Drama Drama, or How I Got Into Tech
Embarking on the bootcamp journey, I thought I was going to die. I wanted to blame D. — my friend, he’s an IT — like ‘it’s you who got me into this’, but frankly, he didn’t. It was me myself who did that.
Back to time
As a writer, copywriter, editor, SMM, and journalist working for a Publishing House for years (having them as a general client, I’d even forgotten that I am a freelancer), I’ve felt I need to do something else. Even though I always grow and expand my competencies in all possible directions. Sometimes it just happens: we should change our ways.
I’ve been so tired of endless meetings, and loads of work incompatible neither with its rates nor with the fact that I hadn’t a life apart from my job. Not to mention the war that started when Russia attacked Ukraine making the prospects of working with that country impossible, while we don’t have a proper writers market in my home country.
And here I was with my poor English, unlike perfectly mastered Russian (I’m an awarded writer), nearly burned out of my job, with the only desire to do with as few people as possible.
It’s going to be easy…
All D. did was just motivate me a little by saying ‘I perfectly understand you don’t like office jobs, but you really need to get new skills.’
I screamed like a wounded mammoth because it’s fairly true. I’m not even like ‘I don’t like’ office jobs, I hate them with all my mind and don’t want them ever again. So I rushed to apply for all remote vacancies first, no matter what it was, but then got back in mind and recalled I’d had a plan.
I was going to join a bootcamp next year, and actually, I hadn’t been by now, but it was clear nothing changes next year either.
So what else should I have done?
I couldn’t go fast with any of my learnings because I had a job. So I applied for Bootcamp and even got an invitation for a test, and I was sure I wouldn’t pass it.
But I did, all of a sudden. Purely accidentally, I guess. I didn’t even feel confident enough with my English, not to mention the rest.
‘I’m very proud that you made it into the training programme, I hope you do really well,’ said D.
I was proud too, but it also was clear nothing was going to be easy, so I wasn’t sure I’ll do well.
‘It’ll be fine,’ he said, meaning Cloud and Automation. It’s much easier than your Python,’ he said.
(He just doesn’t like Pythoners, you know).
Honestly, I wanted to just join AWS Clouds, but this bootcamp was already closed at the moment, and I thought it’d be even better to get a more flexible profession.
And I had been dying there. I’d been crying and dying every single day as I was overloaded. No, I was over-overloaded!
I couldn’t go along with the guys who were all experienced, I needed more time for doing tasks and felt like I was an idiot.
‘I just can’t go through this,’ I said. ‘I’m not able,’ I said, crying.
And you can appreciate how tricky he is. There wasn’t any so-called positive rubbish like ‘go on, you can do that’ or ‘I believe in you’. Even, you know, nothing to blame him like ‘you are just dumb, and heartless, you don’t understand me.’ Literally, in a case like that, I’d just throw a tantrum immediately. But no.
‘Just do your best,’ he said, ‘and don’t think about the rest. Just go. Things are easier than you think it is.
I wondered if I should have to believe it.
No sense panicking, even if you are not going to survive
I also was going to spend all week-end learning, having been needed to catch things up. But he said, don’t think about Bootcamp today, have the rest you need (this was true again. I somehow should have been able to go through this for all month), and also have a coffee with brandy for breakfast or something you like to drink.
I did that, and it was one of very few times in my life when I was drunk (ok, a little) in the morning. I was sitting secretly reading Bootcamp things trying to do some tasks, and got stuck there again.
But I’d done with panic. It just didn’t make sense. However, I had no idea if I would survive.
Gin and tears
‘I’m lost,’ I wrote to D. the next day, ‘completely and absolutely. I’m lost from the very beginning as usual. I can’t do this task. I tried to install something I needed, got too behind in the lecture, and now have no idea what the task was. I just can’t.’
And once he knew what I was talking about, he told me they were moving much too fast.
‘You should have at least a month to get ready for this.’
‘This is a Bootcamp,’ I said, sobbing.
However, I was comforted by his empathy (finally! I couldn’t even expect this cruel man to say any kind word to me) and, as I couldn’t even hope for any good, I’d been going through the tutorial while the rest of the guys were doing the task.
That’s how it normally looked like for me. Quite a usual day, nothing more.
Don’t believe if something looks easy, it’s always a trap. Don’t believe if someone says oh, it’s simple (punch them in the face).
Anyone who’s got here, leave any hope.
Once I was back to the lecture, I realized I understood! I got what they shared on the screen and what happened there. I recognized commands and its goal, I even caught up with a couple of things by looking at someone’s code.
Nonetheless, I had no hope for tomorrow. Everything will go around again, I already knew that.
This is how it looked to me. Every single day. I had about two weeks remaining and wasn’t sure I was wasting my time on something I was not capable of.
So these were gin and tears in #myenglishchat
Nobody understands jokes here…
I know, said D., this course has been a challenge for you, but. A lot of your problems could be resolved simply by reading and understanding instructions.
‘When,’ I screamed, ‘when? Keeping in mind that they are not always understandable so easily. Everything goes too fast, I have no time to read instructions properly, I’m overloaded.’
‘That shouldn’t have been like that,’ said D.
‘I know,’ I said, ‘that’s how Bootcamp works.’
‘I am really sorry,’ he said, ‘it’s made you so unhappy.’
