So Mick called me later on in the evening and he said, look to put it bluntly you are a sponge, that is the technical term for it. When I type in your name and our systems, every trainer has said that you've been a fantastic student. And you were asking questions way above their knowledge. And that just shows that you've got some skill, you've got some talent and how'd you fancy actually working in IT? Keep listening to the Tech Talks and Soul Walks podcast.
 
 
Hello, and welcome back to Tech Talks and Soul Walks podcast. And I'm your host, Julie Kubiak. My background is in IT, and I have been interested in IT since the mere age of nine, back in the early eighties. In fact, let's just roll back to how I started off in IT, so I can give you a bit of background into where this is all going. So in the early to mid eighties, I went [00:01:00] on a course at the then computer shop called Tandy. You may know it now as Currys or Currys PC World. And my Dad's friend, Nigel, he was the manager at the shop in Coventry. Just opposite Pool Meadow 
So those from Coventry, you can picture where it was and the course was BBC B Basics and that's what we were programming on. BBC B computers, basic coding, and I'd been coding, for a good few months at this point. Buying the magazines, reading the codes, typing it out. Recording the programs on to tapes. Playing it, rewind in, it fast forwarding it. Everything that we used to do back in those days. 
And I just got such a craving to learn more. And my Dad put me in touch with Nigel and Nigel, put me on the course. If I remember the course was about. must have been for a week. For some reason, three weeks rings a [00:02:00] bell, but I can't work out the timings at my head. And we were given little tasks to do each day. 
We were taught lots of little bits and pieces. But we are thinking. I'm thinking, talking about the, early eighties here when not many people had computers and it was a fairly new thing. And nobody at school really had an interest in this. And certainly not when I was in junior school anyway. Anyway, passed the course and I didn't have much more dealings with computers apart from the one that we had at home at this point, until I was in my... um, later years, I think I was about what you would call 
um, well, we used to call it third year seniors. And I think it's year eight now. Or nine. And my tutor at school. was the head of IT Now it'll make you laugh that I call him the Head of IT, because he was probably the only person that dealt with IT in the school. [00:03:00] And I believe we had about six or seven computers in our classroom. this was our daily meetup where we'd just go for registration. 
And once a week we'd have like a 40 minute session, where the Tutor, he'd, you know, pick up on any problems, concerns, and deal with them. But luckily for us though, being in a room of computers, all he wanted us to do was to sit down and shut up so he could get on with his own paperwork for 45 minutes. And he used to load up the game for us called Arcadia. Well, it's exactly the same game we had at home and I would challenge everybody else in the class and nobody would ever beat my high score. 
And I would literally continue on to the maximum score, and finish the game every single week without fail. And it wasn't because I was particularly good at the game, it was just it was easy to do. And anybody else playing the game, just, didn't have this, access to the computer. 
So therefore my skills and my [00:04:00] talent out shone theirs. Because I had access to a computer and therefore I had like unlimited desire, let's say to get on to do things in IT. And to obviously challenge myself to get better and better and better. You
My first job when finishing my A' Levels, was in Coventry Building Society. Little branch and I was a cashier. And it was the same as most people of my era, my age, early nineties at this point. 
And if you couldn't get a job, you'd go and work at Coventry Building Society. The number of my friends that ended up at Coventry Building Societies Head Office was unbelievable. And 
here, I was, using computers, but it was very mundane. I didn't get chance to do anything other than put in the information. I was sent on the word processing course, which was a doddle. And that gave me time away from the cashier's desk, to do some [00:05:00] typing up of letters in the back. And it was just different. But it still wasn't really what I wanted to do. 
I wasn't really doing what I wanted with computers. But it felt that it was a step in the right direction. With regards to work. 
 After two and a half years of being a brach cashier and I was tearing my hair out because I wanted more, I wanted more in life. I wanted more from a job than just literally putting building society books in, sorting cash out, bringing cash in. cashing up at the end of the night, filling up the ATM machines. And I was craving more. And I approached my then branch manager and the regional manager, 
because I demanded, I wanted to take this further. And I explained what it was, I wanted. Funnily enough. three jobs came up at Head Office at this time. And they offered it to myself and somebody else in another branch locally, and it was in the IT department working for one of three managers. Anyway, [00:06:00] cut a long story short. When I went to the job interview. My eyes were wide open. I was amazed at the number of people in there working in the IT department and how huge the department was. 
