Finished my bootcamp right after my divorce years ago. No job lined up despite the “guarantee” they sold me on. So I went back to bartending.
I remember one night behind the bar just asking myself what was the point? the voice in my head saying, you’ll never be good enough, you lost at love. You’re stuck in this nowhere job. Why did you think you could do this Kit? Why did you think you were any different?
I didn’t have a breakthrough moment or some inspiring mentor who saved me. That’s what they don’t tell you, the truth is no one is coming to save you. What happened was I grabbed a friend from work who was grinding through his cs degree and someone from my bootcamp cohort, and we just started building stuff together. Didn’t matter what, we picked ideas, built them, broke them, learned.
It gave us projects to talk about in interviews, yeah, but more than that it gave me a reason to keep going when I wanted to quit. We held each other accountable. We vented. We kept showing up even when it felt pointless.
I’m in tech now, so are they. But, honestly even if it hadn’t worked out, I don’t think we would have stopped. Sometimes the only way through the mental hell of a career change is finding people who are in it with you.
If you’re in that dark place right now, you’re not broken. You’re just in the middle of it. Find your people. Build something. Keep moving, even when it’s dark. I have a tattoo about never quitting on the inside of my forearm and I used to look down on it during the crap of bartending for motivation. Something I want to tell you all is dont give up, you’re never out of the fight.
I’m always here to talk if you need.