4 Valuable Lessons I Learned While Working in Internet Media
Hey! On this site, I have seen many articles from users who share their experience in a particular area in IT. Most work in large or smaller IT companies, but I have not read a single article from readers who work in a non-core field.
Today I want to share with you some of the conclusions that I made personally for myself, working in an independent Internet publishing house as an IT specialist. I will tell you why this is a very valuable experience - to communicate not only with other IT specialists, but also with people of a completely different sphere and lifestyle. How it changed my vision of the world (not globally, but still very important).
Internet Media
By Internet media, I mean working in an independent media that lives and develops exclusively for user donations and the support of caring people. Our publishing house mainly employs journalists, an editor-in-chief and one IT specialist who administers the site, maintains its performance and updates content. It's me. This is my duty. The structure is the simplest in the world.
Our media is mainly engaged in investigative journalism, news blocks, communication with guests on streams, and so on. In general, a classic for modern editions. I came into this field quite by accident. I was looking for something new for myself and wrote to the editor-in-chief, expressing my desire to work with them.
Firstly, I suggested optimizing their site for mobile devices, because the markup was so crooked that paragraphs overlapped in places. I made the necessary amendments to the site on my own initiative, sent it to the editor, and they took me as the main and only IT specialist in the publication. Unusual feeling.
Unusual Environment
From the first days I found myself in an unusual environment for myself. All my life I communicated and worked with IT specialists, with Data Scientists, developers, engineers and administrators, but here from the first day, I began to communicate with journalists, with people who do not know what HTML is. At first, I had a feeling of dominance, I confess. I felt like a king, but it didn't last long. Very soon I learned the first lesson for myself while working as an IT specialist in a non-core organization - everyone is good in their own way and there is no need to show off.
This is a terribly simple rule, but for me, as a young professional, it was a revelation. I told journalists something about the site, about its markup, about frontend and backend, hosting and domain, and in return they told me the basics of human psychology, recommended classical literature to understand this life, and what journalistic investigations are based on. Appreciate the variety.
Think for yourself. At my previous job as a frontend developer, all I learned from colleagues was what frameworks they use, how they optimize the code by reducing the number of lines in the code, or, for example, how to optimize the code so that the page loads faster. In fact, this is marking time. Discussing the same thing all day long only accelerates professional burnout, and working in an online publishing house, I received new information every day from colleagues from completely different areas of life - politics, literature, cinema, psychology, and so on.
Hard Labor
If journalists read this article, know that I greatly admire your work and your diligence. Before working in the media, I was sure that IT specialists work a lot and without rest, they literally always work. I myself worked like that, but if you think so, then you probably haven’t seen journalists at work. Working there, I felt like a bum, even though I worked 12 hours a day.
These people are constantly reading something, discussing something, arguing about something, typing something at an insane speed and do not get tired of doing it. At night, they go home with a task from the editor, and in the morning they return with a finished 8-page article. I was amazed at their productivity and sincerely envied it.
From here I got the second lesson - everyone works hard and hard, not only representatives of the IT sector. Yes, I confess, I had such convictions. I looked at friends working in banks, car dealerships, restaurants, who work from an eight-hour working day for a maximum of 4 hours, and remembering my working 12-hour working day, I felt bad.
Now, I don't pay attention to it. I don’t care how much the rest work now, I stopped wasting my nerves, my internal indignation on this and just started working hard together with my colleagues - journalists.
Horizon
Catch the third lesson, which I realized personally for myself. There is nothing more important than your life outlook. Agree, when you are surrounded by people with the same technical mindset, it is very difficult to talk with them about poetry or history, if you are interested. Most likely, they will either joke on you, or simply read facts from Google, as it was at my previous job.
Working as an IT specialist in a non-IT field, I realized that this is much more valuable. I can talk with these people on all possible topics in the world - they will understand me, they will support the conversation, and moreover, they will recommend me what materials I can read at home on the weekend so as not to be so stupid (yes, it was hard at first). I'm sure it's not just in publishing houses.
I am sure that working, for example, in the financial sector, my horizons also increase. Without even wanting to, you will know more about the field in which you work, you will know more about finance, about investment strategies and about banks. And how will you increase your horizons if you communicate only with technical specialists all day long? What does it cost to get a new certificate? Why switch to another development language? It might be okay for some people to talk about it all day, but not me.
Developing your horizons is cosmically important not even from the point of view of professional growth and career, but rather from the point of view of personal growth and development - to become a more interesting conversationalist, to talk with a girl about something other than Node.js, to know what year Napoleon was born.
Almighty Expert
The fourth lesson that I emphasized to myself - do not feel omnipotent, you are not. On my first working day, I felt as if I got into a time machine, traveled 100 years ago and give people new knowledge and technologies. It sent my self-esteem into the stratosphere and I loved it. When I asked what kind of hosting you use, they answered me - what is hosting? I was not afraid that I myself would remake their entire infrastructure for the better, I was flattered.
After some time, when curious journalists asked me about how this works and how that works, the questions became more and more difficult. At some point, I no longer knew how to answer their logical questions, I just didn’t know this, and I needed Stack Overflow to tell them something. Then I realized that you should not consider yourself superior to others just because you know how to do something that others do not know how.
Perhaps I will say something stupid, and then they will hate me, but IT specialists have a very inflated self-conceit and a sense of self-importance. If an IT nerd comes to work in Internet media, where he alone will do the work of an entire department, he will feel like a genius and a king, but if a journalist comes to work in an IT company, for example, as a copywriter, then ... IT nerds will still consider themselves above this journalist.
A very inflated sense of self-importance among IT smart people is of course a topic for a whole separate article, but here I’ll just say that all the hype that rises after absolutely any news in this industry is to blame for this, about salaries in this industry and so on. Too much attention to nerds (I myself am).
Conclusion
Perhaps this is all I wanted to share with you. My goal in writing this article was just to tell you about the experience that I encountered, I work, in fact, with people who are completely opposite in mindset and character, creative and hardworking. I really hope that my thoughts will help you in your life journey. I would also like to add that you should not chase money, chase people who inspire you. In the long run, this will be a more valuable experience for you, which will only bring more fruit in the future.