But no one person's job was the same as anybody else's. And I went in, saw the server rooms and I saw all the PAs to all the different managers, and I saw all the developers. And all the admin staff as well, as in like the systems administration people. And the interview I gave, um, because I was so excited about going to work up there, I didn't end up just working for one manager. 
They actually doubled up one of the jobs to work for two of the managers. And I took on the job of two people in one position. So, okay, there were probably, 
breaking the rules a little bit, but obviously saving a lot of money because only two people were suitable for the role and they had three [00:07:00] positions. Anyway. these two managers, although their roles were very, very different, 
they managed a team of people within a huge office. And I was the PA that used to sit in front of them both and everyone had to get past me to get to the two managers. And, we had this new program out and that they were trialing within the IT department before releasing out to the branches. The plan was to bring something in called, Lotus SmartSuite. Now Lotus SmartSuite. 
You may have heard of Lotus 1 2 3. It is some, spreadsheet program and there was Lotus Ami Pro and there was Lotus... Freelance Graphics! I had to remember what it was called then. And I had My manager, Murray, Murray Newham kind of teach me a few bits and pieces. Now, some of the basics I'd learnt and I knew from obviously all my coding and, um, background in IT that I'd had. For a good 10 [00:08:00] plus years at this point. And I then had 
Word processing experience as well from when I was working within the branch. But it was all DOS-based. And none of it was what was then called, and what was amazing at the time, WYSIWYG;
"What You See Is What You Get". And this was just amazing and it blew me away and I was like, WOW! And Murray and I used to kind of feed off each other, in a competitive kind of way. 
We'd both find out little things and we'd share them with each other and say, "oh my God, have you seen this"? "Did you know, you could do this?" And the pair of us were just constantly chucking ideas and information to each other. And I absolutely loved it! So they sent me on some IT courses and the training company 
they sent me to, unknown until the day we've got there, one of my friends, good friend, I used to hang around with outside of school, Mick was the Head of HR there. He read my, 
Trainer reviews, where you had to review the trainer [00:09:00] after each course. And he contacted me, at my desk, on the phone, when I was working one day and said, "Hi, I've looked at your feedback. I've seen the feedback from the trainers as well. How'd you fancy becoming an IT trainer?. Well, technically a trainee trainer to begin with". And I said, "Should we really be having this conversation while I'm at work? 
Um, how's about calling me tonight at home". So Mick called me later on in the evening and he said, look, to put it bluntly, you are a sponge that is the technical term for it. When I type in your name and our systems, every trainer has said that you've been a fantastic student. And you were asking questions way above their knowledge that just shows that you've got some skill, you've got some talent and how'd you fancy actually working in IT?. And anyway, I went for the job interview. Sailed through the interview. 
And they actually said at the end of it, this was just a technicality. It's a [00:10:00] formality, we were going to offer you the job anyway, no matter how you did in the interview. But I blew them away anyway. And. Yeah, I had to hand my notice and Murray was gutted. He didn't speak to me for those four weeks that I had to work my notice. 
 and I couldn't understand it, didn't know what I'd done. But everyone said, because he could see the potential in me, he was gutted the Building Society couldn't offer me more, couldn't do any more. And they had kind of tempted me with a carrot and said, look, you could, you know, become, uh, like a training advisor, help out with the training department, something like that, when it came to rolling out Lotus SmartSuite. But it never came. 
It never happened. And even though that was in the plan, it was probably going to be years away. Because things like this don't happen overnight within IT. It is a long process. There's a lot of hoops to jump through, money to be found, schedules to be sorted, things like that. Anyway. [00:11:00] 
I started off as a Trainee trainer, loved it. Trained some huge companies. I went to the BBC in Cardiff and did numerous courses down there for them. And that was actually on Lotus 1 2 3. And then I also went to Dolland & Atkinson. If that's how you pronounce it. I never could pronounce it properly. And there I was training them on Lotus Ami Pro, which is the same as Microsoft Word. 
Price Waterhouse was another one that I went down and trained and I was actually training who they call the Roaming Warriors, I think was the term at the time. Which I thought was an amazing title for them! There were accountants that would be out and about in the field doing their job, obviously, whatever it is that they do as accountants. And then they would come back and in the evening I would actually have to train them. I would also update their computers with the latest version of the software and things like that. And then send them away afterwards, but I'd be there for Q & A on [00:12:00] computers as well. 
