ℹ️ FAQ - Work Edition
I created this page because I get A LOT of questions about my work and personal life. At times it can be overwhelming and intrusive.
I understand a young Black woman that has lived on her own since a teen, work in tech, supports herself without any financial help, and travels is intruiging to many. This has been both positive and negative.
This page is a mix of both postivei and negative questions and statments. As I get older, I realize I can't waste energy explaining parts of my life to people who arent genuinely interested in understanding.
Do you enjoy working in IT?
Sometimes, I enjoy working in people-centric roles. I don't enjoy the treatment when doing support-related IT work.
How did you learn to code?
TLDR, I learned by doing, and often unintentionally.
The first time I ever learned how to code was to create a custom ROM for my Andriod phone in high school.
I can probably go back even further to the Myspace days.
In high school through early college, I started to learn SQL and MySQL, but I actually had no clue at the time this was considered coding since I had no formal training. I learned about SQL and MySQL through a person I met at Starbucks that later became a mentor.
The first time I felt like I successfully "learned how to code" was after successfully completing a few Javascript challenges on Codecademy and Khan Academy.
This area includes real life statements people have said to me over the past 6-10 years.
If I sent you a link to the section, it likely because you have either
- said one these statements
- said something similar
- denied the experience of Black people, minorities, and or women and my experiences in particular
- or I don't feel we can have a productive conversation about my life experiences
Statements:
- You are [redacted age], maybe you are married not by choice but because there is something wrong with you
- Maybe you will learn how to speak [insert language] if you tried harder and didn't speak like that.
- You are American, what possible problems could you have
- No one cares about you, if you were going to commit suicide, you should have just done it
- Black people should just work hard like to rest of us
- Maybe Black people experience racism because they don’t know how to listen to authority
- ADHD is a term Americans use to cover up that a person is crazy
- People who stutter are cursed by god
- People who stutter are crazy
- No Man will ever want a woman who is fat
- Why bother to learn [x] language, you’ll never be able to speak properly anyway
- If you can’t speak properly, you should just stay quiet