For the last few weeks, I’ve been putting the final touches on a web project that I’ve wanted to do for a long time. And it may not seem like it, but Jiggy’s Journal is actually part of it!
To explain the entire story, I probably need to rewind quite a bit. And to be fair, this got pretty lengthy! So if you already know me and a large part of my most recent chapters, I’ve toggled the “previously on…” portions of today’s episode. 😉
From Indiana to Kansas🗺️
You might recall that I’m originally from a small town just outside of Indianapolis, IN. It was small in the sense that my high school’s graduating class in 2003 had just over 200 students, but it never truly felt small because it still only took me about 25-45 minutes to get into downtown Indy depending on traffic. Fast forward to a few years ago when my sister, who lived in an actual small town in a pretty rural part of Kansas with her husband and my nephew, started having some scary health issues. Our father did a couple of stints in the hospital, too. We all collectively decided it was probably in our best interests if all of us were in the same area. Not only would we be around to bolster each other’s quality of life, we also just generally would be around to see each other more. And since their return to Indiana was not in the cards, we packed up in early 2023 and relocated. It’s where I live today.
I was relieved that my employer at the time was willing to allow me to continue working for them remotely once we made the move, but ultimately, it didn’t work out. They had tried transitioning me to a more “call center” type of work. Ordinarily, I am excellent at customer service and even enjoy being able to help people, but dealing with angry people who were demanding answers to some of the company’s services that I had nearly zero knowledge of wound up being my kryptonite. I resigned and shipped their laptop back to them. And then experienced a health crisis of my own.
Emergency Pitstop💉
In mid-2023, only weeks after I had left my job, I started experiencing some abdominal pain. I’m really good about eating things that aren’t great for me, so some stomach rumbles weren’t uncommon, but this seemed to persist and it didn’t want to go away. We were initially convinced that it might have been a UTI, but just to be on the safe side, my brother-in-law took me to a clinic to get everything checked out. The staff at that clinic wound up suggesting that I report to the nearby hospital ER instead. That ER staff wound up admitting me after doing some imaging.
Putting it mildly, I was terrified. Up until this point, I had never had anything result in hospitalization. No major injuries or illnesses. At most, I’d had routine outpatient procedures done, but nothing that would require me to stay overnight. When they told me I was then on my way to emergency surgery to remove my appendix, I was VERY alarmed. I even asked my brother-in-law to bring my dear old dad to see me. Mostly to help calm me down, but also just in case it was the last time he ever saw me. Dramatic? Probably. Especially since I have seen enough Grey’s Anatomy to know that an appendectomy—fondly referred to on the show (and I’m hoping in real life because it’s adorable) as an “appy”—is one of the first surgeries that new surgeons get to perform on their own because it’s so basic and routine. I was likely in good hands—or fine enough hands, at the very least. But I still wanted my only living parent there. Like a toddler still wants his blankie.
After I was rid of the surgery pain and the drain of nastiness they had installed in my stomach, I really just had to deal with the other major diagnosis I received while at the hospital: Diabetes. It’s not entirely surprising since nearly my entire immediate family is diabetic. But it did mean a whole new world of having to manage it. Even though Ozempic is all the rage now, daily injections and having to limit your consumption of sugar and carbs are still not fun. Once I had recovered from the appy and started on my diabetic meds, I knew it was time to face reality: I needed a new job.
Retail Therapy🛍️
I came to find that, after working in office administration and customer service for the same company for over eight years, the job market has kinda dried up. You can still find thousands upon thousands of job openings listed on Indeed and LinkedIn, but most never even respond to your application because they are “ghost jobs” that aren’t even actually hiring. Also presenting a problem is the fact that I’m living in a much less populated area than I was before. In most circumstances, the jobs just don’t exist here. And you can basically forget trying to find a remote job unless you have very specific skills or you want to do call center work, which is exactly what I had already tried to get away from.
So later in the summer, I went to work retail at the only local big box store. The pay was better than I expected it to be (although still terrible), but I figured that I could run a cash register for 8 hours a day. It didn’t sound like rocket science, so why not? Plus, we got a meager employee discount! And health insurance, which was now obviously necessary. And I genuinely liked most of my co-workers! It was great to actually get acquainted with other people in the area since I didn’t know anyone here aside from my family. Even the customers were nice for the most part! That was particularly surprising since I had come from a job where most clients were already angry at us before they even picked up the phone. I was initially hired as part-time help, but my manager offered me full-time hours after only a few weeks and eventually asked if I’d be interested in learning how to work at the customer service desk, so I guess I was doing a decent enough job.
In retrospect, I probably should have declined the service desk position. It was there that I really started experiencing the ugly and sometimes horrifyingly ignorant side of customer service again. Sure, there were plenty of pleasant people, but a majority of the work done at the service desk was with customers who were deeply unhappy about one thing or another. And in recent years, I’ve learned that I’m someone who will generally match the energy of those around me. I think most people are like that. It’s probably where the old adage about luring flies with honey instead of vinegar comes from. If you come to me with a friendly demeanor, I’m much more inclined to assist you than if you’re a total Karen. Shit, I’m practically thrilled to help you if you’re kind to me. So, in most cases, it probably isn’t the greatest idea to have me assist someone who wants to get in my face and yell about how I’m “just a f**king cashier” and that he didn’t like my attitude. (Actual true story, by the way!)
