Technology, Independence, and Survival: How IT Changed My Life
This blog will explore the ever-evolving world of technology, drawing from my thirty years of experience. When I left school, a career in IT didn’t exist—not in New Zealand, a country often seen as lagging behind the rest of the world in technological advancements. Technology was still in its infancy here, but as I moved through different industries, it became a defining part of my life.
I want to introduce myself with a look at the ups and downs of my relationship with IT. From my first exposure to computers to writing this blog, technology has played a central role in my journey. It has given me independence, provided opportunities I never expected, and more than once saved me from becoming another statistic—one of the many women who step away from their careers to raise families or who leave school without formal qualifications.
More than that, it saved me from another troubling reality—the statistic of single women who can't afford to own their own homes and are destined to rent for life. Having a0 well-paying career in IT gave me the ability to support myself financially, secure my own property, and build a future on my own terms—something far too many women struggle to achieve.
Beyond financial independence, IT was one of the few career paths that allowed me to juggle family life and work life. Unlike many jobs that required strict office hours and rigid expectations, technology offered the flexibility to work remotely, adapt schedules, and continue progressing in my career while raising my children—something that was not readily available in many industries at the time.
Interestingly, I never really noticed that IT was a male-dominated industry—not until I started reflecting on my experiences. While there have certainly been fewer women in IT, I was fortunate to work at Greentree, a software company with a flat structure where I felt more supported. Although there was only one female programmer, there were more women working within the development teams, which helped create a well-balanced work environment.
However, women in IT were not well represented, particularly in leadership roles. In fact, New Zealand as a whole doesn't have many women who have managed to break through the barriers to reach executive positions, across all industries—including politics. The country has long had an invisible threshold that few have surpassed, making it even harder for women to gain influence at the highest levels, whether in corporate, technology, government, or other sectors.
While my expertise is deeply rooted in IT and software, I want this blog to open discussions beyond just technology in the workplace. The way we consume entertainment, the way businesses operate, and even the way we connect with one another have all shifted dramatically in the digital age. Advancements in music, movies, communications, and countless other fields have changed the way people work, and I want to explore those transformations alongside my own experiences in IT.
I’ll begin this blog with my high school years, the moment I truly started paying attention to computers. Back then, technology was still a mystery to most people. When my father brought home a computer, we laughed at the idea that a machine could have a virus or a bug. These were new terms, and their true meaning would only become clear much later as the IT world transformed.
Paving a Path in Technology Before the Road Was Built
I attended Macleans College, a new school in the area where I lived, now regarded as one of Auckland's top schools. The pressure to pass exams was immense. Throughout my entire time at school, there were only two computers available, and my total exposure to them amounted to just two hours. We weren’t permitted to touch them; instead, we were shown how computers used binary during a math class. The computer my father brought home one weekend from work—with the game Defender on it—was far more interesting. At that time, there were no internal credits—everything relied on the final exam, and a mark below 50% meant failure.
As the eldest, I was expected to set an example. Although I passed my year 10 exams, known as the School Certificate in New Zealand, the prospect of another year of school exams was not something I wanted to endure again. I was told I could only leave school if I had a job.
Armed with my School Certificate in Maths, English, Accounting, General Science, and Shorthand Typing—a skill that has largely faded from use but relied on a system of lines and dots, where their shape, whether straight or curved, and their position on the line determined their meaning when decoded into English—I landed a job as a receptionist at a building supply company. The technology available to me consisted of an electric typewriter and a postage-franking machine.
My mother, juggling her own job, continued to be my taxi to and from work. It became clear that working in town—where I could take the bus using a manually clipped ten-pass card or cash—was a better option. I landed what was then considered a good job as a secretary for a lawyer. However, unable to cope with the disorganization, I quickly realized it wasn’t for me and left for a receptionist job with an insurance broker.
As a receptionist, I again used an electric typewriter, though the office also had a word processor, a new technology at the time. Microsoft Word hadn’t been developed yet, and the concept of digital word processing was still relatively new. Computers in the office were primarily used for accounting, with access restricted to certain staff. As the company grew, I was promoted to assistant insurance broker, gaining more exposure to how computers were used for invoicing and backups.
