Hello Guys, I'm alive!
I know, I probably deserve some curses and maybe even a few virtual punches. Honestly, I feel super guilty for not updating any chapters for months.
There hasn't been a single week in the past six months where I didn't tell my friends, "I'll upload the chapter this weekend!"—only for the weekend to pass with me doing absolutely nothing about it. Time has just been slipping through my fingers.
Now, I know most of you probably don't care about where I've been and just want the chapters. For you guys, good news! The chapter will be up in 5-6 hours. Lucky for me, I already have a bunch of drafts ready. The only hiccup? I need to add images—and, umm, I might've forgotten where I saved them in my system. So yeah, there's a bit of work to do before I can really get back on track.
Rant Alert 🚨 (Feel free to skip if you're not interested in my misery)
So, where have I been?
Well, I got a job as a software developer in an IT company! Sounds great, right? But here's the plot twist: the pay isn't even close to justifying the workload.
Any developers here or aspiring ones? You'll definitely relate. In the past six months, I've been through a whirlwind of skill-building just to keep up:
Java Spring Boot
Database (MySQL)
Frontend (HTML, CSS, JavaScript)
Unix
Jenkins
Manageable so far, right? But then hell mode began when my demon supervisor decided I could handle more projects:
Python (Data Analysis, Visualization, Machine Learning)
APIs (Creating, Handling, Testing)
Web Scraping (legal)
Generative AI (LLMs, RAG, Fine-tuning, Prompt Engineering)
Testing (Manual + Automated with Selenium)
AWS Cloud (Lambda, S3, EC2, DynamoDB, SageMaker, and so much more)
DevOps (Docker & Kubernetes)
If you understood even half of that, congratulations—you're either overqualified or as doomed as I am. Also, if your company has job openings, please ping me. 😅
Honestly, I feel like I'm a novel character whose devil mentor keeps throwing impossible challenges their way. My supervisor expects me to learn literally everything he hands me—more than even my parents ever expected from me.
Weirdly enough, I haven't given up yet. Maybe it's Stockholm Syndrome, or maybe I'm just stubborn, but I've somehow become a better version of myself. Of course, that's come at the cost of burning out my last few remaining brain cells.
Oh, and don't get me started on the professional scoldings. They're so polite and cutting that you start questioning your existence. My supervisor scolded me like, "Don't ever call yourself a developer with code like this." That was during our first meeting, by the way.
This whole experience has made me regret not studying harder in high school. If I had, maybe I'd have ended up in a less stressful field with decent pay. But nope, I had to pick computer science because "I want to be a developer!"
To be fair, I still enjoy being a developer—it's what I dreamed of back in school. Sure, I wanted to be a game developer, but my creativity (and drawing skills) leave a lot to be desired. Maybe I can still join a game dev team someday, but for now, I'm stuck here, surviving.
One thing's for sure: I'm switching jobs next year. This company has already drained most of my passion, and I refuse to let it take the rest. (A bit dramatic, I know!!)
Updates
Now that the end of the year is here, things have finally calmed down. Everyone's busy with project deliveries, and I actually have some free time for once. So, I'm focusing on my hobbies again.
Chapters will be updated on weekends (and maybe weekdays if I get the time).
Patreon Reminder
Don't join my Patreon just yet! Sure, I'll be updating it, but I'd recommend waiting until I've uploaded 20-30 chapters there (post-Chapter 153 on this platform).
Why Patreon, you ask? Well, despite having a job, I'm still broke—or maybe even poorer than when I was unemployed. Rent, bills, groceries, insurance, EMIs... It's all insanely expensive in my new city.
That said, free chapters will still be available here, just at a slightly slower pace compared to Patreon. Also, Patreon's feature of adding images to chapters is amazing!
If you've got any questions, drop them in the comments. I'll keep checking from now on.
Yours Truly,
Alien!