I quit my COBOL job. [chiptune and guitars intro] Greetings and welcome to an improvised episode of Veronica Explains. I'm Veronica and starting November 1st, I'm not a system administrator and legacy applications developer anymore. I'm quitting the COBOL. There's a good reason for it, or at least I think it's a good reason... and I want to get into talking about that a little bit with this video, because I think it's important for you all, my subscribers, to know a little bit about what's happening behind the scenes. For the last several years, I've worked with legacy systems, mainly working with COBOL on the x86 platform, which basically means I get to plunk around with 40 year old code bases for a living and it's pretty good work. My day job has been mostly behind the scenes stuff. You know, it's not in front of people, but at a previous gig, I was the person brought in to teach people, to teach folks - either who'd never coded before how to code - or to help IT departments figure out how to work with some of these legacy systems. You may not know this, but before I worked as a system administrator, I was a music instructor and that's actually how I paid my way through college, was as a music instructor and I mean, best job I ever had. and what I've learned over the last few years of being mostly behind the scenes for my day job is that I hate it. I don't like the kind of gig where I don't get to see people where I don't get to teach people, where I don't get to talk with people. It breaks my brain not to be doing this every day. So a few months ago, I had a change with one of my clients and my client was saying they were going to get off of their COBOL system, which is fine, you know, it's a lot of what I do is I help people get off of the COBOL system, but this was going to be one of those changes where I was going to have to look for another gig in order to keep paying the bills and I sat there thinking, I don't want another gig. I don't want to keep doing this. Because I'm looking at a three to five year commitment on any new major COBOL job that I would pick up and those three to five years are three to five years away from this. No, I can't do it. I just can't anymore. So even though I can't possibly afford this, at least yet, starting November 1st, Veronica Explains is my full time job. Obviously that's going to mean some changes in life and how things work. What you on the channel are going to notice is hopefully more videos because I'm not going to be contending with customers calling me at, you know, six o'clock on a Monday saying - six o'clock *a.m.* - on a Monday saying, hey, we need you to fix this because blah, blah, blah. That's not going to happen anymore. And now I'm going to have a whole lot more time to schedule around this, and just... get to finally talk about the crap I've learned over the last few years of doing this job. It's obviously going to be a change to have me not working day to day in COBOL. I will say as far as programming gigs and IT jobs are concerned, legacy systems is pretty awesome. There are tons of opportunities and the stability is usually really great. Like even with me, when I was working on clients and getting clients and maintaining clients, they don't usually drop their legacy systems management on a whim. You know, this is the kind of thing where if somebody's going to make a change, they make it months in advance. You usually have pretty good stability. And if I was the kind of person who enjoyed being behind the scenes more and maybe you are, it would have been a fantastic fit for me long term. I could imagine this being my career forever if I didn't want to be in front of you all the time. So as far as what's next for the channel, I'm probably going to take a couple of weeks and just breathe. Because honestly, I've been working 60 hour weeks nonstop for maybe the last three months. Um... So I'm going to take a breather and once that's done, I'm going to hopefully kick out some more videos about Linux and the stuff that I've learned. I want to talk more about the utilities. I want to do more little Linux lessons, way more little Linux lessons. I've only done like four of them and I know you all want to see those. So I'm going to get a few more of those done. And I'm also hoping beyond just the channel, to go into writing a little bit more, and talking about some of the stuff I've picked up, and some of the stuff I've observed over the years. And sharing that in not only these videos, but also maybe on my blog, because I love talking about this stuff. If I did a video on absolutely everything I came across, the algorithm would hate it and they'd stop showing it to you. So I'm not going to do that, but I can write about things all day long. So maybe that's what I'm going to do. I also want to do more speaking engagements. So if you're interested in having me come out and tell your employees about how to use multi-factor authentication, I'm your gal because I used to do that. And I know that I can be a little bit more exciting for a bunch of employees having to stick to some stupid meeting than somebody who doesn't bring in the excitement that I do, the passion that I do. The, I don't know, Miss Frizzle meets Bill Nye approach that I bring to some of this stuff. I mean, who knows? Maybe I'll end up doing, like, the corporate training video. You know, I used to do those, actually. I used to do corporate training videos for the IT department at a previous employer and it was super nerdy. At one point we like acted out an entire scene about data integrity and I filmed all my friends walking around. I think I used a DV cam and it was an absolute blast. So anyway, I am super excited to actually get back to my passion of talking with people and communicating with people and being in front of things instead of behind the scenes because I just miss it. I miss it so much and I started this channel because I recognized that I was sick of being behind the scenes all the time. And I knew I needed to do something and I figured, you know, doing a video once a month would be enough to tide me over and I've learned it's just not. So I just got to give this a try and that's what I'm going to do and we'll see how it goes. Hopefully this ends up working out and hopefully I'm able to make a career out of explaining tech because that's pretty much the dream at this point. So if you'd like to help me make Veronica Explains happen, Kofi and Patreon are the best options for that. And to all of you who are watching and subscribing and supporting and just all of the things that we do here on YouTube, I want to thank you so much for your support. Because you all have shown me that I was really on the wrong path and this is the path for me going forward. I have no idea what this is going to look like. I don't know if I'm going to end up doing speaking engagements or if I'm going to end up doing writing for publications or if I'm just going to be a YouTuber now, but I know I'm done being behind the scenes. It's time for me to get out in front. Thank you for showing me that this is what I need. I really owe you one. [child shouting] "1, 2, 3, 4!"
[punk background music plays] Finally, talk about the crap I've learned over the last few years of doing this job. Stuff I love about doing this job. No, I might go with crap I've learned. [offscreen] "now you have a blooper."
[offscreen] "you just called it a stupid meeting." Yeah, it is a stupid meeting. Nobody wants to go to these meetings, but I know you have to have them. Maybe I'll finally have time for that Newsboat follow-up video I promised you.
