I accepted an offer for a permanent job in one of the most prestigious British institutes. To get there, I had to first understand I'm not cut for the web industry anymore.

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After spending almost three frustrating months searching in vain for a new job as a web designer, it finally dawned on me that I was looking for a role that does not exist anymore. I had to morph into something else if I wanted a chance. Change the role, change the CV, change LinkedIn, change terminology, adapt to what recruiters want, accept what companies want.

Ride or die.

Even though I saw this coming, my behaviour was akin to the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand. I was not okay with being a web developer, for 3 straightforward reasons:

• I've always been a crossover between design and development.
• I'm not a full-stack developer.
• I consider the process of modern web building, through ever changing frameworks, ruined beyond the tipping point.

Basically, had I been willing to accept working for an industry that I'm no longer fascinated by, what I had to do was either learn—properly—one or more programming languages, along with a couple of frameworks based on said languages, or lie about my skills. Having spent 25 years acquiring competence in multiple disciplines, and shipping exceptional products, meant nothing. Or, as one interviewer told me on Zoom, with a grin:

Ah, so you're a Jack of all trades, master of none.

I rarely swear online, but fuck you.

I was gutted. Everything I see on the web is bloated, slow and clunky. Spaghetti code is plastered everywhere, with a multitude of "full-stack" developers spending their days trying to pointlessly reproduce Macromedia/Adobe Flash with other means. It's like the fight for web standards had never happened. Does anybody here remember Molly Holzschlag, Jeffrey Zeldman and the others? Remember how they said that we would meet again, some sunny day?

The sheer number of websites that are not compliant with accessibility guidelines—which is unacceptable—are competing with those who are unable to validate neither HTML nor CSS. None of these things seem to be important; however, filling up everything with megabytes of JavaScript is the indisputable top priority.

I initially came up with a new plan: selling myself as a WordPress developer. People with more than one skill are not attractive anymore? Okay, I'm a specialist, then. It wasn't even a lie: I have almost two decades of experience with the tool, but again: I'm a little shy on PHP. I never learned classes, or how to properly use namespaces. I'm familiar with hooks, and more than capable of building a full-fledged WordPress plugin—but—I don't tick all the boxes, sorry.

Moreover, I don't care about WordPress, so it wouldn't have been genuine. I find all the recent business (and tech) choices by Automattic preposterous at best. The way they've changed the system isn't even worth debating, and it seems like I'm not alone.

After weeks of promising interviews for WordPress roles, I accumulated feedback on how close I was, without making the cut. Probably the runner-up to a thirty-something who knew React, and was okay with using gigabytes of Node modules with a truck of Tailwind classes to build an inaccessible one-page site that wouldn't pass the basic W3C validation test.

Enough with the rant.

I decided to look for a radical alternative: pivoting to a different industry. The idea of leaving behind web development was seriously enticing. After dabbling with NHS job ads for a while, and going as far as considering a gig in catering, something attracted my attention.

It was about a role in IT, as a technician. Something that required tasks like building things—and I mean actual building, not with software—helping other people with their issues, solving problems, coming up with personal initiatives, going outside the office, moving items around town. All this within the University of Cambridge.

Reading the job requirements made me realise something that I've never considered about myself: I've always had a huge fascination for technology, and that predates computers. All my closest relatives were gifted with dexterity and talent in manual labour, which fascinated me to no end. After graduating, my first unpaid job was in a music studio. Besides being the in-house bass player, they required a hands-on attitude, knowledge about how electrical equipment works, and an interest in learning how to maintain, repair, or build hardware.

It didn't end there. In all my jobs, I almost always ended up being the CTO's helping hand, which basically made me an unpaid IT technician all along. That was never a problem: I enjoyed that facet of my work. In fact, I liked it so much that I've never requested a larger slice of the cake. However, my CV and my LinkedIn never reflected this reality, because they were already stuffed with heterogeneous skills.

