Introduction and Thanks

2020 has been an eventful year, to say the least. I feel fortunate to have been home for much of the year due to Coronavirus - I have gotten to experience many of the milestones in my son’s life which many working parents have missed. There is definitely a silver lining to all of the year’s pain and difficulty.

Remote Work

I’d been working in mechanical engineering for almost 5 years when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. In March or April, my team began working remotely - my first time doing so. After a small adjustment period of getting my desk setup optimized and ironing out video-chat issues, it was glorious. I’ve found remote work to be ideal for my introverted personality. While in the office, getting interrupted at my desk would often mean a 5-10 minute return to ‘flow’. The asynchronous communication required in a remote work environment fits my communication style well. I like to make sure my words properly convey the meaning I intend.

Career Change

At the end of August 2020, I was laid-off for the first time in my life. I fully acknowledge my incredible priviledge in being able to say it was a relief. I’d been slowly moving in the direction of a career in programming far before I was laid off. The financial buffer provided by a frugal lifestyle and my wife’s burgeoning career has now allowed me the time to work on building my skills and portfolio for a transition into the new field of software development. If you are reading this and are in need of a python developer / data analyst, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Attribution

I want to give a very big Thank You to Artem Sheludko, the creator of this Jekyll template. His github is here. The flexible-jekyll theme I am using for this site is the nicest (free) static site template I have found on the internet.

Photo Credit

Photo by Dayne Topkin on Unsplash