Reddit death > installing mint on my second PC > realising I can run most of the games I play and installing mint on my main PC > start learning Rust as a first foray into programming in a long time > realise I want to go back to uni and study info tech to get out of my shitty marketing job > get a shitty second hand laptop off my parents that struggles to run windows and install endeavourOS to try something different.
It really is a slippery slope. When does it end???
I've got a pretty good mixture of qualifications and am working in a tech adjacent role so I'm not starting from nothing. I have some decent connections and might be able to carve out something at my current org. So it could be worse.
Nah, just not the best time. That was 1996. 2021 was pretty good too.
Besides some high profile layoffs, there are still tons of tech jobs out there in less visible industries. Widget factories and insurance companies all have IT people, along with every one else in general.
Eh, it's not bad. Everywhere there's computers they'll need a computer janitor to keep them running. It's just not the insanity of 2021-2 where everyone needed techs and starting wages were rising rapidly
Why? No worse than any other job market right now. Sure Google layoffs get headlines but it's not like tech skill are getting any less employable across sectors. If anything those skills are more critical now than ever.
Sure, the skills are critical. But the tech industry is dysfunctional right now, and there are no signs of reform on the horizon. Anyone attempting to break into the industry is going to find it extremely difficult to get started without experience, as companies don't want to hire entry-level candidates anymore.
Even though there may be lots of high-pay, high-skill job openings, there is a dearth of true entry-level positions in IT that don't require existing work experience and advanced skills.
The next step, you're handwriting a fixit code because said ancient one off laptop won't compile linux from scratch properly and some stupid piece of essential hardware is blocking your efforts to get to the shell first time.
You still have yet to get through some pis, then a couple of OSX boxes, a Windows VM on proxmox or when you find something in particular you want that's easier in that direction. Then move into kubernetes.
You'll end up with a couple of everything living their best life.
realise I want to go back to uni and study info tech
I highly recommend it! College as an adult who's been in the workforce is way better than college as a kid fresh out of highschool. Great opportunity to make some more friends, do some cool college activities, plus there's lots of good opportunities for student pricing on stuff if you have a .edu email and its a brilliant change of pace.
It ends when you write an AI better at configuring Linux than you are, but is also very good at soothing your pride... The latter is the infamous "alignment problem"
My slippery slope started with buying an old laptop off my company and deciding to install Ubuntu on it. Now all of my devices run Linux, I switched to Android with a FOSS ROM, degoogled myself in almost every way, and I run Nextcloud on an old laptop. Feels great to really own my devices and data.
