For the past week or two, I’ve been working a lot on the backend of my blog. I noticed I was doing similar tasks over and over that were kind of time consuming. I was curious one day and asked my AI if it could help me create an extension for my browser to help me with some of the tasks. It was like, “Absolutely!” and then proceeded to make me one of the most helpful extensions I’ve ever used lol. I was like WTF!? I think within half an hour we had a prototype that worked *very well* up and running. I was shook!!!
Maybe a year or two ago, when I tried using AI for coding projects, it was kind of iffy. But now? Wow… AI has improved SOOOO much. I’m incredibly impressed! It’s not perfect, and best at doing not too complex jobs, but it definitely gets the simple jobs and prototypes done rather quickly. I always have so many random ideas and it’s nice to be able to prototype fast. The idea of the extension kept coming to mind but I had kept pushing it aside. Eventually, it came up enough times that I was like fine, let’s just see where this goes with AI — and wow, am I happy I went for it!
So then I was a bit curious — could the AI convert the browser extension it had built for me into an actual plugin/widget for my website? Apparently yes lol. It did such a good job too with the conversion and now I have this awesome dashboard with a bespoke solution that works exactly the way I want. Now I can check my widget on any device and don’t have to be glued to the computer! I’m so stoked about that ;_;
A specific example —
I realized I was spending quite a bit of time scrolling through my posts to copy and paste the content to then analyze with AI. I wondered… wouldn’t it be great if there was one button that I could just click and voila, everything — including the title, date, content, and tags — would immediately be copied onto my clipboard without needing to scroll and manually copy and paste?
I discussed this idea with AI and it was like heck yeah let’s do it. So then it helped me create a browser extension that gave me this capability lol. I was so impressed! We went back and forth a bit to iron out some bugs and to get the formatting exactly as I wanted but rather quickly, all of that was resolved. This tool is so incredibly useful and saves me soooooo much time. OMG amazing.
I can’t believe I was sitting there like a caveman unga bunga scrolling down my phone screen all of this time and trying to highlight everything when I didn’t have to lol. What’s worse is when I would make mistakes and the entire highlight would disappear and I’d have to scroll all over again. For most posts it wasn’t that big of an issue but for posts like Yardstick, I wanted to scream. So much time wasted 😩
Since this was so useful, I asked the AI if we could convert it as a tool on the website that only administrators could use, so that I can access it on any device, and it was like yes absolutely and proceeded to do it lol. After some QA testing, we got the feature to work perfectly. Now, whenever I need to analyze a post with AI, it’s literally just a click of a button and everything is dandy. Holy sh!t! I love AI 😭
This reminded me of old times. When I was still working, we’d have clients reach out and ask for special solutions that catered specifically to their needs that generalized solutions couldn’t do. I’d be the one responsible to figure out ways to get that done. It was always fun trying to come up with the solutions and create systems for them that made it *very* easy for them to update their websites without having to touch code at all.
I loveeeeeeeeeeeed doing that because my clients would be SO happy about it when they saw how easy it was for them to update their websites. Their feedback was often extremely positive. These days, with services like Squarespace and WIX, with drag and drop solutions, unless a client needs something particularly catered to them, it’s not hard to get a website up and running quickly. Most people don’t need bespoke solutions and can just DIY. That’s fine with me as those projects weren’t the most interesting to me anyway, the specially tailored bespoke ones were. Unique clients required unique solutions.
I remember this one particular job I had that was the most memorable for me that definitely needed special solutions. It was a job for a woman owned company that had a blog which had *completely* outgrown their existing blog platform. It got so monstrously big that I think the blog company needed them off of their servers as it was causing major stress on their servers lol. No normal tools or already made solutions could convert the old blog over to the new blog platform because their database was *way* too big. None of the jobs could complete properly — I think the database alone was a few gigs large, which at the time was a bit insane for a blog lol. The solution had to be custom tailored.
