Re: The fear of "Too Late"

by bomaye Wed Oct 07, 2015 6:19 am

So a fog kind of lifted earlier in the early afternoon yesterday and I was like "Oh, I guess I could try going to BCIT for some kind of computer degree or something?"

by **reboot** Wed Oct 07, 2015 8:42 am

bomaye wrote:So a fog kind of lifted earlier in the early afternoon yesterday and I was like "Oh, I guess I could try going to BCIT for some kind of computer degree or something?"

Yay for no more foggy brain! And cool on checking out some classes. If I were you, I would also take some of the free classes linked earlier and follow Nearly Takuan's advice in the thread I linked (yep, shamelessly promoting you again, boyo, that was some spot on advice). Worst outcome is you decide computer programming is not for you before registering for any classes Smile

by **Enail** Wed Oct 07, 2015 12:54 pm

Awesome, glad to hear it!

by bomaye Wed Oct 07, 2015 6:27 pm

And I got intimidated again because the idea of competing against early 20-somethings for computer jobs when I haven't been doing computer stuff for years = welp :/

by **Enail** Wed Oct 07, 2015 7:13 pm

Don't get scared off too easily. You're not going to be measured against other people in some kind of age vs. experience graph; you'll get some skills and/or credentials, apply for things that fit those skills/credentials, and what people will know and care about is what you're bringing to the table, not how old you are.

by bomaye Wed Oct 07, 2015 7:19 pm

But they will care about how old I am vs what I haven't done with my time.

by **Enail** Wed Oct 07, 2015 7:26 pm

They are not going to know how old you are. They are not legally allowed to ask that. You're probably going to want to do a thing or two to add some 'things you've done with your time' to your resume, but they do not need to know how much time that is.

by bomaye Wed Oct 07, 2015 7:36 pm

But they'll find out pretty quickly if I slip by that way

by **Enail** Wed Oct 07, 2015 7:37 pm

You mean if they hire you, and then find out?

by bomaye Wed Oct 07, 2015 7:41 pm

Yeah. I've got a significant gap that there's no good excuse for, and I don't really have passion for things as much as just comfort. Programming or fiddling with computers doesn't scare me, but it's not something that gets me excited to play around with them either. I don't really have things that get me excited/passionate/interested to go hard at them.

by **Werel** Wed Oct 07, 2015 7:41 pm

Also, keep in mind that if you're in school for a couple years, nobody's gonna give a shit about what you did BEFORE those couple years. Plenty of technically-true-but-posi-spin answers to give about what you did before going back to school: "I just wasn't on a path I felt like was going anywhere"; "I was just treading water after high school, but now I'm excited about moving forward in a meaningful career"; "Nothing to write home about, that's for sure, HAR HAR now hire me". They don't care if you spent a decade sunbathing on a yacht in Turks & Caicos or sitting motionless in a recliner in a dark room; if it's not directly related to the field, that's as far as their interest extends, so you don't need to sweat justifying your time too much.

by sky Wed Oct 07, 2015 7:48 pm

Especially in tech jobs, what they will really be looking for is evidence that you can do the skills (programming, troubleshooting, whatever) that the job requires. You can build up a portfolio of some examples from your schoolwork, if say, you're going to be programming, and that should cover it pretty well. You don't have to talk much about what you've done or not done that's not relevant to the job.

by **Enail** Wed Oct 07, 2015 8:01 pm

Once you're hired, they're not going to care how old you are or really anything else from your resume, just how you do the work. And everyone likes to talk a lot about wanting passionate workers, but honestly, what many employers really want are competent workers who are willing to do their work and aren't a giant pain to work with.

I think you kind of need to just recognize that the experience gap is an aspect that scares you, remind yourself that it might not be as impassable as you think and accept that you're just going to have to try something anyway, or you're going to keep coming back to it and panicking yourself over again no matter what career path you're looking at. If it's not something you can see being able to handle trying in the foreseeable future, you might do better to start off by trying some of the online task for money-type things that don't have much of an entry bar and gradually building up to some freelance work with higher bars, and reevaluating things at that point.

by bomaye Fri Oct 09, 2015 5:17 pm

Thought I'd be over the worst of it by now since it's approaching two weeks, but I had a high-anxiety day the other day and a caffeine headache last night :/

by **Enail** Fri Oct 09, 2015 5:29 pm

Boo

Hopefully it's just a few last gasps before it's done.

by **Werel** Fri Oct 09, 2015 6:23 pm

Seconding boo. Hope it's not anxiety/headaches from some other thing. Neutral

by bomaye Sat Oct 10, 2015 4:57 am

Yeah, I don't even know anymore to be honest. I have an addictive personality, so it might just be covering over anxiety or whatever it is

by **reboot** Sat Oct 10, 2015 9:15 am

This is going to sound a bit woo woo, but look up some basic yoga routines on YouTube and try some of the breathing and any stretches where your head is not pointed down (learned this the hard way) when you have tension headaches or anxiety. It works for me because it gets my mind off whatever and focused on a physical sensation and breathing. I think it also helps because the stretching pain in, say, my hamstring gets me to stop focusing on the pain in my head. YMMV

by bomaye Sat Oct 10, 2015 11:10 pm

Talked to my sister a bit about things and she had some things to say

by **Enail** Sun Oct 11, 2015 11:13 am

Oh, that's good that you're talking to your family a bit. Anything helpful?

by bomaye Mon Oct 12, 2015 6:53 pm

It was mostly "You think too much" and "Look at all the people our age or older working at places like Tim Hortons (I don't know anybody "our age" working at Timmy's, most of the guys I know went blue collar or oil patch and are making a lot of money so that kind of rang hollow) or "If you don't get into it you're always going to be out" and "I don't get why you'd waste time trying to compare yourself to people, we're not in high school anymore." And something about "you just haven't applied yourself."

by **Enail** Mon Oct 12, 2015 7:16 pm

That sounds like a rather frustrating conversation.

by bomaye Mon Oct 12, 2015 9:55 pm

It wasn't so much frustrating as like... our brains work really differently and she doesn't seem to worry about anything at all, so of course she thinks like this.

by **Enail** Mon Oct 12, 2015 10:08 pm

That sounds frustrating to me Razz

by bomaye Tue Oct 13, 2015 11:44 pm

Got upset about something from over the weekend, and instead of finding some hidden place and crying about it or something, I just kind of overcaffeinated myself instead.

This is pretty pathetic. I don't even do "real" addict-type things like alcohol or drugs or sex :/

I've also got big-time shame problems with making mistakes. I'd get jumped all over whenever I made them as a kid from pretty much anyone and everyone, so now I have to know exactly what I'm doing beforehand or people will jump all over me again (which they still do).

by Sponsored content