In 1988 I graduated high school. In 1990 I dropped out of college. In 2000 I started college again. In 2004 I stopped college … again.
Now? In 2017 I returned to school again.
Why? Well, as the months were counting down to being 48 years old I found that although I had studied all kinds of advanced things in the realms of Ancient Rome at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill while working in various project management jobs I had not kept up on the latest and greatest movements in technology and programming languages.
I had spent years managing diverse teams, creating filing systems in simple Access Databases, managing crazy web development projects using sticky notes, excel spreadsheets and GIANT red fonts in screaming email fits back and forth to programmers and designers in Mumbai, what I had not learned was what the hell a SCRUM is, the fact that the world had moved to SQL, that HTML had gone to 5, CSS, PHP, Python, C# and a million other letters and acronyms.
Basically I found myself throwing a short knowledged me up against a wealth of big tech companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google and even the company that had just seen me out the door Microsoft and not a single one of them cared a damn that I had 20 years of management experience. They cared that I didn’t have SCRUM, HTML5, SQL … etc. etc. etc. They cared that I hadn’t bothered to get certifications. That even though I could manage and direct a team, present meetings, had CREATED advertising policy for FIVE YEARS for BING that in the end I just hadn’t done enough to keep up with the latest and greatest levels of technology and programming languages out there.
I had lunch at Facebook, I interviewed with the CEO of a Trademark SaaS company on the waterfront downtown, I had phone interview after phone interview, I had chased across Lake Washington countless times and come face to face with the living embodiment of an applicant tracking system. Braces and all this girl looked at me and said, “Well, it’s a check box the degrees and certifications and if I can’t put a check in the box, well, the system just stops and it doesn’t bother moving forward. ‘Cause it’s a check box.”
I cried, I screamed, I beat my head against the wall for months. Then I went back to square one and I put myself back in school. I live in the middle of tech central in the trendiest neighborhood in Seattle, Washington and at 48 I find myself back in college learning all over again, and you know what? I LOVE IT!
I said in a joking way years ago that I would stay vital by gifting myself a new batch of 20 year old’s every 10 years… Well this is my new batch of 20 year old’s. I am learning the latest and greatest of technology in the middle of a city that is vibrantly growing and keeping up with the greatest and newest levels of technology. I am learning as much from this school as I am from the students — and vice versa — and I am pretty damn grateful for it!
So welcome to my world. This is going to be a space where I may rant, will share what I am learning, and how my world is changing before my very eyes. Because here is the thing — our world IS changing and in a short number of years everyone out there that IS my age is going to be running up exactly the SAME space that I am in the middle of — and if you my dears have NOT been keeping up on the latest technologies, the greatest of programming languages, if you are sitting there bemoaning the changing world and how there isn’t a local whatnot and how everything is on the internet and there simply isn’t quality anymore … well kiddies — that shit is NOT gonna change … it’s only going to become MORE and BIGGER and FASTER and those kids are going to take over this world — because they ARE learning those programming languages and they CAN make a robot do things when they are five years old and the DO want to keep learning the newest computer related piece of whatever. So get off your couches and get your ass back in school — because it’s gonna become a requirement eventually — whether you like it or not.