Red Eye Designer

The day was January 23, 2009. It was my last day working with a great company; Drum Workshop (DW Drums) was my first desk job. Before then I was a plumbers assistant. Which was also fun, but required dealing with a lot of crap if you know what I mean. I had accepted an offer made by Volusion for a job I was sure was going to start my career in web development. For just over a year I had been working on becoming a web developer. I was reading of books, watching TONS of video tutorials, and staying up until 3am everyday practicing my skills. I learned a lot in a very short amount of time. Then came January 26th. I was starting my new job that and it drained me beyond what I had expected. I wasn’t even using any of the skills I had been learning up this point. Even worse, I didn’t even see it coming.

I thought my new job would expand my knowledge of web development. I was wrong.

Can I shoot myself?

I hated my time at Volusion. I had left my job working in International Sales at DW for one of answering phone calls and taking care of incompetent callers. Hours and hours of questions; some were really, really stupid questions. Everything from, “How do I log off?” to “What’s a right-click?” I spoke to someone who was running windows 98 and with that was controlling his online business. I had never felt more exasperated than I did after working a day at Volusion. I was mentally fatigued and I had stopped practicing my skill. I just wanted to get home, watch some TV and fall asleep. I regretted leaving DW. I wanted to go back. I ended up doing the next best thing: I quit.

Four months too many…

I was there from January to May. Too long if you ask me. It wasn’t all bad. I got to meet some really cool people. I even stay in touch with a few of them today. The company it self is not bad. They have a CEO that’s younger than me! Volusion is successful and I don’t have anything against them. The job drove me crazy though.

I decided to quit after receiving a couple of freelance gigs. I thought I could take the plunge and freelance full-time. The sense of freedom gave me new life; I felt alive again. No more slaps on the wrist for being one minute late to work (Seriously, who cares if I got in at 5:01AM?). I was my own boss and could wake up whenever the hell I want. It felt great!

Time to work 9-5 again

As much as I loved working from home, I had to start looking for steady income. I was in a position where finding a job while jobless was possible. Thanks to my wife who conveniently found work just as I was leaving mine. While I was looking for work I had started practicing my skill again. Improving and growing my skill everyday was my mission. It still is in fact.

Not long after my escape from technical support, I found a job working as a front end developer at Sí TV. This job provides steady income while giving me the opportunity to grow in my field. I’ve learned a lot here and got to meet some of the coolest people I’ve ever had the privilege of working with. It’s hard to believe that I’ve never felt like work is slowing me down since starting here. I’ve never said, “I don’t want to go to work today” here. I don’t have a job here, I have a career. Confucius was right in saying, “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

I guess I haven’t worked a single day since last June.

Moving forward

While I love my job here at Sí TV, I have to keep moving forward. I have to keep growing if I want the most out of my career. So I’ve started looking for side gigs; freelance projects I can do at home after work. If I find something that requires my full-time attention, so be it. As so long as it furthers my career.

I changed my career in less than a year. Went from doing mundane work to living a dream and getting paid for it. I can only imagine what this year holds in store for me. I can’t wait to see what’s next. Maybe I’ll take over twitter or something…