Table of contents
How It Started
Money, and lots of it 😂...
I'm kidding (well, not totally 🤧), so let's get into it, shall we? 😏
The year is 2019, I had gotten my degree, and completed my one year of service to my country (it's kinda like what's done in South Korea, and Israel where you have to mandatorily work for your country, with my country it's necessary only after you get a Bachelor's degree), I had tried my hand at a bit of entrepreneurship, got my hands and cash burnt (one too many times 😣) and I had to officially job hunt.
I got a good job in hospitality, a barely six-figure salary that was awfully hectic and was more or less keeping me busy seven days a week. My rude awakening to adulthood was quite rude I must say 😂. My best friend and I would reminisce about how we planned to sightsee and travel the world.
I'd participate while mentally cringing because she has a great job at a multinational FMCG (Fast-Moving Consumer Goods) organization with a healthy career prospect and interesting salary while I was barely holding up. I just couldn't see any feasibility in our daydreams 😅.
The Pursuit of Happyness 😊
If you've not watched The Pursuit of Happyness you totally should! 🤩, this movie connects so well with me because I had a similar experience with tech. Over time, I arrived at the conclusion that in order to live the life I want to, I have to find a way to make a lot of money without having to physically exert myself or be present in a physical location, I didn't exactly have tech in mind, funnily enough 😅.
I compiled a list of top companies in my business' "locality" whose patronage could help the company I worked for at the time and pitched the list to my boss. One of the companies on the list was Microsoft. My boss was cautiously optimistic about the viability of my plan so he tasked me with carrying it out. It was at Microsoft I had my Chris Gardner (from The Pursuit of Happyness) moment.
I walked into Microsoft's Lagos office (which was at Civic Towers at the time) and the ambiance was out of this world! 😀. Everyone I came across looked sharp and acted like they had all the money in the world 😂, they walked so gracefully that it was easy to tell that we weren't in the same income bracket. The inquiry I went for was a dead-end 😅, but I left determined to find a way to get into Microsoft.
Shazam!
I started doing my research, looking into the requirements for the average job posting at Microsoft, I started noticing a pattern; the tech-related jobs placed more emphasis on programming skills rather than university degrees. I decided to become a developer because I thought tech would be the easiest way to get into Microsoft, boy was I wrong! 😂😂😂.
Finally
If you're looking for a "happily ever after", I'm going to have to disappoint you a little bit 🤣. I'm not at Microsoft, I am however a software engineer at one of the top organizations to work for in my country (and because fate has a cruel sense of humor, my office is so close to Civic Towers that whenever I look out the window, I'm literally staring at what used to be Microsoft's office 😂). My role in tech and my current income bracket gives me a faint vision of light at the end of the tunnel😊.