Hi !

This is the very first post in this space … and it’s not related to tech !

No, I am going to write about me …

So …

… if I am looking back on my recent years, I have to confess that I am lucky.

The project to work abroad I had when I was graduated in Sept. 2000 got stuck as I was looking at Québec at this time and Dot Com crisis hit violently the working market shortly after in 2001-2002 … and then I forgot it but fire was not totally extinguish …
By having the chance to join Leboncoin - Schibsted Group in Jan. 2010, I was excited to work for an international group ( Europe, Asia, LATAM ) but sadly, as cooperation was already a reality for marketing people, tech community was only useful hands to act for the first class employee : marketing. I spent a lot of energy with some people to - at my small scale - try to help that. I had some small satisfaction and achievement but very far from what I would have love to do. Politic did not help but I won’t go deeper, things are changing in a good way - I hope - for tech there.
I speak in past, because I left exhausted from this company. It was mandatory for my health, I was putting too much of myself into this “quest” and - as stated - got very few positive feedback. While these 7 years within Schibsted ( 2010 - 2017 ) I was lucky enough to meet amazing people - in a good way - all around the world and so I am being able to get good network : when you are a YARD ( Yet Another Random Developer ) like me, having a network help a lot. That’s how I was able to work in Mexico City for the Schibsted’s classified ads site there Segundamano . I was hired as a Devops, SRE, PgSQL DBA from May 2016 to March 2017. It was cool but as said, internal politic did not helped and I was facing the same inefficient way to work again and again, no cooperation and worse at this time, pedanticism from HUB ! So basta, I left and went to a good position on paper but the CTO lied to me about more or less everything, so after some weeks he fired me because I was telling him his story was a lie …
After that a very stressful period of 6 months passed before I was able to find a job in CDMX. I was also looking in US or Japan but US had stopped to call me since Nov. 2016 … Trump effect ! … and Japan after talking to a local recruiter, I got confirmation the market is very closed and you need to spent months there to find a job or to have a friend who can recommend or hire you . Also language is a hard barrier …
Hopefully I found a position as Devops in Linio.mx. That period was very long ! From Nov. 2017 to April 2018, I had to wait for my working visa ( named FM3 ) but finally joined the team mid of April … An amazing team. I love them. Beginning was difficult as I lost most of Spanish by barely practising it during 10 months but their kindness got ride of my weaknesses !
I was happy there, learning a lot of things. Oh for sure, not everything was fun, lot of stuff annoyed me but I was ok … and then one of my friend who is living in Tokyo poke me on Hangout … and voilà !
Two months later, I resigned from Linio.mx ( not easy … ) and sold of my furniture, stuffs from my rent ( I rented it empty … a mistake I won’t do a second time !!! ), packaged my stuff, sold a kidney to send them in France and gave the keys back to the landlord and put my fat ass in two flights : Mexico City - Paris – 1 week in family – Paris - Ho Chi Minh !
Hopefully I have heath … It was intense, stressful and boring to do that alone … but the result is that right now I am in an hotel in Ho Chi Minh working there for Quoine Vietnam while waiting for my working visa for Japan … as I will live and work in Tokyo for the next months. I hope I will adapt well and I will get ride of my natural instinct to criticize everything ( useful for sure but so annoying when I am in loop :D ).

I arrived the July, 9th at 7am and started to work at 11am :)
They inaugurated their new office. Everything was working well, and I am very happy to meet my colleagues from Vietnam.
I am already facing a lot of work. The title of my position is Devops DBA. Of course, data team see me as a saviour ! I hope to not disappointing them and I will try to put my best in this new challenge.
Also it’s a good excuse to start this blog. I haven’t really worked with PostgreSQL since mid 2017 so I have to refresh my knowledge as time flies and we are facing some very specific problems.
Ultimalty, I started to learn Kana ( Hiragana and Katakana ) from Japanese writings. This is the bootstrap for us who are coming from roman letters. I was told they are used for grammar and write the Kanji ( imported Chinese ideograms ) for children :) … another challenge I have to face but I signed for it !

For now, I have to survive to heat of Saigon and the lack of air-con in my room …

I hope to write some trivial but useful articles related to PostgreSQL and some coding stuffs ( mainly sysop stuffs … I love C but have nothing in its way for now so … ).

Thanks for reading - LLAP - David.