We Did It!
Apr 8th, 2022
Friday, April 8, I ‘ve given my final presentation. Almost immediately after the presentation I felt like a blanket of fatigue was being draped over me. Being in a state of “alertness” for four months does something to a person. The plans I have for the weekend straight went into the trash. Sitting on the couch, watching TV and that’s it.
Apr 11th, 2022
Monday, April 11th, I’m walking through our house uncomfortably. The structure I had for four months is gone. Normally at 09:00 a.m. the day opening, 10:15 a.m. break, 12:00–1:00 p.m. lunch break, a hard- or soft-skill Q&A at 1:00 p.m., 3:00 p.m. a 15-minute break and at 4:00 p.m. :30 am the closing of the day. For the Scrum Masters (hello Henk… oh that’s me) there will also be a scrum master meeting in the afternoon. And from the afternoons in every break a cuddle with my wife (I will miss those the most).
In the morning, first reset the loan laptop from Techgrounds to factory settings. Then I walked the dogs for a long time and in the afternoon I walked a ferm 10 kilometers.
April 12th, 2022
Tuesday, April 12th, is the final presentation of the fellow students who will start working at Sentia after the training. While I prepare myself to go to Amsterdam by train, I watch them do their presentations via Zoom. By the way, after this brilliant mind installed Zoom on his smartphone. Of course I had to search for the link for the Zoom session.
It was on the laptop from Techgrounds, which I had reset. And also on the backup that is on my NAS. I can’t make contact with that one, because “I will fix that someday”. In a clear moment I remember that I have sent Greetje the link, so that she can attend the certificate ceremony in the afternoon. Got the link out from the sent-items and I can attend the presentations while in public transport. By the way, completely against my habit, I did not take the wrong train, tram or metro. A day like that!
Afterwards we went to a terrace with a group of fellow students.
And now…
The next days I will try and find a new daily rhythm. Starting May, my new employer will put me in a working rhythm. For now, I’m going to delve into Tableau, Ubuntu and I want to turn my old MacBook Pro into a Chromebook. Never thought and expected to dive into IT again.
December 2021
Certainly not on December 6th, 2021, when I opened my MacBook in the morning and started Zoom for the Cloud Engineer course. It’s like entering a new class at a new school. You have only met your fellow students superficially during the open days. In our case, the tough assessment days.
After a few days you’ll realize that it is allright. It feels good and it feels safe. Everyone has the same goal: successfully complete the training and then start working for a new employer.
The first seven weeks are devoted to obtaining the AWS or Azure certificate. Then work on a project for another nine weeks and then close with the final presentation. Yesterday we could say: We did it! (Aziza, I borrowed this one from you!).
My gratitude goes out to the Techgrounds team. They have shown us the way to a bright and new future.
Columns
This is the seventh and last in this series (Dutch language):
About me
I’m Henk van der Duim, Data Engineer at Stichting amsterdam&partners.
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