My Time in Barcelona: The Ugly

Welcome back! In Part One I talked about the good and what I loved the most about my time in Barcelona. In Part Two I talked about the bad and some of the things that were annoying AF. Now I’ll talk about the ‘ugly’: the things that really wore me down by the end of my trip. Let’s go.

“If you were only from the EU …”

By the time I finished Codeworks I felt like hot shit. I felt like Neo at the end of The Matrix. I felt I could see all the code on the internet and manipulate it in a hot minute. It was easy as writing a quick script in the browser. I felt validated after having gotten compliments on my presentation style, my great understanding of UX and UI, and just being an all-round great coder. I was told early on that I was one of the best in the class, but it was only in the senior part of the programme that I really believed it myself. Despite my apprehension of finding a job in Barcelona because I wasn’t from the EU, all my classmates and teachers reassured me that because I was a great developer, once the company wanted me, they would sponsor me. I badly wanted to believe this was true.

The last week of Codeworks is hiring week. We prepare our LinkedIn profile, our CVs, get our Github profiles looking right, get some personal and technical interview training, and then face real interviews with companies who come in. Unfortunately, it’s August, when a number of companies are on vacation. So unlike the other cohorts, which got to interview with several companies, we just got two. We were told that they would invite us back in so that we could have a proper hiring week like everyone else, but sadly they didn’t fulfil this promise.

Anyway, I interviewed with the two companies who did show up. The first company was looking for both frontend and backend developers, while the second was looking for a full stack developer. In the case of the second company, while everyone else had a fairly long interview with them (30-40 minutes), mine lasted maybe only 15 minutes. I gathered that after they learned that I wasn’t from the EU, they lost interest and cut it short. I had no idea that it was going to be an ongoing theme.

I fared much better with the first company, however, passing my first interview as well as the second. The next week I got a call from the CTO, who told me that they wanted to offer me the position of backend developer. I was thrilled! They then sent me the job offer. For starters, the position was offering a salary lower than the minimum I expected. Plus I was beginning to realise that a backend position may not have been for me. I didn’t want to join another organisation where I was just doing the work and phoning it in, but not really enjoying it because I wasn’t doing what I loved. If anything, the interview taught me that I would prefer either a frontend or full stack job. After much deliberation, I decided to decline the offer.

The next day the CTO called me back to find out why I declined. After explaining my preference for frontend development and for a slightly higher salary, I was pleasantly surprised by his positive reaction in both cases. He then said that he really liked my profile and wanted to have me on board. He said that he had a work trip but once he was back he would arrange the frontend interview with me.

At this point I told him that I wasn’t from the EU and would also require sponsorship. He said that he would then have to check with his legal team to see what they think, and to send him my visa information. I did so and he replied reiterating that based on the legal response, he would call me back for the frontend interview. I didn’t hear from him again. I followed up with him after he was due to return but got no response. A week later I get an email from their HR letting me know that they were ending the interview process without an explanation. I filled in the blanks. I was dumbfounded and irritated.

This was just one example of how the interview process went with several companies in and out of Barcelona went while I was there. I got contacted by several recruiters and company HR personnel who started off by saying how much they loved my profile, but once they learned that I wasn’t from the EU, they ended the process. One from the UK even said “if only you were from the EU …”. So much for ‘if they like me they’ll want to sponsor me’. I even interviewed with one of my dream companies who went on record saying that they would sponsor non-EU persons as long as they were talented. After completing their coding challenge, which I couldn’t wait to talk to them about, I got no response until I followed up with them, letting me know that they too were ending the process. One of my juniors (from the EU) then got the job.

It was only in the last week of my stay in Barcelona that I learned that according to Spanish law, it was very hard to sponsor anyone who would be earning an annual salary less than €35k, which is why they rarely hired juniors. In any case, I got the sense that I couldn’t really get a job in Barcelona and stay like I wanted unless I had more years of experience under my belt, or unless I got a freelance visa. I got so dejected. Which leads me to my next part of the story.

The return of insecurity

I went from feeling like I was hot commodity as a junior software developer, to feeling like I wasn’t worth shit. As much as I knew and was told that I shouldn’t take it personally, each rejection started to erode and undo a bit of the protective armour I had built up within the last year. I felt once again like I wasn’t good enough. I felt just the way I did when I broke up with my ex back in 2016. And worse enough, I felt like here I was, a few months before my birthday, unemployed and nowhere near achieving my goal of working abroad. I felt like a failure.

In addition, during that time, I was so stressed out. The stress did a number to my face. For as long as I can remember I never had bad acne. All of a sudden I was breaking out all over my face, and also getting painful, red, cystic acne. At this time I had also decided to take the braids out and start back growing my hair out all over. My hairstyle was okay but it wasn’t totally cute and I missed having some form of length. Then there was the fact that I had a missing front tooth. Before I came to Barcelona, I had to remove my left front tooth because it had a deep bone infection, which was later discovered to have been abscessed. To cover it up, I wore a denture that took some time getting used to. I hated wearing it. I’d look at my pimply, scarred face with my missing tooth and my short hair and think how ugly and unattractive I looked. I was a hot mess. But things only got worse from there.