And it was just amazing. I just had such a fun time. And when I was training, it didn't feel like a job. It was just something I loved to do. And if I didn't know the answer, I'd go away and find it. If I didn't, know sort of how to do something, I would work on it and work out how to do it. But, my talent and my skill and my ability was always higher than everybody else's that I was training. And does give you some kind of boost of confidence to know that you know more than the other people, but I was honest enough if somebody asks me a question, I was like, don't know, or maybe it's not possible, or let's try and work it out together. And people just assumed, that I would know everything, but everybody that was dealing with me knew that I was honest and I was genuine. 
 
Now over the years, I've seen some IT trainers that are full of BS and they would literally say something for the sake of saying it. And pretty much embarrassing other trainers and other [00:13:00] people, because, if they didn't know the answer, they'd make it up and that's wrong. 
And to me, that really used to grate me. And even the trainers that would stand there and read a training course from a manual, that was another bug bear. 
And there was one person in particular that I worked with, that did exactly that. It was as if she didn't know the course she was working with. It's as if she didn't know the software that she was training. And people used to come back to me within the job I was doing and say, "But she doesn't know what she's training." 
And I said, "but she's getting paid more than me". And they were shocked. And I said, "yeah", I said, "because she's got more experience. In IT, number of years, than I've got". And my friends would just be shaking heads. Jaws on the floor saying, but how come though, when you're a better trainer, you know more. Your better at that interaction with the students. And I said, 
I can't do anything about it. And it was that, that actually pushed me to leave my full-time [00:14:00] job and go into IT contracting. 
 
Now, when I moved into IT Contracting that was in 1998. That was a huge leap for me. To go from having numerous different jobs, some of them temping jobs in between IT jobs. But to actually say, okay, I'm going to set up my own Limited Company and do this. Now to put you in the picture, in the late nineties, everybody was doing this. 
IT was THE place to work. You could over pay your mortgage. You could go on holidays often as you liked. You put everything through the business that was related to IT, and your training, and travel and anything like that, because that is what everybody did, because it was such a huge thing, 
in the late nineties. And at this point in time, I'd set up Julie Kubiak Limited as a business. And I was working for Rover Group. Now Rover Group [00:15:00] then became BMW. And it was Landrover as well. And I was working at the Longbridge site, which is no longer there. It's probably a housing estate now, actually. And I was going down to their Oxford offices, Bickenhill, which is in Birmingham. And the 
Loade Lane, 
which was the Landrover 
site. Anyway, working all around these sites and places I was training and doing support for everybody, from the people on the production line, their supervisors or managers who had office-based jobs or had to update information on the systems, all the way through to some of the top Directors within BMW and Landrover, and Rover Group. And I wasn't phased, no matter who I was talking to, because, my passion for IT really shone through. 
And that is what stood out to them all. 
Everything kind of came to an abrupt stop, [00:16:00] as we were approaching, The Millennium. So 1999, unfortunately I had a car accident. I was off work for good few weeks. Really struggled to recover, which was very strange. My body was just not getting back into things properly. And had a long session of about six weeks off work. 
Unfortunatley I'd really damaged my collarbone. I couldn't drive. I was in real severe pain. And my then line manager, at the Rover Group contacted me and we'd been in touch regularly on a weekly basis. And he said, right. unfortunately, we can't hold this position open anymore. all the training had actually come to an end before I'd left. 
And I was me solely doing this training anyway. And he said. As much as we'd like to offer you more work, all projects are coming to a stop. And we'd heard about this. We knew there wasn't much money left within the pot, let's say of IT. But what was happening was they were closing [00:17:00] down all the projects, getting rid of all the staff because of the takeover by BMW, that had an impact in it, 
but it was because of The Millennium that was approaching. Anyone that has been around, through those years will know exactly what I'm talking about. Where, the companies didn't want to spend a penny in case they were going to have to use it (after midnight into year 2000) to rectify any problems. So testing was going on... What was going to happen? 
Nobody knew. And it was just a case of, okay, let's just bank the money. Let's just sit and wait, in case we need it. So a lot of people I know, ended the year of 1999, December 1999. Not unemployed, but out of work, let's say. 
Just a different way of saying it. I know. So anyway. 
