Thank you ORAP

Many of you know that I have been working at ORAP for the past three months or so.
As expected, I enjoyed being there and I definitely would encourage you to volunteer there if you can.
I say this because my time at ORAP has come to its end. At this point I doubt very much if I’ll be renewing my contract. I’ll make up my mind over the weekend.

What was my motivation for working for ORAP?
———————————————–

I have worked for ORAP before, as an intern and as an employee. This time around I was a volunteer.ORAP is the kind of organisation where your opinion counts, no matter who you are, where out of the box thinking is encouraged and where crazy is normal (at least in the IT department). The ORAPIANS as they like to call themselves, are super friendly, always eager to offer a helping hand and joke about it in the process.

My real motivation to volunteer lay in the fact that I wanted to learn new skills whatever they may be, and learn I did. I’m happy to say that as a result, some of the systems that are in place now were made by me(I had help of course). This gives me fulfillment you know, knowing that my brain-children(if there is such a thing) are at ORAP.

So what did I learn?
———————–

My knowledge of Linux server administration improved greatly and I now have a few more skills in my skills bag. I don’t have badges to show for it unfortunately. Working on the website taught me one thing: manual testing sucks! Its necessary but still, its slow, painful (yes mentally it hurts) and boring. This just fueled my drive to learn automation. I am making big strides towards that goal too.

Overall experience
——————–

It was good, I learned what I needed to learn and I contributed where could and I’m happy.
Will the orapians miss me? Probably not, many of them didn’t even notice that I was there.
I hope that those who remember me remember me as the person who broke things to fix them, who treated computers equally because they have rights too and generally as the guy who was fun to be around.

I have served my time and it’s time to move on to something else now.
Thank you ORAP

If what I said about ORAP interests you, check out their site: