview other people, too. At that point, I thought I shouldn’t hope so much and focus on my nomad life. Anyway, they had the interviews and sent me an email 2 weeks later offering me the job. At that moment, the interviewer and the interviewee realized something.
Through all the calls and interviews, I never saw the job description and didn’t even know anything about the pay. The interviewer also realized they had never seen a resume, CV, or cover letter.
The day they said I got the job and should expect the offer soon, I wrote back saying thank you and asked for the job description and the pay. Funny and weird, but we all laughed through the interview phases and didn’t even bother asking some essential questions. However, when the description came with the offer, it was way worth it.
That’s how I started my documentation and plan to relocate. I planned a trip to Lithuania, which made them move my resumption date from the first week to the third week.
Less than 2 months after the first time I met everyone at the conference, I had an offer to relocate and start working in a hybrid environment (That I love).
Why I Moved…
Here are some reasons I took the offer without thinking too much.
- It felt right — The people, how it happened, no stress.
- I was intentional about joining a company that allows a hybrid working environment. I’ve never worked from an office before and wanted to experience that.
- I was also particular about working as a technical writer because working this past 14 months as a developer advocate had me questioning my skillset.
- I wanted to work with someone — another technical writer and have an extra pair of eyes on my work.
- Above all, I needed a chance to grow. The past role made me feel stuck for such a long time. And after spending some time thinking things through, I knew exactly what I wanted to do next.
It’s been 6 weeks working with my new teammates, and I couldn't have made a better decision. The people are amazing and helpful. And I am looking forward to bringing my learnings and experience to the table soon.
I plan to spend my first 3 months learning about things and processes while supporting the senior technical writer as much as possible. The 3 months after that, I’ll bring my ideas and initiate things.
I look forward to doing great work and learning from seasoned bankers. I plan to put my best foot forward and, if possible, over-deliver. The goal is to do excellent work at every chance I get.
So, my dear friend here is to new beginnings and doing excellent work.
Till I write you again, Ciao.
PostLude…
One of the songs that gets me in high spirits is ‘Time Flies’ by Burna and Sauti Sol. When I am angry, pissed, tired, bored, I throw my headset on and dance slowly. The song reminds me to dance because I am not getting any younger. And if dancing in that moment is the only thing I have control over, I do it.
So don’t hold back, do what you gotta do
Take some love and give it back
Make your money, get that bag
I don’t know what you going through, yeah
This is your invitation to dance…
So, yeah. Dance!
