Left ship, learned programming, no more winters in my life

Kakun

    Cruise Ship Veteran
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    Posts: 58

In my opinion, jobs in cruise ship entertainment proved to be the last hole in the pipe, and definitely the first thing that will go away whenever things get serious. Because of this and fortunately Australia decided to give money to everyone to sit at home and do nothing, I enrolled in Computer Science (essentially coding) after the first day in lockdown.

I threw myself into learning something new and something that is bulletproof for situations like this. Coding industry exploded during covid-19 and my only focus was to learn it as soon as possible. 
The plan was to complete my first year of study and start chasing jobs right after that.

Towards the end of that year we had a brief break in the lockdown and the theaters set out to open in Melbourne. I got an offer to work in theater on Harry Potter And The Cursed Child which I reluctantly accepted because I really needed some work. Although the government paid us until we had work to do, it was slowly coming to an end.
So I went back to automation job and at the same time studied and applied for maybe 101 jobs in coding.

I worked in the theater for only 2 months before I got an offer for a web development job. Work from home, salary about three times more than I was having with the Harry Potter. The certainty that even if we go into lockdown I will not have a problem with work… because of all this, the decision was very simple.
Shortly after I quit, the theaters closed for 6 months because they were at high risk for spreading covid-19.

I have been working for 8 months in this company now… never better conditions, I work as I want, when I want and wherever I want. No one touches me as long as the job is done and there are no problems.
I continue to study and push towards promotion… but in essence I will never have a winter in my life again. There are jobs and options everywhere.