MOVING ONTO PASTURES NEW...

Today was my last day working in Swindon, for now. The beauty and curse of the IBM Apprenticeship scheme is that you have the ability to move around every 6 – 9 months, and I’ve been in Swindon now since October, so I figured that something new is probably the best thing for me.

I’ve had a weird time in Swindon, it began and I hated it, commuting everyday and not knowing what on earth I was doing working when I was only 19. However slowly everything has changed and all of a sudden I’ve got some really awesome friends and some very lovely cocktails to drink. When things did get better I started staying in hotels twice a week to cut down the commute, work at home and my circle of friends grew from my immediate team to a lot of wider folk that were already there.

We went out for meals most evenings, or there was a cinema trip on, sometimes even go karting if people were brave enough. You sort of fell into a routine by the end of it, the boys had football on a Tuesday (then followed usually by a group dinner), Wednesday was always dinner and then 2 for 1 cocktails at the infamous Baker Street – of course some karaoke at the Vic afterwards. Thursday was always home day, so it was really only Tuesday and Wednesday that everyone got together. Since the new Nandos arrived we ended up there every week (and I am well on my way to tasting the entire menu). So the social life was pretty awesome, and needless to say I am hoping that I keep in touch with them.

The job was also pretty great, I mean, at the end of the day I liaise with test projects and stakeholders to get them data to test with (so essentially fake accounts if you were testing to see whether the sign in bar of Amazon was working). The job got far more interesting as time went on, and eventually I got contacted everyday by someone new or a returning project because they knew how good a job I had done previously for them. It was great, I feel like I made an impact and left my stamp firmly on the service the team were providing. I met some great people from India and it was brilliant.

But today was my last day in Swindon, unfortunately everything comes to an end and although it was great, meeting new people and facing new challenges is always where my heart lies. I’m moving to Preston (well, as far as living in hotels 5 days a week counts as moving). Luckily for me, there is a good community of young people already there, and I have some friendly faces up there that I can rely on if work gets too much. The most important thing I just have to remember is that every day is something different, and you never know who you might meet or what you might encounter. It’s easy to forget what happens in a day when they all get blurred.

I’ve concluded from my 9 months in Swindon that although I was living at home, staying around in hotels and going out with friends around the country was really fun. Not quite knowing where your life would leave you or where you were going to be next weekend was pretty exciting. Never be settled, if you’re settled then where does the next challenge come from? Deciding whether to buy a Wispa or a Twix? That totally isn’t me, but hopefully I’ll be able to handle any challenge that comes my way.

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