So its been a while. My last post. A few things have changed. The big one is I moved out of California. I did and didn’t want to move. First off, it is, sadly, getting too expensive to live there. Even in my tiny town (well maybe not so tiny anymore…200k+ residents last time I looked). I wasn’t trying to pay 1700/month for a 1-bedroom apartment. As much as I loved my hometown and the area, it was time for a change.
So, I moved to Idaho! Haha. No, I didn’t throw a dart at a map or pick a place at random. My sister lives out here, so the move had two benefits. Bigger place for less money (and cheaper overall cost of living) and I get to be near my nieces again. That also means I’m 100% remote at work. It has been nice not being able to be talked into going into the office to do other peoples’ jobs…but it has its own complications. Overall, it has been a good change for me.
Speaking of changes, that’s the other change I’m going to be making. During my review at work, I committed to my boss that I would learn more things to be more useful at work (not that I’m not doing multiple peoples’ jobs still) but I need more than just that to get a raise it sounds like. Those people will eventually learn to do their jobs right or end up fired and so I can’t really rely on guilt-tripping work into giving me a raise for always having to clean up other peoples’ messes. I’ve been thinking it over more about what I should focus on and I’m going back and forth between learning docker, learning cloud, or learning Linux. I mean Linux seems like the obvious choice since it is foundational to the rest of them, but at the same time I know enough Linux to do my job…mostly…anything I don’t know I can easily look up. I’ll investigate that certification later. I was thinking about learning cloud since we do use some cloud providers…but that’s mostly on the infrastructure side, not client side so I don’t have any interaction with that, we have staff who manage our cloud servers for us.
Since I work in support and we use Docker containers for some of our products, I’m thinking learning Docker better is my first step…but even that doesn’t seem like a great fit since the software that is running in containers has a whole team of developers who manage that and can help if that part of our product has problems. I know my manager wants me to take manager training classes since moving up seems to be the best way to get a raise, but since I don’t technically manage anyone anymore, it isn’t a huge priority for me right now.
I could learn about security more and go back to learning python and go for a hacking cert…but that doesn’t help me in my current job. Yes, it could help me find a different job, but I do enjoy (for the most part) where I work and what I do. As I am working for an Ai and IoT company, I’m not 100% sure pursuing my cybersecurity studies I started in college is the best goal right now. I was wanting to relearn my web development (a lot has changed since the early 00’s when I was into it) which is also part of why I started this website, to blog about my learning journey and maybe try to get some freelance work to make extra money, but honestly, I’m usually just so wiped from work that I have a hard time finding the energy to sit in front of a computer even longer and studying. Sadly, since I graduated from college, I’ve picked up some bad habits and have let myself fall into a bit of a rut when it comes to improving myself.
So, is this what a midlife crisis feels like? Unfortunately, I don’t make enough to buy a sports car or travel or whatever I’m supposed to do when having a midlife crisis…but I do need to make a change. Moving to a new place I’ve never lived in before isn’t a big enough change, I still feel like I’m in a bit of a rut. It has been almost 2 years since I finished school and I haven’t pushed myself to learn anything new (outside of simple required stuff for work). I’m almost 40 and I need to start taking care of myself better too.
…And now my mind is going a million miles an hour. Sometimes I hate being a night person. Good night for now.