Seeking adventure, I moved to Australia, eager to explore new opportunities. My first role was at an Australian bank, reviewing visa transactions for signs of fraud. Shortly after, I transitioned to a sister insurance brokerage that specialized in working with accounting firms managing companies in receivership or liquidation. While the work was fast-paced, there were no notable technological advances in these roles that shaped my future career.
After a few years, I embarked on the classic New Zealand overseas experience—traveling through Europe while funding my adventures by working in London bars. One of the things that drew me to the UK was its thriving live music scene. Unlike New Zealand, where opportunities for musicians were scarce, major bands played regularly in London, and I found myself surrounded by the very performances that were hard to access back home. Many Kiwi artists—like Split Enz and Crowded House—had to move overseas to find their audience, and in London, live music was everywhere. Alongside the theatre workers and musicians I met, this period immersed me in a world of constant creativity, shaping my perspective in ways I hadn’t anticipated.
Returning to New Zealand with a new husband, I soon became pregnant with my first child. At that time, job opportunities for pregnant women simply didn’t exist—being pregnant in the workplace was something to be hidden, and employers were unwilling to hire someone who would soon need maternity leave. Like me, many women faced blatant rejection solely because they were expecting, as companies saw maternity leave as an inconvenience rather than a normal part of life. That stark reality left me frustrated but determined, further reinforcing my need for a career that provided both flexibility and stability.
A few months after my daughter was born, I finally secured a role at a local insurance brokerage—conveniently within walking distance of my home. While not a dream job, it provided the stability I desperately needed as I adjusted to motherhood and prepared for the next stage in my journey.
With my passion for travel reignited, I enrolled in an online diploma in travel. Through a colleague, I learned that Air New Zealand was hiring temporary staff, and I successfully applied for a role valuing airline tickets for flights—a process that contributed to flight revenue.
To secure a permanent role, I had to pass a fare construction course with a minimum 80% pass mark. This course covered international fare valuation, contracts, and foreign exchange, requiring a deep understanding of airline pricing structures. The high standard set by this pass mark ensured that only those with strong analytical and problem-solving skills progressed.
Passing the advanced fare construction course—again requiring an 80% mark—enabled me to value tickets issued by other airlines or printed on "foreign paper." Meeting these demanding criteria instilled in me a commitment to excellence, something I have carried throughout my career. To this day, I expect the same high standards from the people I work with.
At the time, the airline was doing well and made the bold decision to acquire Ansett, an Australian domestic airline, to expand into the Australian market. Unfortunately, the timing couldn’t have been worse. Ansett was in a far worse financial state than expected, and to make matters worse, Australia agreed to an open skies policy, allowing Air New Zealand’s main rival, Qantas, to operate domestically in NZ without purchasing an airline.
With no viable path forward, Air New Zealand had no choice but to cut Ansett loose, or risk sinking with them. Despite sending some of their best people to try and stabilize the situation, anyone who had signed a contract with Ansett was suddenly out of work.
I had been offered a job in Australia, but my husband was reluctant to move—a lucky escape, as things rapidly spiraled. In the aftermath, Air New Zealand was forced to cut back staff, and I ultimately chose voluntary redundancy as part of their cost-saving measures.
This shift led me to a new opportunity working from home, running my own business subcontracting for IATA. This setup allowed me to spend more time with my son and daughter while managing projects involving all airlines operating in NZ.
With my redundancy money, I bought the first version of Microsoft Windows 95 from a New Zealand company. I was invited to the official launch party, but being a mum with two young children, I sent my husband instead. While he had an interest in technology—mainly in gaming and recording devices—his background as a bar manager meant he wasn’t exactly thrilled by a room full of computer enthusiasts. He likely missed the significance of that purchase. Later, we sold the computer to some highly competitive programmers.
It’s hard to imagine now, but at the time, a 32-bit system running on a dial-up modem was cutting-edge technology. The hardware, in particular, was expensive, and New Zealand had no other internet connection at the time. Constant web interruptions made work challenging and slow.
