I still account the Post Office to have been one of the worst work experiences. Not the bottom, though aspects of it and some of the events there were pretty well the worst. When I first started, that first day, when we took our Oath to the Constitution of the United States, I was genuinely on board. I was so proud.
Reality eventually settled in. I think it may have actually been during my training at the distribution center, before I even got to my station and began the real work, I got a call from the company that I had been doing contract work for, up unto a few weeks prior. I was tentatively offered the chance to join the parent company. At the time, I had told myself that I was devoted to the Post Office, that I had made my choice and I was going to stick it. So, I declined the opportunity. And regretted that choice not long after.
I put in effort, I tried my best, and I felt beat down by their system. One day, I don’t recall exactly how it went down, whether it was a phone call or an email or something I saw online. I do remember the initial phone call, about a Full-stack Web Development boot camp. It was another time and money commitment, which we had already done with ComputerTraining.com. This one though was right up my alley, it was what I wanted to do. I had left a job in IT support and moved halfway across the country trying to break into development.
I felt like I had the groundwork, just not the enhanced know-how that I needed to get a proper development job. I called my wife, after talking to the recruiter and telling her about the opportunity. Then we began planning what we would do. My initial plan was to do the six month course in the evenings and find some other form of work to do during the day, as my schedule at the Post Office did not allow for regularity. Ultimately, I ended up quitting and we got by on what we had and I did the daytime program and finished in three months, instead of the six.
They were a tough three months, they were some of the best three months. I made several friends, who I have unfortunately allowed my acquaintance with to lapse. I was able to devote myself to coding and learning. I set my intention and I followed it through. I worked at learning. I put in every effort and except for our final project, which suffered from a lack of management, we did amazing. Our final project was a piece of hard work, quite good, just a bit lacking cohesive direction.
During the course, I put in all the effort that I had not been able to put in in school. I cared about what I was doing and I feel that it showed. We had weekly assignments, not that grades mattered, it wasn’t officially school, even if it pretended. Still, we had assignments, there were two levels to them. We could do a basic project, showing that we had learned the weeks lesson. Or we could do the advanced project, showing that we had learned it and that we could push ourselves and what we had learned a little farther. I always did the harder assignment, with one exception for a project I couldn’t get multi-player to work.
I set my goal with the boot camp and I achieved my goal. I got my work from it and I lost my work from it. And I am trying to figure out now what my next goal will be.