Throughout my career to date I have often been 'that person' to take on a job or task that doesn't fit in a recognised 'box'. Great on one hand as it's allowed me to be creative with my approach and has often lead to new opportunities and even new departments/teams being established within the organisation. Not so great on the other hand as it often means I am the 'end of the line', so if I can't do it then who can? That said, I have always enjoyed the challenge of something new. In latter years of this employment my focus has been on data migration, particularly SQL Server based data migrations as part of wider implementation projects helping customers move to new systems whilst retaining their legacy data. During the early pandemic I decided to take voluntary redundancy having been with the same company for almost 2 decades - time for a new challenge. Little did I know that for a number of months I would become my kids home school teacher! I guess this was good fortune (although incredibly challenging) as I'd just taken redundancy so was able to focus on the kids whilst the schools remained closed without putting any additional stress on my job. This also allowed my wife to focus on her career unaffected. This time allowed me to appreciate what 'being there' for my kids gave them (and me) so, following the schools re-opening, I decided to become my own boss allowing me to work around the commitments of family and children. Venturing down a new career path in web design and hosting. Having many transferrable skills from previous roles and a never-before-realised interest in design this role has, so far, been very interesting and allows me that felxibility with the work/life balance.On top of this I have recently (early 2023) become a school governor at my local High School. Having never really appreciated that schools and other youth settings and organisations require local volunteers to help them function this feels like a chance to give back to the community.
Listed skills include Microsoft Sql Server, Iis, Software Installation, Windows Server, and 22 others.