Australia obviously clicked over first to the year, 2000 before the rest of the world did. And there was seemingly no [00:18:00] bugs. There was nothing that happened. As we went into the New Year, the New Decade, the New Century... nothing happened to the computers. And although businesses and companies were prepared for the worst, which you have to be, you have to prepare for the worst. Nothing happened, but equally they were still ultra cautious and they still didn't want to invest any more money into projects. Now within the IT world, a project can't just be switched on or started immediately or overnight. It's years in the planning. 
And because for years they'd been building up to this point. It was going to take years then to start any new projects or any new goals or systems out, or in place. So for a good few years, IT kind of became a secondary career for a lot of people. A lot of people went back into temping or other jobs. And including myself. But I went back in to do development work. 
[00:19:00] 
Now when I was at Rover Group and some of the time where it was quiet, I was going off and doing some courses. And I became a Systems Developer and Systems Administrator within what was then Called Lotus Domino. I stuck with the Lotus products because it was what I knew. 
And at Rover Group, they were using Lotus Notes. And I trained and got the awards, and the qualifications even, to do Lotus Systems Administration and Lotus Notes Developer. So with those two, most people go down one route, but for some reason I was torn between the two and I thought, no, I need to learn both, 
and I need to know both. Didn't really quite understand why at the time. So I went off and I basically created a job, told this, company, who my Dad was working for at the time. I said, I could actually make your manual process of doing everything on spreadsheets, I could make that into a computer system for you. Create the software, set up the computers and I mean, [00:20:00] literally starting from scratch from, installing the server, the network, to putting the software on, doing the backups and everything. And looking back now that was a huge achievement for me, because I'd never done anything like that before, but I just knew what to do. And even though we hadn't got the internet as we had now, I was still going off and learning it, I was finding out information. 
I was asking people, friends in the business, "how would I do this"? "How can I do that"? And I just did it. And I can't explain to this day, how I actually achieved it, but I did it. And, to think back about it, it actually blows me away, that I was able to do that. And it was 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Five people in the office. 
I think. And I got them all networked and set up, running the backups and everything like that, with the software I wrote. And it did everything from logging the make, [00:21:00] model, derivative of the vehicle, to purchasing the vehicles on bulk And then selling on the vehicles. outright sales, invoicing. Everything. 
Everything was done through that system, I actually wrote and I implemented within that company. Now my then husband, didn't see that I was doing an IT job. To him I was just sitting, playing around on a computer. And that really grated me because his job was very manual, very labour orientated. But mine was computer-based. 
And even though I was earning, when I was an IT contractor, I was earning three times his annual salary. It still wasn't work. And then when I had become ill and with the Millennium Bug and working for this company, I was earning, but clearly it wasn't the same as him. So he was really putting me down, really belittling my job, working in IT. And. That obviously [00:22:00] eventually came to a head and we got divorced and that then shook off some of my old patterns of thinking and working, and allowed me to move forward within what I wanted to do within IT. 
 
Now, before that happened. I fell pregnant and it was planned, planned to have a family. because obviously my work had practically dried up. And I became ill. Unfortunately very ill during my pregnancy, with my first daughter. And it just felt like I'd had a virus. It then kind of dragged on. 
It was like post-viral fatigue, but there was more to it. And slowly over course for a few weeks, my health really deteriorated, to an unfortunate point, where it was like I'd had a stroke. Down right-hand side, I lost all sensation. I couldn't feel anything down my right hand side. I lost sort of motor control [00:23:00] on it. I couldn't hold anything with my hands. I have no dexterity within them whatsoever. I couldn't even lift or push myself up with my right hand side. 
That's how weak it had become. I couldn't stand up. I couldn't walk. If I had to sit down on the floor, I couldn't even kind of climb upon something to help me get myself up. It wasn't for the fact that I was pregnant, I would have ended up in a wheelchair, but I had to stay mobile for myself and obviously not wanting to, let my muscles just deteriorate. As it turned out, I had developed MS, 
Multiple Sclerosis. And my older cousinMelanie also had Multiple Sclerosis diagnosed about the same time, agewise. So. I do think it's hereditary. And although I can't say I recovered fully, I recovered about six months after I'd had my daughter. Um, left with some long-term problems, but I just [00:24:00] wanted to get back into IT.
