Dev: I think we should send Dev2 for some training and certification

Manager: We do not train people or have them certified. When you train people and especially if you have them certified they always leave the company for better offers so we no longer do that.

Dev: So the plan is to have a the company operated by a bunch of untrained uncertified people?

Manager: 😡 You are being disrespectful again

Background: I'm on autism spectrum so I get anxious easily and social situations just generally fuck me up. I also have social anxiety disorder. Well, it's just an extension of my ASD really. Making phone calls in uncertain situation is the worst thing ever and I do not do it.

F*ck Microsoft certification exams. I applied for exam accommodations due to my background. (Someone is constantly watching you, you can't move even your eyes off the screen, yeah, screw that. I need to fidget/stim a lot.)

Got accepted. Now I just need to reserve an exam time THROUGH PHONE.

Someone reeeaaally didn't think this through. Normal exam can be reserved online. >.>

Me: I would like to receive external training for RHCSA course and certification

Company: Sure! we will open a ticket for you and keep you posted

Me: it's been almost 3 months, could you give me any updates?

Company: Oh actually you are not eligible! this certification is not aligned with your job description!

Me: But...I use linux every single day and it's one of the main requirements to be able to do my job?

Company: Yeah whatever no need to get certified still..!

Me: Why didn't you tell me that 3 months ago?

Company: Well the process was changed and we decided this certification does not match your profile

Me: What matches my profile then?

Company: certificates in Azure and GCP

Me: But I don't ever use those platforms?

Company: ......

Me: ......

Love how DoD work requires sec+ certification but as you are learning the material you realize they don’t follow any procedures or practices.

I don’t care how many tests you’ve passed, how many certificates you have on your wall, or how many letters you put after your name. I can tell if you’re an idiot one way or another.

probably gonna have to do with environmental software certification (optimizing for energy reduction, that sort of stuff)

Hot tip: if you are a company, don’t ever ever ever ever spend your money on an Optimizely academy course. They have the worst course material I have ever seen in my life, and the material is outdated by several years from exercise to exercise. And the training videos are literally just a recording of a live class with a couple students. They should pay me to sit through this fucking shitshow. It is not worth a single cent, but guess how much they charge for the course and certification?!?! $2300 😱🫣😂. It’s so fucking bad I want to kill myself. Whoever decided to pour as little effort into this as possible over at Optimizely, I hereby curse you to a 2300 painful deaths and I hope someone shoves a ice cold rod up your ass to wake you up. *slams keyboard*

Turns out: Pearson VUE is bad at communication. After I reserved the Microsoft certification exam, it was adjusted with my accommodations. So I didn't entirely die (only a little) and was allowed to have my life saving fidget 'toys' with me and just be myself with my stims.

So after all that hassle, I am now certified Azure developer associate. \o/

Looks good on paper, doesn't solve the problem of getting through the project interviews. (To normies, I seem ever so slightly off and the natural instinct is to perceive me as a liar.)

Tired of seeing people showing off their bootcamp certification on LinkedIn as if they had just climbed Mount Everest, and as if they were about to enter the most glamorous field of work one could imagine.
OK I went through a bootcamp myself but I certainly knew I was still a baby upon completion of the journey and still consider I have a veeery long way to go today after two years of dev work experience. Also I knew working as a developer probably wouldn’t be as awesome as these bootcamps make it out to be. In fact it’s everything but glamorous when you take into account the stress, the dynamics with coworkers, POs, PMs, shitty management, wacky clients, weird demands, deadlines etc.
Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy being a developer and have more or less been able handle the workload and expectations. But for goodness sake stop drilling into bootcampers’ heads that it’s gonna be amazing and that they’re doing incredible things. Congratulate them for their hard work and then wish them good luck because they’re going to need it. Bootcampers, stay humble. Be prepared for the worst while hoping for the best

- Learn at least one new programming language
- Start a new personal project
- Push things into my GitHub
- Complete one certification
- Exercise
- Practice mindfulness
- Read atleast 1 book per quarter

What getting an AWS solutions architect certification got me:

Acceptance into the 4 top high schools in the area( one of which being in the top 5 public schools in the United States)

2 internships/apprenticeships

1 opportunity at the local college for some research experience

Vasts amounts of knowledge about servers and back end technologies I have never known about

And of course, the most important one, getting all the aunties attention at parties

People like to say that certifications don’t help but they get your foot into the door, it’s up to you to do the rest of the work