The year began with some optimism, I was a part of huge and important upcoming projects for the business of fashion, I had hard burnout after January due to being involved in a bunch of projects which we were trying to close from 2019. But we had a clear road map and new projects were super interesting to me, we had quite some freedom, clearly defined goals and high expertise was required to deliver them. On that note first, lockdown happened. The last day of “freedom” was the 15 of March, I clearly remember that day coz it’s my birthday. Last day of fresh air and opened restaurants. That was my weirdest bd ever, I spent it with my family of course. The day was weird coz I was saying goodbye to my parents and preparing myself for being alone for no one knows how long. I will tell you a bit more later, but for me, there are a few of the most important things in life: home, partner and friends. Home it’s not just apartments for me, but a warm and calm vibe, family, support and much more. The same goes for partner and friends, I hate and afraid of being alone.

Spring The first lockdown was fun, our company was pretty loyal and moved everyone to work from home. We had everything in place starting with VPNs and tools for communication due to constant work with London we were ready for such a thing. I was full of energy and was doing multiple useful things at the time. I started working on my service with our CEO, even during lockdown I made discovery interviews with leads of Slovenian tech companies and got pretty valuable feedbacks. I hosted a golang crash course with 6 of our developers and had a python mentoring process with one of our DevOps. I was super happy that time, I never felt so useful and had the feeling that time well spent. On another side, not all of you know, but I had a drinking problem due to a lack of social activities and personal self-digging. One, two or even three bottles of wine a day in the middle of the working week could happen to me… I again gained extra 15 kilos due to my stupidity and heavy drinking. 

Summer. We cancelled our lovely apartments in Ljubljana and moved with my sister to my parents’ place. My sister moved from the beginning of lockdown, I did it at the end of spring somewhere. For a month we tried to squeeze into my parents’ place. I had 10 square meters room where I had an office and bedroom. The mood in the house slowly started being depressing due to the lack of tourists, we started realising that we completely lost income this year. During that time our office was opened back to normal with some limitations and corona precautions. I moved to the hotel in the city centre of Ljubljana to be able to chat with colleagues to cheer up a bit. After a heavy drinking party, I stayed in a hotel next to our office and asked for a special deal. After that, I moved to the hotel next to our office for a reasonable price. That was tough after I moved to another country I’m constantly dreaming of “home”. People from my SaintP era know about my home and can clearly understand how warm and welcome it was. During this chaotic living situation, I wanted to stop working on my side projects and be focused on the business of fashion only. I even didn’t have enough moral energy to invest in the services of my dream which I was developing with our CEO. But at the beginning of August, we got potentially the first client and it gave me some morale boost, but not for so long. Because we couldn’t take this client due to technology-specific. And that’s probably where my depression has started.

End of August, beginning of September. School supposed to start, my sister had bad times with her schools as well. The place where she studied before went bankrupt due to covid and we had to find something else. We found one place, which was enormously expensive and after the first few days, we realized that this place is complete garbage. But luckily we received a message from the ex-director and he wrote that he opened another school. And we immediately switched there. My mission was to find a suitable flat for me and my sister. We moved to ex Airbnb apartments directly in the city centre. For me, it was 4th moving this year. I was stressed out, no money, no normal sleep, family without income for the whole year. I had to do something. 

October. I asked my company about the raise, I got pretty weird answers and decided that it’s time to move forward. Even I didn’t want to do that, I loved my company and the majority of people there, I had my project and I suppose to lead one of our clients, but I couldn’t afford it. During this period we were delivering and wrapping up a project which we were doing since March, quite a big beast. A lot of effort I put in, coz I respect my team, team lead, company and our client. We delivered everything in time and within the last two weeks, a lot of things happened. I decided that I will come back to the sport and started going to the swimming pool every day after work. But fucking pandemic close the pools after one week since I started swimming. Within the same week unexpected happened. My colleague, my good friend pass away from a heart attack. Our CEO called the whole of my team to inform us. I was shocked, freaked out. I couldn’t work after that at all. I didn’t have any feelings that day, I was completely lost. I got two bottles of whiskey and finished them in Macedonian way from two hands. The next day still was blurry and my mind was blunt. One day after I started crying when our common colleague mentioned the loss. In that mood, we made the final deploy and it was my last at the company. The next day I immediately joined another one, since I could not afford vacations or take at least a small break. Within the same week, I had the toughest negotiation process with two companies, I didn’t know what to say at that meetings, I was just there and trying to process all the stuff. 

December. New company. The first day was weird, I came to the half-empty office, the manager met me, gave me a laptop and mostly this is it. That was the end of onboarding and the next day I started getting tickets. I asked if I can work from home and it was prohibited, I was pretty surprised let’s say. I got the news that my cousin grandma passed away… We were pretty close with her, because of her I still in IT business by the way. That was another tragedy that year. You can imagine, switching off the company, flat, your colleague passed away, no money for the whole year, what next right? 

So, the salary in that new company was ok, I could help my family, but it was too late. On Sunday, my dad called me and told me to come home urgently for a week. Parents didn’t tell anything till they went to SaintP and sold our family nest. I was pissed even more than before. 

Xmas and all other holidays you can imagine. That’s how 2020 turned out for me besides all my projects and career.