Background

I'd been bored, unfulfilled and getting slightly complacent in my job. It may sound big headed to say, but it was true that I could (figuratively) do my job in my sleep. I had done it for 15 years and I had definitely hit a ceiling. There was no 'Senior Print Production Manager' job to be had, every few years the company added some new innovation and new products and I just absorbed all the new information and carried on.

The past couple of years, I had become disillusioned with my role. Upper management were not taking my ideas on board and I was tasked with more and more work because they knew I would just get on with it and the job didn't challenge me in a positive way. It got to the point where I just wasn't looking forward to going into the office anymore.

I began to take an interest in coding, at first I just wanted to see how websites worked so I found a Udemy course that gave me the beginnings I wanted, unfortunately I didn't have the time to commit myself fully into the subject so the course tended to be a start stop activity when I had time, I initially applied for Cohort 3 of School of Code, but didn't continue with my application as I wasn't in a position to quit my job and learn full time.

Around a year ago in my company cuts were starting to be made in all areas of the business as the company tried to save money. ( I should say that my company mainly printed products for schools) Schools were ordering less and less. This is where my complacency came into play a bit. I was so good at my job, and the company in no way had anyone who could take over what I brought to the table, but I still didn't see the writing on the wall. Then Covid-19 happened.

Furlough

I was furloughed, which wasn't surprising as the schools had all closed and so there would be no orders coming in. I used the extra time I had to look more into coding and found a great interest in the subject. Being furloughed I should have used the time to knuckle down and get firm grasp on the subject, that's not what happened. Having been working full time or in full time education for pretty much my entire life (I went from school to university and a part time job to full time employment) i decided to take some downtime. I spent time learning the keyboard, playing way, way too much Playstation and a surprisingly large amount of time fishing. I was in alien territory as I had never been unemployed.

Again this is where the complacency starts to creep back in as I fully believed that once Covid was under control I could go back into my job and everything would go back to normal. I was in constant contact with my employer who assured me that everything was ok with the business. Then one week it wasn't.

I received a call from my boss saying that we needed a meeting, during the first of what turned out to be three meetings, I was told that my job was at risk of redundancy. At that point I knew my job wasn't at risk, it was already gone (the third meeting was them telling me I was made redundant). I was asked the normal questions of whether I had any ideas of how the company could save money, I offered suggestions on how they could raise the companies profile,
new product ideas which they hadn't taken on board before when I suggested them and I even offered to take a pay cut, but I already knew they had made their minds up and this was them doing everything 'the legal way'. A lot of people may have felt like it was a punch to the gut to be told their job was at risk. I felt, almost a sense of relief, I was being forced to take a look at my working life and make some decisions.

The Next Step

You may think at this point that I would finally follow my dream of becoming a full time coder. You'd be wrong. I was trying to think practically, I had a full time job which was coming to an end, I have bills and a mortgage to pay and I was on what I would call decent money, so to swap that to pursue a career in a field I had no expertise in would (I believed) be foolish. After finding out I was being made redundant, I made a plan in my head. I had a three month notice period to work off and I was put on gardening leave so I had all the time in the world to apply for jobs, which I began doing. I updated my C.V and applied for positions I felt I would be suited for. Let's call this 'panic mode'. The problem with being so loyal to one company for your entire career is 1. The notice period, which in my case was 3 months. 2. The lack of experience. Yes I had 15 years experience as a Print Production Manager but I had already decided that I did not want to get back into that field. This was my fresh start, so it was all about finding what I had in transferable skills to take into a new role. This is where I was finding problems, transferable skills are a great thing to have, but a lot of jobs that I found interesting were not looking for transferable skills, they were looking for actual skills. It got to the point where I was applying for jobs and being told I wasn't moving forward or recruitment agencies telling me they didn't have anything that fit my skills or just not getting any response at all. This is when I saw the School of Code were preparing for another bootcamp.

School of Code

I had followed the School of Code since I applied for the 3rd Cohort about ten months previously. On that occasion I took time to make my avatar as part of the application but didn't submit it in time. At that point in my life I was working long hours and didn't believe I was at the best point to move on with the application. When I saw that they were putting on another bootcamp I instantly applied and submitted my avatar, I figured I would see what the next step of the process was. Once I had submitted my video answering questions about myself I figured that would be as far as it went, when I made it through that, the next stage truly opened my eyes.

The scratch project truly was an amazing thing to put into the application process. After watching the CS50 video, and completing the scratch project that followed, I had decided that this was what I was going to do and I would do anything to get there. I started looking into other bootcamps I could finance myself as i never believed I could get through all the application stages. I started up the Udemy course again and found different apps to help with my skills. I figured I had my redundancy money to fall back on to help finance any course I ended up doing, but I made the decision to make the career jump.

Now

Now, I wouldn't be writing this blog post if I had not been successful. It's the right time for me to be doing this and in the grand scheme of things everything seems to have fallen into place at just the right time. If I hadn't had been made redundant at that exact point I would not have applied and be changing my career now. I'm beyond excited to be starting this journey and will give it my all to make myself successful.