After five years of living and working with Parkinson’s, I’ve decided to take the advice of the Why Don’t You team of my youth and “turn off the television set and go and do something less boring instead”—finally calling time on what turned out to be a surprisingly interesting career in I.T.
From my first coding job in 1995, through various system testing roles, to developing a specialism in data warehousing and integration. I was working for clients in many different sectors from government and financial services, to telecoms, media and healthcare.
The projects were wide ranging: from realtime credit card application decision making, to tracing every head of cattle in the U.K., to prototyping one of the first digital rights management systems. While some were considerably more successful than others, each project was an experience that took me around the world…from Birmingham to Bangkok, Glasgow to Groton, Leatherhead to LA, and Workington to Warsaw.
To all those that I’ve had the pleasure to work with over the years, thank you for the collaboration, the patience and the laughs.
It’s hard not to look back and wonder at this point what did I really achieve in the 30 plus years since I graduated from The University of Surrey? I didn’t change the world, make a fortune or become a world renowned expert in anything. If I am honest, I stumbled through my working career waiting to be found out. I battled with Imposter Syndrome and lacked confidence, yet somehow, I emerged on the other side with a wonderful family, financially secure and a well travelled passport.
Perhaps when I reflect on my career, what I should be most proud of is not a particular project, or the prestige of working for a particular client but rather that I managed to get to this point despite the self doubt.
So, I can’t really complain. Rather than dwelling on what I did and thinking about all the ‘what ifs’, it’s more important now to look forward and to make the most of what is to come. While this may be the end of one chapter it’s the start of the next with unscripted adventures and more time to spend with family and friends new and old.
Balls to Parkinson’s 