I’ve made a mistake.
Back in a day, years 2021-2022, I put a LOT into myself, my own development – building my personal portfolio as well as building Chojrak Development. GT has been brought up, it was time when we were at all highs building, innovating, developing, investing. Then came the 2023 and my new job, it was a great job, payout wasn’t that bad, conditions were more than good.
Fact that I worked on one of the most recognised brands in my country’s was something to be proud of. I had a lot of plans, future was brighter than ever before. Then came the 2024 that killed everything, it just…changed. My personal life let’s say was pretty much taken out of the box and shuttered like a piece of glass, but that’s a story for another time. Nevertheless, I was still there in my company working as usual, but something did change after all. I slowly and steady abandoned what I’ve built. GT has declined, Chojrak Development declined, I’ve declined. When did I last do something…for myself? What have I learnt? What have I built? The answer is…nothing besides what my boss asked me to do. That was the problem of me and my life that for the whole 2024 I wasn’t able to take anything besides what was needed (the irl job). Many things changed for me as well, I’ve changed the environment, the people, I’ve changed, that’s all. And probably why I declined in keeping building – because that was the “old” me.
Now goes 2025, my life has pretty much went back to normal. I am happy, I have my true friends, community to have fun around with, I even got a pay raise. What could go wrong, right? Well, it’s the date, 1st July 2025 – I was pretty much forced by my company to get on the new contract. The contract itself is a better thing as I actually was “awarded” with official employee status rather than a contractor which in my country gives many benefits. Again, working at my company itself is great experience – the only thing that bothered me was paycheck, it was let’s say Okay. The new contract cut my earnings by around 2k PLN per month. I want to remind you, I work as a Software Developer, doing real stuff that programmers do, currently awarded with nearly a minimal paycheck with now-added taxes (on previous terms I would get the full paycheck without paying taxes according to law).
That was a huge slap in the face for me. I was rooting for the company, and believed it will get better and I would be able to stay there and someday start earning serious money. I plan to move out and live on my own and go to college soon after all. But it turns out situation may not be that great and I may have as well search for a new workplace, and if you don’t know job-searching is hard in my country nowdays, especially in IT. Now that I have realised my original plans were to go full freelance and run Chojrak Development as a full-time job, maybe it would happen if I were not to abandon it. I know much of this is to blame on the 2024 situation I had, but even looking back at this time, I haven’t really done any progress in my skills, I just do what I do to clear my backlog, that’s it.
Whether it was because of my personal life, or simply going to deep to work for someone else is something up to debate on but I cannot undo the time.
Of course, I’ve changed as a person and I will never be the same old me, but I can do one thing to carry on the legacy. Start doing “my” things, again.
My dream was to become a freelancer and run my own IT company, and it is time to finally get my ass to do it.