My time in retail clearly came to an abrupt ending in the spring of last year. The rude customers started getting to me mentally. I just didn’t want to get up and go force myself to get berated by strangers anymore. I wasn’t doing much better physically. My legs were practically dead from mostly standing in one spot cashing people out all day every day. It’s been almost a year since I left that job and I still feel like I permanently have that Meredith Grey walk. And that’s not even to mention the time that I literally passed out while on shift behind that service desk. The reasoning is still technically a mystery, but I suspect that low blood sugar had something to do with it since I hadn’t eaten beforehand. I stopped taking care of myself and it was beginning to show. So I stepped away.
Outgrowing Academics🍎
The whole job search here continues to elude me. As I stated in the previous sections, it has been almost a year since I left the retail gig, and I haven’t found another source of income. I’ve sent out probably hundreds of applications and gone to a couple of interviews, but nothing else has panned out. Thankfully, my family has kept me afloat and away from being forced into actual bankruptcy and homelessness, but I know that that can’t last forever. That’s ultimately why I decided to go back to the root of what interests me: Technology!
I went to college back in Indiana for a short while to study Software Development. I’ve always been more of a “creative” type of person, but I’m objectively awful at the more “artsy” fields. I’ve had a few successes with projects in computer graphics and photography, but I was terrible in actual high school art classes. I can’t draw to save my life and don’t even ask me to paint or watercolor. We’ll just wind up with a big mess. So I needed to be able to pour my creative side into something practical and developing software by writing code seemed perfect! Not only was I constantly thinking of cool ideas for apps and web services that I already used, but I’ve been obsessed with video games since I was a small child. Developing my own video game or working in the gaming industry sounded amazing to me. So I started out learning about networking, databases, and even writing a little bit of code in Python! I was having a blast!
Those official studies came to an abrupt end when my advisor suggested that I change my major. The Software Development program had several math courses on top of the remedial algebra courses they were already making me take as part of my general education requirement. And if you know me, you know math is my nemesis. I even made my sister tally up my score for me during a family game of Yahtzee! just this weekend. Math is not a friend of mine. I can write computer code, but math? I don’t know her. So I did eventually change my major to Visual Communications, where I spent a few more semesters wasting a boatload of money but genuinely enjoying my time in classes like Photography, Video and Sound, and Intro to Computer Graphics. I loved taking all of those courses and I learned a lot about skills that I could put to good use in my existing hobbies like content creation and streaming on Twitch. But honestly, at this point, I was just floating in the wind with school. I didn’t know what I was doing anymore aside from just taking a bunch of classes that sounded fun.
After the move to Kansas, I transferred my studies to the University of Kansas (KU) and became a virtual Jayhawk for a year. Going from a two-year to a four-year university meant even more rigorous studying and it seemed like they were padding my schedule with required courses that were still wasting my time and were, quite frankly, kinda boring me. So I decided to step away from my formal education entirely after that first year here.
Back to Basics💁
And here we are now! Where I’m finding myself both unemployed and a college dropout. Don’t I sound like a real winner?
I’m continuing to send out my résumé and fill out job applications online in case I can manage to snag one of those elusive remote positions. I’m told that they do exist, despite my best efforts. In the meantime, I’ve decided to pick up where I left off with my web and software education without the rigid institution behind it. I’ve very slowly but carefully been working my way through freeCodeCamp’s completely free certification courses. I’ve been having a bit of trouble wrapping my brain around JavaScript, so in the meantime, I’ve also taken on a few other tech-related projects. That includes building out my very own server!
This publication—Jiggy’s Journal, the Ghost instance that powers it, and even the automated emails subscribers get from it—are all now living pieces of www.jiggyflyjoe.com/! And trust me, there has been a massive learning curve with trying to figure out how to do all of that. Including several little snafus with the domain and its nameservers that had me yanking my hair out for days. I was thrilled when I finally got everything up and running. It was a big achievement for me! I even decided to write and code my little main page with information about me and links to all the places you can find me. Now, when you navigate to www.jiggyflyjoe.com/, the page you are greeted with is 100% hand-made by me!
The page is written entirely in HTML and CSS, so it is admittedly a little “basic” compared to what I used before to simply drag and drop elements on a digital canvas over on Carrd. But as someone aspiring to work in the tech or gaming industries, I figured a website fully made and configured by my own hands was probably mandatory. And hey, its design and interactivity and overall awesomeness can and will eventually grow as I continue to learn, right?
The possibilities are endless with what else I can self-host on my server, too. My nephew has already been deeply invested in digitizing our large DVD collection that is otherwise just collecting dust. Perhaps I could spin up a media server? Maybe just a private file management service for me and the family? Perhaps we could migrate from our current family chat app to a private one on the server? I could always try my hand at hosting a forum for my web visitors, too! Trust that I’m always on the lookout for a new project! Plus, I’ve still got those JavaScript lessons on the back burner that I really need to get back to before they start bubbling over!
The “TL;DR” of it all is this: I may not currently be in school or have a job, but I’m still learning and doing actual work. I’m spending my days beefing up my employable skills as much as I possibly can. I can only hope that eventually, the right opportunity comes calling.
