Old Job Thoughts. New Job Thoughts.

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I know that I occasionally moaned about Lovespace – normally when they were stopping me from doing what I wanted to do, ie coding, and sending me to go flyering – or asking me to go on the customer chat thing when I got home from work.

Despite minor annoyances, I actually really enjoyed working there. Never before have I had a job where I actually enjoyed being at work almost every day. My first proper developer role, I learnt so much there – going from complete imposter to someone very comfortable, yet still continually challenged.

It was quite sad leaving as there were some really decent people there – though I’m sure the same will be the case at M&S – most people are decent. I definitely had taken the place to heart a bit…I’m even a shareholder in the business, albeit a very small shareholder.

My last day was sweet. The WeWork office people bought me some Neck Oil, filled the biscuit tin with ginger crunch creams and tried to put some minimal techno on the sound system (though I think she got into trouble…oops). We went for pizza at lunchtime, and took full advantage of the free beers after work…I had quite the hangover the next day.

My boss had messaged me the day before asking, “are there any electronics you need?”, which was a subtle way of asking what should he get me for a leaving gift. I couldn’t really think of anything, and I have ended up with a Google Home Mini. Not something I’ve ever wanted, but I’ve now discovered the existence of smart light bulbs so I’m pretty excited now. No, I haven’t set it up yet, I’ve been trying to sort my life out and do lots of studying for my new job…but it will happen soon.

Lovespace was actually the perfect job for me as a junior. Lots of space at the beginning to grow into it, yet every time I mastered something there were new challenges. I mastered both jQuery and AngularJS whilst there, improved my CSS, and just generally learnt about how to be a professional software engineer. In an ideal world, I would have stayed there longer, but this was too good an opportunity to turn down.

M&S should be a fair step up in many ways – I’ve already had an e-mail advising that they have a learning plan for my first 16 weeks in the business. At Lovespace I mostly learnt on the job.

I’m a bit frustrated by having had this mild fever all week. I know that I need to upskill my JavaScript a bit for this job, and have been trying to do so – having 5 days off has been perfect to give me time to do so, but the mild fever has really put a dampener on my abilities. I’m concerned that I’m going to feel crap on Monday morning too.

Otherwise I’m not really that nervous about the role itself. I think M&S should be a really good company to work for, my new manager seems really sound – have been chatting to him a bit over LinkedIn, plus I’m a half-decent software engineer nowadays. I expect that it will be a little “rabbit in headlights” when I first try to get to grips with the code base and how things are structured, but I don’t expect to be “what the fuck” like when I first started at Lovespace…thankfully they gave me the time to grow into the role.

I am kind of expecting the Metropolitan line to throw me a signal failure on Monday morning though.

The only thing that I’m really concerned about is having to work in an office 5 days a week, at least at first, as my body and brain rather appreciated working from home 2 days a week – not having to get up at 630am every day and spend over an hour each way commuting. Physically, I’m expecting it to be fucking tough…working from home once/twice a week really saved my soul/body over the last year.

At least the weather is returning to normal summer…I fear little more than turning up on a first day in a new job, pouring with sweat. Normal temperatures, and no I won’t be using the Bakerloo line.

I’m also kind of hoping that smart/casual means that I can wear collar-free t-shirts. Maybe I might have to be a bit more careful with some of the more outlandish t-shirts I have – I have bought a few plain, ordinary t-shirts to be on the safe side. Oh, and a shirt for the first day, to be extra careful. I really hate shirts, so hopefully that shows my commitment to my new, exciting role.

I think I’m going to have a detox, or near-detox for the first month, and try my very hardest to stick to a healthy diet. My tiredness concerns wouldn’t be such were I not so out of shape, so it is my own fault.

Just need to get over this damn fever, have a roast dinner and I will be raring to go.

On your marks… (yeah I stole that pun).

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