Unfortunately when I was ill, 
and although I didn't know it at the time, that was about May, 2005. I didn't return back into full-time employment after then. Purely because of the stress and, 
the inconsistency with my health. For a few days, I might be okay. But then another few days I might be really extremely fatigued, and not able to get out of bed. They might be days where I could walk, not a substantial distance, but I could walk and I'd be okay. Yet, there'd be other days where I'm literally pulling myself up off a chair, and not able to stand at all, 
 and my whole body would just be affected. It was definitely affecting my right-hand side more than anything else. And being right-handed, that affected even doing up buttons, zips, but writing was the big one. Because of technology and with typing and [00:25:00] keyboards and things, I relied very much on typing. But my touch typing skills went right out the window with my Multiple Sclerosis. 
 You just wouldn't have thought I was even typing in English. You just hadn't got a clue what I was typing. Writing?: I looked like I'd taken a degree, a doctorate and become a Doctor because nobody could read my writing. And even to this day, I've never been able to get that writing skill back again. 
It just scribble and scrawl on a page. But. My
passion for IT was still there 
Years later when my husband and I divorced, I was actually living in France with my two young daughters and I knew I wanted to do something in IT. It turned out to be 
Masquerading Limited I put all my free time, my spare time. 
My times when I was just bored and wanted to do something. I invested it into planning [00:26:00] this business and it was a hobby, but it was a passion as well. I'd set up Facebook page, Instagram. Twitter, when that came along and even Musically, which everybody now knows as TikTok. I had that when I was in France. Because I had this desire to do something in IT. I was programming and writing HTML and doing anything and everything I could do. Yes. 
At this point, I was learning things off Google, but my passion was there. Had it have been a full-time job, I couldn't have done it. Yes. I was a single parent at this point because my husband and I divorced. But, there was just me and the girls. So I would push myself to get them into school. Come home, maybe have some time off to, to sleep or, do a few things around the house. Then I'd sit in front of the computer, until lunchtime. And I wouldn't move. Sometimes there were days or weeks I didn't actually achieve anything because I just didn't have the energy [00:27:00] to do it. But then there were those times where maybe late at night, I'd have a sperge of energy... is that a word? Just made that up! Um, A surge, that's the word 
I was looking for. A surge of energy, and just get on and start doing things. And I was in chat forums and, Googling things to find out how I can actually, work on the things I wanted to do. And the website was practically a copy of Facebook. and I got it exactly how I wanted it. When I returned back to the UK, in end of July, 2018. I wanted to make Masquerading actually work. To this day, Masquerading still isn't quite there. Things are happening this year, but oh my God, it has been such a long drawn out process from 2015, to where are we now? 
We are 2024. So nine years so far. And I'm hoping that this is the year that it's [00:28:00] actually going to take off. Because my passion for it and my passion for being in IT is still there. And okay. I've just had the equivalent of like three months off because health wise, I couldn't do anything. I practically became a couch potato, and I know a lot of people do over Christmas time, but this was worse than that. I just. I hardly got dressed and my physical body hasn't been right. And I couldn't even type properly. And I could, I didn't even have the desire to open up the computer some days. 
I just felt so bad. And yet my passion for it still shines through. And when I'm talking to people about Masquerading, people can see the excitement. And it's not just about the idea of the Masquerading website. It's about everything that I do. It could be doing things on MailChimp or it could be, getting the domains, doing stuff on the servers, anything it's just anything like that 
just really... [00:29:00] 
it fires me, fires my passion for IT. 
 
So, if you haven't heard of Masquerading I suggest you check it out. It's basically THE Social Fiction Community. And it's where you can "Be who you want to be..." Think of Facebook and think of being in character, in costume, and having all the events that you could ever want to go to, on that website. And that's what it is. 
It is a 
Niche Social Fiction Community. And it is open to anybody. As long as you take on a persona or you dress a up in costume. And to this day, I still have a passion for working on that website. It is my baby, if you look at it from that point of view. It's what drives me every day to get up and get out of bed. And, as things slowly happen throughout 2024, hopefully the world will see how big Masquerading could actually be, 
and [00:30:00] hopefully it will be as big as I want it to be. 
So that's my background into Tech. If you like this episode, can I ask you to like it, share it, subscribe it. Comeback for the next episode but the Tech Talks part of it is only part of this journey. In the next episode, I'm going to be going through my soul journey and how the two, overlap and collide together. So see you in the next episode of the 
Tech Talks and Soul Walks Podcast.