September 1, 2014 at 19:23How to waste six years of life, or a story of failure
Today on Habré various “success stories” have become very fashionable and popular, where people, overcoming and overcoming, achieve something, establish their own business and find their place in life. But no one likes to talk about their failures, failures, that at some point they “turned the wrong way”. This post will be such a story, which in general should not be done if you want to achieve at least something based on my personal rake and the story of how I spent a lot of time in vain.
From the profiles of many users, I see that there are a sufficient number of young people aged 16-22 on the hub and this story is probably just for them. If you are an accomplished specialist, this post is not worth your attention, just pass by. If you are a student, or a person who recently got his first job - ur welcome under cat; perhaps you will endure something useful for yourself.
I want to make money here and now
This is probably one of the main problems of young people with a baggage of unfulfilled ambitions and a complex of independence. While we are young, we strive to grow up, when we have matured, we begin to review our past, not the most successful decisions. One of the problems of the modern labor market is gaining experience. Probably for everyone this is not a secret; Everywhere we need people who at least somehow and somehow know how, no one wants to mess with juniors.
I started my labor practice in the graduation class, 2008 was on. Having a craving for picking my own PC and for hardware as such, I quickly found a couple of IPs from newspaper ads that provided the population with simple enikey services, such as cleaning, modular repair through replacement (sometimes soldering capacitors and re-balls from my friends video cards) of components, system roll-up, software and minimal setup \ training of work, in fact, with a computer.
At the first order, an old PC and a dead screw were waiting for me, whose sector table in Victoria was more like a cemetery than slender rows of gray rectangles pleasing to the eye. In general, there was something similar, only with crosses:
On the same day, through a “friend”, I bought a new screw and put, as it seemed to me, the car in order. But the problem was that the screw fitted to me turned out to be killed, and I did not check it anymore, trusting the person. As a result, the first order drove me to -100 $ (screw cost + work). I didn’t get back money from the “friend” for “sewn”, with the wording “you bought, I sold, not my problems, you need to check what you take.” I should stop here, but ...
But who should be afraid of difficulties? That's right, definitely not us. I continued to enikit, because I rather wanted to gain financial independence and not sit on the neck of my parents. Income, incidentally, was not the smallest. Although orders were not always available, on average $ 700-1,200 came out per month, which at 17 (and in those years) was simply fantastic.
Studying for wimps
Having entered the former MRTI for the beautiful specialty “Information Technology Engineer” of the Faculty of Information Technology and Management, I still did not appreciate the possibility of obtaining a tower. Why strain too much if I can already make money here and now? Even my department, the department of automation then did not impress me. An outdated curriculum, very eccentric teachers and my personal hell of higher mathematics have done their job. The university faded into the background and I continued to ride in other people's apartments, confident in the correctness of my choice. Having somehow broken through the first course, so that there was an opportunity to recover later, I expelled and took up exclusively work.
As if to omit personal drama, I can only say that this was one of my main mistakes. The work that I did did not give me any additional experience, but only brought income. Even then there was a halt in development.
You won’t believe it, but they didn’t even take me into the army. Yes. I was one of those fools who decide to voluntarily spend 1.5 years (in Belarus exactly), my life is even more useless. I didn’t have any health problems, so my father, speaking to me as a former Interior Ministry officer, quickly enough agreed that my personal file would be in the pile of call for special forces of the internal troops. To serve is so complete. The plan was simple:
1. Pay the “debt” to the state, and not run away from it, as they will find it anyway, and evasion here is a criminal article.
2. Continue to live further after the service, and then we'll see if he can make a career in law enforcement agencies, and not in IT.
But I didn’t get into the army, and according to medical indications and the opinion of a neurologist that I have nothing to do there. It was another failure. I continued to nibble on the enikey cactus and uselessly recovered to the full-time department at the university, losing a year to nothing. The winter session was more or less calm, but at the summer I again expelled - work and cockroaches of "independence" in my head haunted me.
The collapse of the economy and the change of activity
In 2011, the country “plummeted”, and seriously. The course collapsed 3 times, the currency was no longer sold, population incomes fell, and there was no work. Already officially employed in a small PUE, I somehow tried to flounder, but the employer constantly cut the percentage of my earnings. First, from 50% to 40%. Then he introduced indexation from 30% to 45% depending on the “cash desk”, then he lowered the bar to 25% and kept me there strictly, raising the indexation threshold at the cash desk every month, not allowing me to get more. Having lived in this mode for about six months, disappearing at work for 12-16 hours, 6-7 days a week, a strong-willed decision was made to leave at least in the state. organization, but for a stable, albeit low income.
Strange as it may seem, I rolled over to school, again enikit the park of the oldest administration PCs and other printers, calculators. I really understood that I needed a decent experience working with something serious, a unique experience, and I got it.
Too unique experience - a stone on the neck
Experience as such is needed, it is vital, especially in the IT industry. The more complex and interesting projects, the more comfortable you feel in the labor market. You can become the best at something in a certain place of work and it will seem to you that you are a valuable specialist. Yes, that’s how it is, in fact. But I will warn you, reader, from too unique experience. Seriously. I spent another 1.5 years working in a large successful company on a complex and interesting project, gained experience unique to our latitudes, and became one of the leading experts in my place. But this experience was just too unique and nowhere except my place of work was needed.
In March 2012, I was invited to Wargaming.net technical support to support the World Of Tanks project.
You know, professionally, it was probably my most waste of time. Although I, as a krivoruky young man, broke through training and got used to this meat grinder, and after that I became one of the leading specialists in game mechanics, moving away from those. support, participated in the creation of a new support department and staff training, this did not bring significant dividends. Yes, I learned about undercover layouts and catching “currents”, understanding management in the style of “I’m the boss - you are a fool” and methods of influencing the team. For example, the technique of blurring the personality and developing a complex of constant guilt, i.e. "Collective responsibility." Even if you didn’t do anything bad, then you are to blame for the fact that your colleague did something bad, but you didn’t keep track of (etc.)
In general, the uniqueness of work experience in Wargaming.net support can hardly be overestimated , because it costs nothing . Yes, reader, if you are working on a unique project and within the framework of this project has become a specialized specialist (igromeh), this does not mean at all that the skills and working methods that you will acquire will be needed at least somewhere else on this blue ball, as in my case. You always need to think about whether your
Well, actually, now, a year after leaving the “tanks”, the final awareness and insight came (The author is slow, yes). Six years of work, which did not really teach anything, but only allowed to identify some inclinations. Yes, my income fell several times compared with the initial ~ 700-1200 $ per month, but I got a great lesson.
At the moment, I have begun to leave the sphere of support and am gaining knowledge to change professions within the framework of IT. Of course, scary, but it had to be done a long time ago.
Very obvious moral
1. Good money today does not mean good money tomorrow.
2. If you think that you are accustomed to something and know well - learn new things, do not stop developing.
3. Avoid becoming too narrow a specialist, uniqueness is good, but in moderation.
4. Do not waste time on unpromising activities. If you feel that you cannot realize yourself in any sphere as you would like, look for something that will bring you both income and peace of mind of self-realization.
5. Do not wait when you press and want to howl. Then it will be too late.
6. If you think that something needs to be changed today or tomorrow, then this should have been started yesterday.
7. Do not be afraid of changes in the profession. It is better to make mistakes and fill up cones than to do nothing because of fear of a new one, and then regret the years spent ineptly.
Do you have your own story of failure?