In February, 2020 I left a stable Data Scientist role in one of New Zealand’s largest telecommunications companies to start at an Australian data consultancy. Three months later I was unemployed and unimaginably happier than I had been for a long time.
Ok, so what has that got to do with Covid-19? The virus, nothing, how we changed because of the virus, everything.
The way we changed working habits was amazing. Here in NZ we had a lockdown where we all worked from home. We got to spend time with our families, get work done, avoid the daily commute and a huge number of other benefits. This came at the small cost of a manager’s grip on your throat being somewhat softened. All good things. This was also the time that I changed jobs and started my first ill-fated position as an Analyst in a consulting firm.
I had a stable job as the only data scientist in one of New Zealand’s largest telecommunications companies. The role was pretty typical of any data scientist position, I ran numbers, made predictions, produced reports, etc. I had good pay, great colleagues, and a comfy desk. But I was unhappy. I wanted to work more with my stakeholders and create cutting edge solutions for them. The mundane grind was wearing thin. So I decided to move.
My thoughts were to move to a data consulting firm, I would work closely with clients, build the best solutions for them, have my work rewarded with growth, and, I’m not afraid to say it, have an even better pay.
And these things were largely true in the consultancy, but I naively thought it was going to be more utopian than it really was. In the consultancy I joined you were generally answerable to clients for deadlines and promises made by a lead who was largely uninvolved with the work being done. As such you were often working long hours and weekends to “catch up”.
Regardless of all this, I was quickly adapting and making good progress, all the clients were happy and the team I was working with were positive and incredibly good at what they did. I felt fortunate to be employed in a good job while people were losing theirs and struggling.
And then it happened to me, I lost my job, I was fired. In NZ we have a thing called a trial period. The trial period let’s the employer terminate an employees' contract within the first three months without any reason as to why and with no notice. It also strips the employee of any power to challenge this decision.
Well, I was on a trial period when I started at the consultancy, and on day 90 of my contract, deep in the Covid-19 lockdown, despite work going smoothly even with deadlines being moved suspiciously a couple of weeks earlier, and clients being really happy, I was fired.
I was shocked, I had never been fired before. I thought things were going great.
I was also scared. I knew how bad the job market was and I had to pay rent, buy food, and worse of all, start looking for a job all over again. Adding to this fear was how my partner and I had lived hand to mouth for years. We didn’t have a huge savings account to fall back on. This was all super scary and all I wanted to do was hide in a dark corner and recede away from the world. And in a way I did, but mostly so I could get my head together.
I put on blinders to the scary stuff, I started applying for jobs and actually started getting interviews. It turns out heaps of businesses over the lockdown had a huge influx of customers and they desperately wanted to retain them. For this they needed a data scientist. This was great for me, the confidence boost from getting these interviews in a bad market was amazing. The extra confidence was also what I needed to start something of my own.
After living in the central city for nearly a decade, I was getting itchy feet for the countryside. Having land, a house, puppies and sunshine started to sound better and better to me. But as a data scientist I was struggling to see how I could make the move. How would I pay for this, what would I do without making a huge career change.
Well, for me, the answer was agricultural data science. Using data from farms, sales and exports to help farmers and related industries to improve profit and reduce waste. This kind of business allows me to live in the countryside, work closely with my clients, do something that matters, spend more time with my family, and, I’m not afraid to say it, earn more money. It’s also a big industry in NZ that grows despite an international pandemic raging.
Now that I’ve started on this path I hope to never get off it. Starting a business is no easy task but the rewards are huge.
I attribute this step in my life to the way we, as a country, reacted to Covid-19. If the consultancy never fired me I’d still be there, burning away the weekdays until I can spend time with my family, living hand to mouth, and not having a clear view of the future.
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