The robbery, and more bad luck

I knew that Barcelona was a place prone to pickpocketing. As a result, I did my research and picked out bags that had antitheft technology. The thing is, the antitheft technology only works when you actually use it.

I went out one day after my Spanish class (I had started taking a Spanish class a few months before I was due to come back) and did some shopping. At some point I think I got distracted but I know my bag wasn’t completely closed. Maybe at this point my wallet was taken from me. I have no way of knowing. All I know is once I discovered it was missing I retraced my steps hoping that it was somewhere in one of the stores I visited. No luck.

The thief made off with a couple hundred euros, some of which I had taken out the day before to pay my rent with. Luckily, that very same day I had taken out an extra €500 that I had in my wallet for the longest time but thought it best to put it away in case something like that happened. I was sad I turned out to be right.

I called VISA and cancelled my credit cards, and later went to a police station to file a report. I had asked for emergency cash and replacement credit cards, but unfortunately it took two weeks before I could finally get either. I was so grateful that my roommate/ landlady was understanding about it all and gave me time to pay my rent, as she herself had gotten robbed a few times and knew what it was like. But it was just one more thing to beat myself up over.

I was devastated for the next two weeks. And it emphasised the fact that I was all alone in this country with no close familial support.

Then if that wasn’t all, about a week after all that happened, my laptop crashed. I tried all that I could to restore it for myself but this problem just wasn’t one I could easily fix. Luckily again, I backed up my computer a day prior after I felt like it had been some time since it was backed up. I took my laptop to a repair centre that was thankfully able to fix the issue (it was a faulty hard drive connector that needed replacement) and I got my laptop back a week later.

The homesickness

Once the robbery occurred, I had had it. I felt like I couldn’t take it any more. In the first four months of living there, I was barely homesick. Initially I was too busy to really miss my family and friends. I had enjoyed the coding experience at Codeworks and similarly all that Barcelona had to offer. But now that all of these terrible things were happening, I needed them more and more. I couldn’t wait to return home.

During that time one of my cousins stayed with me for a few days, and I was grateful for having a bit of home with me. When she was there we did a couple of touristy things, even taking the train to some other places outside of Barcelona such as Tarragona and Sitges. I was rather glad for a bit of the distraction. Once she left I just had a few more weeks to go until my return. The weeks couldn’t have flown any quicker.

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The final week

By my last week I think I had gotten so detached from the idea of living in Barcelona. At first I thought the city loved me; now I thought it no longer wanted me. And I felt like I no longer wanted it, too. It was almost Christmas time, and there’s quite nothing like a Trini Christmas, I have to say. I couldn’t wait to have my sorrel, my pastelles, my black cake, my ponche de creme. Furthermore, I couldn’t wait to see my friends and family again.

Still, I was sad to leave my new family behind. It wasn’t that big, but I had created my own little support network while I was there. I would also miss the ease of commute, the spirit of innovation all around me, and the access to a large tech community. In my last few days, I went to all the places I had come to know and love dearly, and said my goodbyes to all who I could.

I was sad that I left on a largely bitter note. At the time that I left, I couldn’t remember any of the positives and accomplishments of my trip. It felt as if the Codeworks experience had become a distant memory at that point. I left feeling some form of regret, not about doing Codeworks, but staying for as long as I did. I wish that I had also taken the opportunity to travel around Europe more while I was there, although this was primarily because I wanted to focus on my job search. Now I was coming home jobless to an almost empty bank account, save for my gratuity that I earned from my last job.

Learning from the experience

Looking back now, I can see that despite the negatives of my trip, I learned and grew so much. It was a nerve-racking experience when my wallet was stolen, but I thankfully survived through it all, and I learned how not to be so careless in the future. I learned that shitty things can happen, but they happen to everyone, and they’re what make us adults. I also learned how resilient and strong I was, despite going to a country where I barely spoke Spanish, and knew not a single word of Catalan, but still knowing enough to get by.

And despite the rejections, I learned that I have legit proven coding skills, and it’s definitely what I want to do with the rest of my life. And in any case, the rejections truly weren’t possible; it’s an unfortunate result of the bureaucratic process to hire a non-EU national, and it’s the same in most other countries. But while I may not have that foreign dream developer job yet, but I know that one day the right company will be ready and able to hire me, and I will be ready to accept.

The end

It’s the end of my Barcelona story, and I really hope you enjoyed my (rather) detailed account, and my attempt to balance the positives with the negatives. Again, I wanted to end on a good note. I really did enjoy my time there overall and would love to go back, even if it’s just to visit, and I’d still recommend anyone to visit there. It’s a truly beautiful European city full of vibrant and passionate people. Here are some of the last pictures I took in Barcelona:

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