The journey

Two years in electronic archiving

My first job, and I did not know what archiving meant when I started. Within a year I was not just doing the work but arguing for how it should be done differently. That pattern — arrive knowing nothing, end up proposing the change — is the one thing every job since has had in common.

The full story of this one is still to be written.

Four years as a smart services executive

Two years on the frontline helping customers through digital services, then two years in the back office with management and the developers. Seeing the same organisation from both ends is where I learned how much of what happens to customers never reaches the people deciding what to build.

The full story of this one is still to be written.

On feeling stupid

The hardest barrier to learning anything is not difficulty. It is the moment you feel stupid and your brain starts looking for the exit. Here is what actually works on it.

Eleven things a day

I wanted to know my actual daily learning capacity, so I tested it. I started at three subjects thinking that was the ceiling and ended at eleven. Two of them failed.

The three beliefs that keep people stuck

Waiting to get started, waiting for perfect conditions, and having tried once and failed. Three sentences people say about themselves that quietly decide the next decade.

What they said would happen

In 2022 I listed three things people told me I would quit. Two were already done. The third I left open, because I did not know yet. Four years later I can close it.

The knowledge gap is the business model

When I got into tech in 2020, what bothered me most was watching experts use what clients did not know as a pricing tool. Six years on, the pattern has not changed.

Why I'm writing this down

I studied accounting, taught myself to code, and now run a licensed software agency in the UAE. The useful part was never the code. It was everything around it.