I remember feeling a bit intrigued by this situation. Unsure if I could make the conversion but also very curious if I could. So I decided to do a bit of research and testing on my own time after work. After seeing what was possible, some back and forth with the client (I needed access to their database to do some testing), I ended up figuring out how to make that conversion and so we were good to go. I was also responsible for coding the design that our graphic designer came up with, making it workable as a custom theme on the blog platform, as well as transitioning all of the site content from the old system into the new one. I also designed the custom systems for the company’s content creators to easily add the content that they need to the site without having to touch code and I believe they absolutely *loved* how that was done as their old system was quite restrictive.
I also had to manage a small team to help do QA to ensure everything had transferred over properly as there were thousands of posts and an incredible amount of comments. Their SEO was absolutely important for their business and so having any broken links would not have been ideal. It felt good being able to confirm that all of the urls had transferred over properly quickly post launch of the new site.
I don’t think many people know this but there were some timeline issues (not on the client’s end) and in order to finish the job on time, I ended up staying up an entire weekend to get it done. Bless my parents for taking care of me then and making sure I was well fed and everything. If it weren’t for them, idk if I could’ve done it. That experience wrecked my health so badly and I probably wouldn’t do that again now that I’m older, but at the time it felt worth it and was glad the job was done. I still do think it was though — I wouldn’t have done this for many people but I absolutely *loved* the client so I felt it was worth.
After the site went live, it was a bit bananas. If I remember correctly, the site had roughly a million monthly visitors before the transition. Afterwards, with the nice new blog system and custom template, the monthly visitors *doubled* in size. I was like holy smokes!!! What the heck? That was so impressive. I guess the client’s investment into the site transition was a huge success. IIRC, they were quite pleased!
After I quit my job, I ended up doing one more job for this beloved client before I stopped working entirely because I realized my mind wasn’t in a healthy place to continue. They had me take a look at their technology stack and wanted me to create a roadmap for them, which I did. Apparently, their business had grown so rapidly, technologically speaking, that they needed to know exactly what was running their business and how everything was connected, which makes sense to want to know as having that overview is extremely helpful.
I spent some time getting to know the business operations and how different technologies were being used. I spoke to people in different departments, got to know how they use their technology for their work, and started laying things out. With enough information, I created a map that showed how everything worked together and the important information that was necessary to know. It was pretty awesome to see everything laid out together and making sense. That was another *extremely* fun and memorable job.
Til this day, this particular client still holds a special place in my heart. I think it must be a soul connection because it wasn’t just a normal job for me. It was truly special ✨
I remember visiting them once at their physical location and was gatekept at the front when I requested to speak with the owner. Autistic me didn’t realize that this is not something that most people are cool with and that I would be stopped at the front desk lol. In my mind I was like well I know her and I have good intentions so it’s okay right? Silly me 🤣
Eventually, when the owner found out I was looking for her, she came out excitedly from the back rooms to see me. We were SO excited to see each other. She then invited me into the back room to see everyone and that was sooooo sweet. I was like omg T__T the love lol. I think perhaps this job meant as much to me as it did for her? ❤️
Anyway, when I came out of my isolation last year, I had reached out to this client to touch base and see how they’re doing. There were some loose ends I wanted to wrap up as well. My message seemed to be well received — they were so warm and welcoming and told me that while they’ve been expanding their website and growing their team, they are still using parts of my code to run their site. When I read that, I wanted to effing cry 😭😭😭. Do you know how easy it is for people to just completely replace websites nowadays? Knowing that my code still lives on their site brought me SO much joy! It’s like a little piece of me is still with them. My widdo bebe code still lives on T____________T
I think what was so special about these jobs that I had done for this client is that there was a lot of love and care that I put into them. For some reason, I just really wanted to take care of them and make sure they had received something truly special. I think they knew or at least they felt it.
What’s interesting, in hindsight, is that I couldn’t have done any of these jobs if I hadn’t done all of the prior jobs. Every job that lead up to this client’s platform transition required knowledge that all of the previous jobs had taught me. And I guess when this client appeared, the timing was perfect — I was ready and ripe for it, even though I didn’t quite feel like I was. But my curiosity, the willingness to see things through, and my desire to look for solutions helped me piece it all together and work through obstacles as they came up. It’s kinda wild seeing things in hindsight and how each job was a stepping stone to reach this big one. Apparently, I had all of the tools I needed, even if I didn’t know I did, and I was more than ready.
