... 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...
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.