... and now I'm job-hunting in earnest and jfcsstrrssfgchujbgfryhgftyhgerswww. I hope this is the right place to vent about this sort of thing, but I'm feeling so incredibly stressed and frustrated because I really want to change careers (TEFL teaching is a dead end, and the conditions have got so much worse in recent years) and I know I could do a junior frontend job perfectly well — I've put so much with into getting good at it in my own time — but it's beginning to dawn on me that there's basically no way in to the industry unless you know someone who can help you get a foot in the door.
I don't know where I'm going with this tbh — I just needed to vent somewhere — but it would be nice to hear any advice anyone can offer, or even just the lamentations of anyone with similar experiences...
I hate to say it but this is sound advice. I've only ever gotten long term jobs through some form of nepotism or another.
I've spent my entire adult life watching capitalists boom and bust the IT related labor market by using bootcamps and other fast track learning institutions to flood the labor pool and drive down wages every time there's an "innovation" in the industry. You'll spend a lifetime playing keep up if you don't look at what the "elite" are doing and how you can take the same shortcuts.
Of course, all that being said, before getting too deeply into the industry I would start to think about if you wanna play by the rules of capitalists and just spend all your time being a wage slave. It's one thing to pay your bills, it's quite another to dedicate your life to being a gear in the machine. Being in IT often gives you access to information and systems that are crucial to the imperial core.
Learn to Hack, Learn to Quadcopter/Drone.
But most importantly, Learn your history.
Oh dgmw I very much want to get to a point where I can meaningfully contribute labour/expertise to causes I actually care about, it's just that I do also kind of need to eat lol
And I get that. Not calling you out specifically or anything. But beware of entrenching yourself too deeply into a world which considers you expendable.
For me, it's hitting a point of "I need to be doing something in computers that isn't customer-facing for my paycheck, or I'm going to drop a settler dead in front of my till for mouthing off at me like I'm not a human being within the next seven years."
tl;dr mental self-preservation more than anything.