I applied as Chief IT Technician for the University of Cambridge, reworking my CV in a way that showed how much that part of my work had been enjoyable to me. It almost felt like a side of me had come out of the closet. Weeks later, to my surprise, I received an invite to an online interview with the IT team. I don't think I've ever prepared for an interview so intensely and so focused as I did this time.

It felt different, it felt genuine, it rubbed a part of me that had been ghosted for years. Beside a few exceptions here and there, the last time I actually experienced true joy at the idea of going to work was between 2000 and 2004. It was a time and a place where my diverse skillset was valued: hired as a web designer, the company was quietly pivoting to video game production, hence my music degree and production abilities came handy. At the same time, the CTO took a liking on my IT knowledge, so I spent 4 years working three roles: sound designer, web designer, and assistant IT technician.

The interview went well, besides a doubt on the indecisiveness of one of my answers, which stayed with me afterwards, ballooning to gigantic proportions the following days. To my utter surprise, I received an invite to a second interview, this time in person. The 30-minutes written technical test they gave me ended up being so captivating, it felt like the time passed faster than an episode of Blackadder.

After the test, I was introduced to the team. A well-lit quiet office in the heart of Cambridge, surrounded by culture: two doors down is the laboratory where the electron was discovered. A few hundreds metres away, the place where Crick and Watson announced the discovery of DNA. I was told a decision would materialise a week later.

The day after, they offered me the role.

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Stumbling on a post by an American author that I highly respect reignited my doubts about a dominant growth at all costs culture from the US.

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While expressing my thoughts about minimalism sold as a product, I indulged on the uncomfortable question if I was biased against the supposed (by myself) American tendency to commodify everything. Back then, the only feedback I got from people living in the US was a passive-aggressive post on Mastodon that ended with a meme, smugly invalidating any opinion about American values that might come from abroad.

A few days ago, on one of my favourite blogs Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity, a post about travelling on a budget airline contained the following illuminating thought:

For some reason, the American mindset is endless growth. Everything must get bigger, everything must get better, and more, more, more, how do you like it, how do you like it. But the truth of the matter is, nothing natural undergoes infinite growth, other than some cancers.J.P. Wing

J.P. is an amazing writer, and I share an awful lot of his attitude, fully respecting his opinions the rare times when they don't align with mine. He's American. So here I go again: why most of this growth-at-all-costs destructive culture seems to be coming from there?

I've recently decided to stop reading The Conversation, after two consecutive posts were openly accusing Europe's investors of not doing enough to be more like Silicon Valley. I'm seriously confused: how can anyone really believe, in 2024, that their business model is anything close to being sustainable? The mental slavery that parts of Europe still seems to be having towards the rot economy fuelled by a type of capitalism not integral to the continent is truly bewildering.

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Follow-up to a previous case study on how I automated my static website publishing workflow. This time, a lean Shortcut script is allowing me to write webmentions in seconds.

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For a while now I've been using notes to send Indieweb webmentions in the form of replies and likes. As these tend to be very short pieces, I thought again about how to bypass the annoying bits in the process of creating a note. When I experimented with Apple's Shortcuts to find ways to expedite my writing workflow, I discovered it can be a pretty powerful tool.

Unlike regular posts, likes and replies only require an URL, a name, and in the case of replies also a bit of written content. Everything else can be inferred automatically (date, file name, creation of the file, tags). That's when I decided to make the creation of a webmention with Jekyll as fast as possible. What I've ended up with is an icon in the Dock that I can click whenever I'm ready to reply or like someone's post. The applet asks me for:

• the URL of the post I'm liking or replying to;
• the name of the person that I'm mentioning;
• the title of the post (for likes only).

Everything else is created in the Shortcut automation:

Similarly to what I've achieved with the previous new post automation, once I input the two required info in pop-up prompts, a file is created, the editor Typora is launched, a Terminal session is launched—and minimised in the Dock—with the proper alias commands to serve the website locally. At that point, I can write my reply and be done with it in a very short time.

After duplicating and adjusting the script for likes, I ended up with 3 automation icons: new post, new reply, new like.

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