Ah, I thought. Right, I thought.
And asked why he thinks this way.
‘I read your telegram channel, you said that you were sobbing.’
I put my files off for a while to write a long piece of explanations. I’m emotional and sometimes need to cry to relieve tension.
(That’s why I find it difficult to spend much time with people. On one hand, who likes crybabies? On another hand, as a crybaby I hate if someone sees me crying ).
The only way to cope with it is silly jokes, self-irony (I don’t like the word self-deprecation, self-irony seems to be more accurate to me), sarcasm, and black humor, and this is exactly what led to the fact that not everyone who meet me can tell whether I’m serious or joking.
Not sure if I even need it, and I got all confused by the fact — who was telling me such things? D. is English!
If you know what English humor is.
It seemed to me that exaggerations (or vice versa), self-irony, sarcasm and black jokes must be a natural part of culture code for both cultures, but… ok, that was true. I sobbed, yes. I need that sometimes, and probably can expect it a couple of times yet before I’ve finished the course.
And yes, I know how difficult it could be for those who tend to help by the action. What should we do with that? Let’s be realistic: sometimes there are just no ways to help, apart from emotional support.
He said that words don’t help. I said he was cruel.
‘Me?’ he resented. ‘I’m sitting here with no chance to help you. You are
2000 miles away, I feel so guilty, and you keep saying how unhappy you are. Who’s cruel? ’
So I tried to explain that being honest and silly at the same time is the only way to cope with stress, particularly in such cases, and the hard time just passes.
‘Actually, I feel proud,’ I said.
(That’s what I felt, no jokes this time, no exaggerations, true feelings).
‘I just need to survive,’ I added.
‘I’m very proud of you for getting this far,’ said D. ‘This course is a lot harder than I expected.’
Then I asked.
‘Wouldn’t it be silly to imagine a gravestone, where’d be written import json and then the usual things, like name, dates, and epitaph.’
‘I’m sure there will be eventually,’ he said most earnestly.
I’ve re-read it three times and am still trying to figure out if he was joking or not.
There were psychological things in #myenglishchat.
Starting to use programmer’s Zen
This day I thought I’d perish somewhere in the depths of Jenkins (such a tricky thing, you’d be naive if you believe it’s simple).
I’ve been halfway to getting it installed, stuck with a port, but didn’t get why, broke my command shell, and went to the lunch break. Then I watched some videos and finally got what I was doing and why. Then, going back to the lecture, went halfway from the very beginning again, expectedly stuck with a port, and got it was the reason. Then, everyone (but me) got stuck with ssh-connection, then I got into this trouble as well, and then, while everyone had things fixed, I broke my Jenkins entirely.
It seems to me I started to reach a stoical programmer’s Zen.
Hoorish then.
We made it through everything
While learning, I’ve used 3 glycine packs, 5 jelly bears packs and 2 chocolate bars, about 100 drops of sedative drops diluted in hot water (I call that my emergency grog), one single gin, and yet I flooded the environment with my tears.
This is what going through the course cost me.
Yes, let’s be honest, my choice of Cloud and Automation course hasn’t been what I planned to get. I’ve made it sort of randomly. The AWS Clouds course, which D. recommended, was already closed. I just thought that more would be better than less, something complicated would always be useful, etc. I had no idea how complicated it actually could be, but I did that.
Selected collection about the course
1.
My friend Oona (on the phone, on the 3d day of my learning, listening to my tries g not to cry): Oh dear, but you’re a writer! You are just humanitarian, my friend, you can’t do that!
me (getting dry immediately). My friend. As. I. Told you a lot before. There are no humanitarians there. There is just laziness, total ignorance, stereotypes, and learned helplessness syndrome, which is just the trauma of the Soviet people and nothing more. You can notice that all the best writers are mostly mathematicians, physicists, and doctors. The text-building process is the same coding actually, just more complicated. The same logical structures. The same set of languages, styles, and the ways to organize them. The text structure analysis is the same with…
Oona: Please, shut up.
2.
My father on the phone. (Doesn’t understand anything that I was trying to explain).
me (inspired): ‘The only thing I’m not comfortable with is exponentiation, for example. I can’t get why we have to do that. Who even needs it? What is the point?
Father: Just go have a cup of tea with what you’re saying.
3.
D. (about an hour after I’d finished my last lecture. Probably still drying his T-shirts, moistened with my tears):
‘Having been through the course, do you even want a job like that?’
me. ‘Yes, for sure. Just no control freaks, no office maniacs, no office. That’s the goal.’
He didn’t comment on this and now I know why. Everyone has this trouble with poor management, endless meetings, and sometimes overcontrol at their jobs, regardless of the field.
And this is a separate question. There is always some way, so I’m looking at UX, or technical writing with a favor of the last. I quit my job, got back to freelance, and keep learning.
A few months later
We met in person a few months later. When it came to the subject, we both rushed toward each other screaming ‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’
‘I’m so sorry I’ve made you so unhappy! I didn’t realize it’d be so harsh for you!’
‘It was me who’s made you like this! I know what you felt! I’m so sorry!’
‘Frankly, you are very brave. If I were you, I’d simply run away.’
‘It’d be so wrong to give up in the very beginning, while nothing, in fact, depended on this particular bootcamp. I needed where to start, and I did it.’
Just don’t be afraid to change your way.
