How to spend six years of life wasted, or the story of failure

Today on Habré various “success stories” have become very fashionable and popular, where people, overcoming and overcoming, achieve something, establish their 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 is generally not worth doing if you want to achieve at least something based on my personal rake and stories about how I spent a lot of time in vain.

According to the profiles of many users, I see that there are a sufficient number of young people of 16-22 years old on Habré, and this story is probably 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

Probably, this is one of the main problems of young people with a baggage of unrealized ambitions and a complex of independence. While we are young, we strive to grow up, when we matured, we begin to reconsider our past, not the most successful decisions. One of the problems of the modern labor market is gaining experience. It is probably not a secret for everyone; Everywhere people are needed who at least somehow and somehow know how, no one wants to mess with juniors.
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I began my work practice in the senior class, it was 2008. Having a craving for picking my own PC and for the glands as such, I quickly found advertisements in the newspaper for a couple of individual entrepreneurs who provided the population with the services of the simplest enikee, such as cleaning, modular repair through replacement (sometimes re-soldering from their familiar capacitors and re-ball video cards) components, system roll-ups, software, and minimal setup / learning to work with the computer itself.

At the first order I was waited by an old PC and a dead screw, the sector table of which in Victoria was more like a graveyard than slender rows of gray rectangles that delighted the eye. In general, there was something similar, only with crosses:



On the same day, through a “friend”, I bought a new screw and brought, as it seemed to me, the car in order. But the problem was that the screw fitted to me was killed, and I did not check it, trusting the person. As a result, the very first order drove me to $ 100 (screw cost + work). I didn’t get back from the “friend” for the “awl”, with the wording “you bought, I sold, not my problems, you need to check what you take”. I’d have to stop here, but ...

But who should be frightened by difficulties? That's right, just not us. I continued enike, because I rather wanted to gain financial independence and not sit on the neck of my parents. Income, by the way, was not the smallest. Although orders were not always, but on average $ 700-1200 a month came out, which at 17 years (and in those years) was just fiction.

Study for wimps

Having entered the former MRTI at the beautiful specialty "Information Technology Engineer" of the Faculty of Information Technology and Management, I still did not appreciate the possibility of getting a tower. Why bother too hard if I can already make money here and now? Even my department, the department of automation, did not impress me then. Outdated curriculum, very eccentric teachers and my personal hell of higher mathematics did their job. Univer faded into the background and I continued to ride through other people's apartments, confident in the correctness of my choice. Having somehow broken through the first course, in order to be able to recover in the future, I left and worked exclusively on work.

As if we omit the personal drama, I will say only that this was one of my main mistakes. The work that I was engaged in did not give me any additional experience, but only brought in income. Even then there was a halt in development.

You will not believe, but even in the army they did not take me. 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, having talked to me, as a former employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, quickly enough agreed that my personal file would be in the pile of the call for special forces of the internal troops. To serve - so full. The plan was simple:

1. To give "duty" to the state, and not to run from it, because you will still find it, and evading us is a criminal article.
2. Continue to live further after the service, and then we'll see, it can make a career in power structures, and not in IT.

But I did not get into the army, and for medical reasons and the opinion of the neurologist that I have nothing to do there. It was another failure. I continued to gnaw on the enikei cactus and uselessly recovered to the full-time department at the university, having lost a year in the empty. The winter session was more or less calm, but I again dropped out on the summer session - the work and the cockroaches of “independence” did not give rest in their heads.

The collapse of the economy and the change of activity

In 2011, the country "bahnul", and seriously. The course collapsed 3 times, the currency stopped selling, the income of the population fell, there was no work. Already officially employed in a small unitary enterprise, I somehow tried to flounder, but my employer constantly cut down the percentage of my earnings. First, from 50% to 40%. Then he introduced the indexation from 30% to 45% depending on the "cash", then lowered the bar to 25% and kept me strictly there, raising the indexation threshold on the cash desk every month, not allowing me to get more. Having lived in this mode for about half a year, disappearing at work for 12-16 hours 6-7 days a week, it was a volitional decision to leave, even though in the state. organization, but on a stable, albeit low income.

I rolled, oddly enough, to school, again eniqit the park of the oldest administration PCs and other calculator printers. I really understood that I needed a decent experience with something serious, a unique experience, and I got it.

Too unique experience - a stone around his 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 in something at a certain place of work and it will seem to you that you are a valuable specialist. Yes, this is exactly the case. But I warn you, the reader, against a very unique experience. Seriously. I spent another 1.5 years working at a large successful company on a complex and interesting project, I got a unique experience for our latitudes, I became one of the leading experts in my place. But this experience was too unique and nowhere, except for my place of work, it was not needed.

In March 2012 I was invited to technical support of Wargaming.net, to support the project World Of Tanks.

You know, professionally, it was probably my most useless waste of time. Although I, like a Krivoruk youth, broke through the training and mastered this meat grinder, and then I became one of the leading specialists in game mechanics, moving away from those. support, participated in the creation of a new department of support and training of employees, it did not bring significant dividends. Yes, I learned the undercover scenario and the catching of "currents", the understanding of management in the style of "I am the boss - you are a fool" and methods of influencing the team. For example, the method of blurring the personality and the development of a complex of permanent guilt, i.e. "Collective responsibility". Even if you have not done anything bad, then you are guilty of the fact that your colleague did something bad and you did not follow (and so on)

In general, the uniqueness of experience in the support of Wargaming.net, it is difficult to overestimate , because it does not cost anything . Yes, reader, if you work on a unique project and become a specialist within the framework of this project (igromeh), this does not at all mean that the skills and working methods that you acquire will be needed anywhere else on this blue ball, as in my case. You should always think about whether your cool experience and your cool skills besides your current place of work will be useful at least somewhere else.

Well, actually, now, a year after leaving the “tanks”, the final awareness and insight came (Slow, yes). Six years of work, which really did not teach anything, but only allowed to reveal some tendencies. Yes, my income fell several times compared with the initial $ 700-1200 per month, but I got an excellent lesson.

At the moment I started to leave the area of ​​support and acquire knowledge to change the profession in the framework of IT. Of course, scary, but it had to be done long ago.

Very obvious moral

1. Good money today does not mean good money tomorrow.
2. If you think that you have mastered something and know well - learn new things, do not stop in development.
3. Avoid becoming too “narrow” specialists, uniqueness is good, but in moderation.
4. Do not waste time on unpromising activities. If you feel that you cannot realize yourself in some area as you would like - look for what will bring you both income and the peace of self-realization.
5. Do not wait when he presses and wants to howl. Then it will be too late.
6. If you think that something needs to be changed today or tomorrow, then it should have been done yesterday.
7. Do not be afraid of changes in the profession. It is better to make a mistake and fill the cones than to do nothing because of the fear of a new one, and then regret the ineptly spent years.

Do you have a story of failure?

PS This is not a plaintive post, it is just an example of “Unsuccessful Story” for young and ambitious users of Habr and a call to be more careful in their expectations, to have a clear plan for “self-development”. In the “Success Stories” on the same resource, everything looks so simple and natural, as if it came into its own hands, but we understand that this is not always the case.
Do not judge me, everything always looks easy from the outside, but in reality everything is more complicated. And yes, anticipating “that would be like Kodil on PeHaPe”: I never had a penchant for programming, and, frankly, it doesn’t give me a trite one. Yes, I can not coding, because, perhaps, the latent humanities.

PSS This post was written before the “wipe” of karma, and I also have publications before it, so do not consider it as a “unsubscribe”.