Leaving the Tech World Professionally

Another person followed me on Mastodon with the profile saying they left tech for good. It hits home because I've been thinking about leaving tech for a few years now, after the AI sloppageddon arrived. The problem is, technology has been so intertwined in my life, that even my online handle revolves around it. I've loved building and using computers since the 90s! I adored the internet. I loved going on AOL and discovering that there were people via the chat channels. Forums were amazing sources of community, and then the early days of social media were magical, where you could keep up with anyone at the drop of a photo, a sentence, see everyone's hobbies, events, happy parts (and sad parts) of life. Now social media is full of influencers (including my old world of Twitch livestreamers promoting themselves), who never have actual conversations or anything "social". Mastodon is the only place that is true social media to me - where I've met amazing people and have had wonderful, real…