My journey in tech started at the age of 20. During our engagement, Paul and I spent some evenings at his office with a friend, working on a church newsletter. I was bored out of my mind. Although I love writing and aspire to be a writer, I do not have a journalistic bone in my body. When I get bored, I start pacing (usually in circles), so Paul had to find a creative way to keep me busy.
One evening, he sat me down at a PC, showed me how to get onto the Internet, and introduced me to MSN, Hotmail, and chatrooms. "Have fun," he said. Oh, how much fun I had! Suddenly, I had the world at my fingertips. I could find information on just about anything I could think of and connect with people all over the world. Then, one day, I saw an ad: "Become a Web Designer" — and I clicked it.
I discovered a website that specialized in a wide variety of courses, including web design. The best part? If you were a woman, the courses were free! I found several websites like that. While Paul and our friend worked on the church newsletter, I taught myself web design.
My curiosity didn’t stop at web design. I would watch intently as Paul worked after hours to build a new PC for a client or install Windows. He explained what he was doing along the way, and soon I started getting familiar with the hardware. After a while, he trusted me to handle Windows installations and configurations myself. Eventually, I started taking apart and rebuilding my own PC whenever it acted up.
When Paul's employer found out that I was interested in web design, the company sponsored me a copy of Microsoft FrontPage. However, because I never felt like I knew enough, it took me two years to build the confidence to create my first client website. In the meantime, I worked for video stores, managed a toy store, and worked as a restaurant hostess, waitress, and guesthouse front desk manager. In my last job as a hostess/waitress, I talked so much that I lost my voice! I had to quit because the specialist couldn’t tell me how long I’d remain voiceless. Luckily, it lasted only two weeks. After that, I decided to pursue web design full-time.
My first client was referred to me by Paul. He accompanied me to my first meeting with the client, and I built him a beautiful website. By today’s standards, it was terrible - but back then, to me, it was a masterpiece! However, I had no idea how to publish it. Paul asked a web designer client of theirs if he could assist me. The designer laughed and said, "She designs websites but doesn’t know how to publish?" He refused to help, claiming he didn’t know either. That was my first encounter with professional jealousy. But I didn’t let it stop me. I went online, sought help on forums, and soon I was publishing websites with Microsoft FrontPage.
For my second website, I went beyond HTML and developed a dynamic website for a real estate agency in ASP, which I learned on the go. It even had a client backend. I continued to build my skills as a programmer, but one day, I encountered a coding problem I couldn’t fix on my own. When forums didn’t have the answer, I emailed our hosting support team to ask if they knew how to fix the issue. The technician replied and suggested switching to PHP, saying it was much easier. He even sent me the PHP code.
I learned PHP basics in a week, and from there, I continued learning on the go. Since then, I’ve never looked back.
All my initial clients came through referrals from Paul or his employer. He always handled the initial consultation, so by the time I met with the clients, the ice was already broken. Typically, I only needed one or two meetings with them at most - Paul was basically my PR guy.
That arrangement suited me perfectly. I was happiest when I could be left alone in a room to code and work my magic.