New Adventure begins…

Posted on by desigNerd

I said goodbye to my Cardiac Rehab Nursing Job yesterday, and honestly it’s a bit surreal. I’ve left jobs before, usually with another one ready to hop into but this time is different. I’m leaving to pursue a career in web development, but ultimately I’d really like to have a start-up software product that solves real problems for people. I’ve got a few ideas in my mind, but they mainly relate to filling in the gaps with crappy software used in the QLD health (HBCIS, Journey Board etc). The problem is that I don’t think the health industry (in QLD anyway) is prepared invest into solving these problems. I’m also a big fan of cloud-based software, but there is a perceived (and very valid) risk of security of such sensitive health information in the cloud.

I guess health is all I know at this stage, so I’m stepping out of the health industry because it just isn’t lean/agile enough for me. I’m not saying I’m an agile expert or anything, but If there’s one thing I know about the health industry it’s that change for the good does not happen quickly. The people making the decisions about the way it is delivered do not have a clue about what goes on at the ground level, also there is no trust in the people doing the ground work to make good decisions. Even from a high level managerial point a view, the lack of control is ridiculous…freezing on recruitment, cutting front-line staff, cutting specialised teams, merging teams with no real direction. Take the Payroll Bungle for example, some idiot who probably still works at QLD Health/Politics decided to roll in a new payroll system without testing it. You don’t need to be an agile/lean expert to know about the impact of not testing something as important as a Payroll system for the whole of QLD Health. To this day, no one has taken responsibility for this action. It resulted in employees getting $0.00 per fortnight and others getting extra thousands of dollars. They handled this by giving people $200 dollar coupons which we had to pay back later…ridiculous. Ultimately, the motive of the health industry is $$$ not taking care of it’s workers or patients (I’m not talking about the private sector either)…it just doesn’t make sense to me.

So that went a little bit off tangent, so back to new adventures…

I’m currently preparing for an interview at ThoughtWorks on Monday for a front-end dev/design role before I work today at the Hospital (yes, I still work for QLD Health once a week). I’m trolling through the website gaining insights into the company which looks like a great place to work as my values match up with theirs. I’m reading Lean Startup by Eric Ries which is so far very insightful and interesting. I am also attending a course at Udemy User Experience: The Ultimate Guide to Usability by Dr David Travis which is a great resource for learning about user research and UX in general. I thought it would be a great idea to see what my interviewers have to say on their blogs/presentations, which gives me an insight to their perspectives on UX design.

I’ll let you all know how I go on Monday, looking forward to the experience of being a possible Thought Worker. In the meantime I have lots on my mind to keep me occupied such as my wedding in less than two weeks.

2 weeks to go!

Posted on by desigNerd

It still hasn’t fully sunk in that I have quit my main nursing job. But I am pretty excited about finishing up in 2 weeks. I thought making a blog post will help me come to realisation that I have indeed closed one door to open another.
Looking back I do not regret taking the cardiac rehab position as…

  • I have learned a lot and in the process and met some great people who have become good friends,
  • I wouldn’t have ever made the 6mwt app which ignited my curiosity into web apps and coding,
  • I wouldn’t have met my good friend Steve who I consider to be a great mentor and fellow bro-grammer. We built brizinga in 3 weeks for the hack::Brisbane competition in 2012.
  • I wouldn’t have started to think about problems such as duplication, lack of automation and decreased productivity in the health industry…which is pretty bad and quite common. Having the experience gives me the drive to help solve these problems. I just want to make software that shifts the focus back on to the patient/client and not the paper work that is needed.

Things I’m looking forward to…

  • More time to increase my skills
  • Creative Freedom
  • Solving problems in a different way

Things I’m tentative about…

  • Trading in the money for time
  • Keeping Motivated
  • Keeping Focused

Since I gave my notice to resign a month go, I have not looked back since. One of the major things that really pushed me over the edge to pursue this path was that I had applied for another nursing job (quite similar to one I have now, but in a different speciality), thinking that this would solve my angst in my current job. I got an interview with the panel and was very motivated to do well in the interview. But when I finished the interview I couldn’t shake this feeling that I was going to end up in the same place asking myself “Will this make me happy?”. I ended up withdrawing my application as I felt I was going to have the same dilemma…feeling stuck in another nursing job I did not necessarily enjoy and only dreaming of being a web developer. In the grand scheme of things, the best time to start is now before I have any more responsibilities…such as having a mortgage and kids.

It’s about leveraging my time and staying focused on the goal. I plan to take my Udemy Courses (that I have purchased over several months, but never had the time to do), I have a lists of goals on my Trello account to achieve, I will continue my education with CodeAcademy (PHP, Ruby), hopefully get into the Ruby Code School at NetEngine, apply to Thought Works Grad Program, I’ll also consider Lynda.com, CodeSchool.com and Tertiary Study.

The last month has been reassuring as I have been getting interviews and face-to-face contact with potential employers and clients. Overall I’m looking forward in pivoting my skills in a totally different environment.

If you have similar experiences I’d like to hear about it…the good, bad and the ugly…

Should I got to University?

Posted on by desigNerd

So, its been busy since my last post and I’ve got some things happening in my life that are pretty exciting.

  1. I’m getting hitched! So as some of you may know I am getting married which is pretty exciting. But I don’t really want to disclose too much other than that…It’s getting pretty close now and I’m just getting excited!
  2. I quit my Cardiac Rehab Nursing job…I decided it was time to get real about my web dev dreams. I’ve been agonising over this for about a year and a half now. The economic environment isn’t the best (Thanks to Campbell Newman) and I’ve never seen the morale so low at work. My values do not match up with where the industry is heading so I’m jumping ship. There’s no creative freedom in my job, and I can advocate all I want for my patients but it’s gone too political now so I’m leaving. I’ll still have my other nursing job in hospital once a week (unless Campbell decides to sack more front-line staff). I know it’ll be a struggle money wise, but I’ll have time on my hands up skill. You’ll probably hear more about this in a separate post
  3. I’m taking entrepreneurial dreams to the next level as I’ve been working as freelance web developer for the last 7 months or so and it has been going pretty well. I’ve got a portfolio that I’m proud of and have been getting interviews for jobs in the front-end market. I’ll be able to put more time and effort into my web dev career and skill-up. I’m tossing up whether to get that piece of paper or to stick it out for a few more months in the hopes of landing my foot in the dev door.What do you guys think…?