Also, I haven’t spoken too much about this except that I had quit my job back then. I don’t know how into the weeds I want to get as that’s not the important part. What I will share though is that my mind was NOT in a good place after quitting. It goes back to that betrayal piece that I’ve mentioned in other posts from time to time — feeling like I was intentionally lied to and manipulated for another’s gain. Smoke and mirrors. My trust had completely shattered. The thing is once I see something, once the blindfolds come off, I cannot unsee it.
My entire identity up until that point was that I’m a web developer slash graphic designer hybrid and that’s all I wanted to do. But after I quit my job, I no longer wanted to do web development for anyone else anymore. I felt my loyalty and passion had been severely contaminated. A pattern had started to emerge for me and I knew something was very wrong with my foundation (the codependency) as I kept feeling like I was being taken advantage of in similar ways. Because of this experience, I wanted nothing to do with my passion at all at least until I fixed what kept attracting those situations to me. Yuck 🤢
That job I did for the client after I had quit my job didn’t involve any web development because I was already so bitter about my experience. I ended up exploring other things to do but nothing ever sat right with me. I remember feeling so depressed. I didn’t know who I was without my identity, the thing I did well that others would praise me for. That’s when I ended up going on a decade long learning journey, acquiring new skills that I wasn’t able to do prior because I was constantly swamped with work and not having enough support, shutting everyone else out, exploring deeply within, and going through my dark night of the soul. I guess I was rediscovering myself again but this time, cultivating more wisdom while redoing my inner foundation.
So color me surprised as I’m sitting here now, managing my own blog, creating my own content, maintaining my own site, working on the backend and using AI to create bespoke solutions that normally would’ve taken me a really long time to figure out myself. Never did I think that I’d actually have needs for my own skills and that I’d become my own client lol.
This kind of radically changed my perspective of what happened in the past, leading up to me rage quitting my job along with what happened afterwards where I felt so bitter I could no longer touch what I loved to do. It appears all of that bitterness and resentment just kind of naturally transmuted into peace and acceptance because now, I understand that everything I went through, no matter how positive or negative, was so that I could be here today, supporting the most important work I’ve ever done in my entire life, with the skills that I had learned thus far, leading me back home to my Self and towards potential reunion.
There’s a reason for all of that suffering.
I did the work of facing the truth and facing my Self.
The skills didn’t go to waste.
I am now my own client.
How wonderful is that? ❤️
Also, recently, I realized that I had spent a better part of the past year on a high risk high reward endeavor. I have no idea if any of this will work out. But IMO the risk is worth it. I’d do it all over again if I had to as it’s been such a rewarding experience.
Anyway, super duper impressed with what AI can do. I can see how when used properly, it can really increase productivity. The solutions it came up with are *way* better than anything I could’ve come up with. And any ideas that I have, it’s so totally open to working on them with me and explaining how things work. I’ve even asked about security issues and it helped ensure that the extensions / widgets would be completely secure, which I can see from its output as I scan through them to ensure nothing weird is in there. So far so good🤞! I’m so glad to be living in this era where this type of technology is available. Hopefully more useful tools to come! 😄
P.S. To my twin flame, don’t worry. I think we might be in the “filler” phase of content now. I’m aware I *might’ve* caused an earthquake with my latest arc 👀
Don’t blame me though, blame my Higher Self! It was the one who orchestrated all of that!!! It’s the master strategist. I’m just the dumb lil meat sack. I was born this way. It ain’t my fault. I’m innocent, I swear! 😩🙏
But if it were a bit unsettling, perhaps it’s time for some R&R? If it’s cold where you’re at, maybe some hearty shabu shabu could be fun? What do you think? I’m actually not sure if that’s something you’re into but it definitely is something I love hehehehe. If you don’t like shabu shabu, that’s okay, just come pray with me at the temple 😉🙏😏
I know you’re a Crouching Tiger Hidden Samurai, which is cool and all — much respect 🫡 — but please remember to take good care of yourself. Your health is important. You deserve tender love and care too 🤗❤️✨