Roughly six months ago, I had reached the point that most millenials know well at a job: I felt unappreciated, undervalued, and tired of the monotony of a cyclical, conventional job. I was in marketing, which sounds fun in theory. Marketing has branded itself (see what I did there?) to be this exciting, creative field. But, when you’re put in a box and not allowed to explore the limits - as you often are as a youngin’ at any established company - it’s incredibly stifling.
Thankfully, my friends at Digital Frontiers Media were expanding and offered me my current position in web development. Because of an internship I had in college, (and from being a nerdy teenager), I had a lot of HTML and CSS experience, and, being in marketing, I had worked with content management systems and development houses before.
At DFM, I do Drupal site building and theming. Now my days are filled with challenging problem solving, learning new languages, and thinking from all directions. I am responsible for taking someone else’s vision, and using configurations and code to turn it into a functional website that any computer literate person can easily edit and use.
Working alongside experts and the feeling that I am producing something truly useful is addictive. My personality craves that. I love to learn. I’m happy. If I had to sit around another stuffy boardroom talking about a Twitter strategy and trying to convince some suits that I knew my ass from a hole in the ground, I would be a walking zombie. It’s too early for Halloween.
Plus, who else gets to wear flip-flops and bring their dog to work?