The project involved working with a 700+ page specification, which was printed and required manual data entry into the system. Test tickets were either mailed; no email with pictures then into the office or entered in person. The developers were based in Australia, so we set up a spreadsheet to track changes and determine if they passed or failed. System updates arrived in the form of 3.5-inch floppy disks.
A quote often attributed to Bill Gates states, “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job, because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” While fitting in this situation, it feels like a backhanded compliment. Another common saying at Air New Zealand was, “We need to work smarter, not harder.” The phrase I often ask myself, though, is simply: “Why make life hard?”
Checking data was a manual process, but given my dislike for repetitive tasks, I soon figured out how to create an Access database. By importing actual results and comparing them against expected outputs, I developed a basic yet efficient form of automated testing—quite innovative for that era.
Working from home meant we needed more space, so we began looking for a bigger home. The redundancy payout gave us the financial means to purchase a larger house on the coast, initially renting out our first home before eventually selling it.
As the IATA projects wrapped up and the business my husband worked for was closing, we decided it was time for a change. We rented out our house and moved back to the UK—though this made things harder.
Both of us were unemployed, and while my husband was British, neither of us had recent local experience. The job market was tough, and securing an interview was difficult. Initially, we stayed with his family in the Midlands, where our children attended local schools. After a bullying incident, we moved my daughter to a better school, but soon, London was calling.
We relocated to a football bar near Chelsea—described as “lively.” In the end, my husband secured a role as a bar manager, and I unofficially became his joint manager. In reality, whenever his back was turned, I ensured stock and takings didn’t go missing, prevented fights from breaking out, acted as a bar-back, handled some marketing purchases, and kept my children attending school. Together, we successfully promoted the business and smashed the bonus targets.
While the bar work supported our family and helped my husband’s career flourish, I came to the realization that, for me, it wasn’t fulfilling. My own career had taken a significant step backward, and we eventually had to go our separate ways.
One day, I came across a small article in the Antipedon magazine, delivered to the front of the bar. It sparked a glimmer of hope—the country had begun allowing single mothers to pursue degrees while receiving a benefit. This gave me the reassurance that I could survive in my hometown as a single mother.
I had already started my degree but stopped at the diploma level, balancing a young family, a full-time job in the city—a 60-minute commute—and the demands of running a household. Juggling my children's ballet and soccer schedules while my husband worked evenings and weekends took its toll, and I settled for the diploma, believing it was enough. However, at the airline, I quickly realised I had hit the glass ceiling. When I interviewed for a marketing role, a panel of men practically laughed me out of the room for not having a degree.
This time, I knew my future was in IT. My background in databases from Air New Zealand and contracting with IATA had already given me a strong foundation in data management, and I realized that with only seven papers left, I could complete a Bachelor of Business majoring in Information Management. Choosing to study by correspondence allowed me to upgrade my education, but it also meant becoming a single stay-at-home mum, a decision that was frowned upon by friends, family, and the wider public. The expectation was that single mothers should be out working, not studying—but I knew that investing in my education was the only way to secure a future for my family.
The easy choice would have been to stay with my husband, even as I felt myself changing into someone I didn’t want to become. But the sacrifice—my identity, my future, my children’s well-being—was simply too great.
I wasn’t certain about what lay ahead, but I knew I had to keep going—for them. My children became my strength, the force that kept me moving forward even when doubts crept in. In New Zealand, they would grow up in a healthier environment, away from influences I wanted to escape. Leaving meant facing uncertainty and rebuilding from the ground up, but their future depended on me finding a way forward.
On the Edge of Becoming a Statistic: IT became my Lifeline
After living overseas for a few years, I returned to New Zealand—now a single mother, navigating an entirely new set of challenges. Securing a stable career was more crucial than ever, as I had children to support and needed to ensure financial security. IT provided the best opportunity for me to rebuild my independence while also balancing the demands of raising children alone.
Studying from home as a single mother wasn’t just about managing coursework—it came with an intense social stigma. Friends, family, and even the wider public saw single stay-at-home mothers as a burden rather than someone actively trying to build a future. The expectation was clear: I should be working, not studying, and every decision I made felt scrutinized.
On top of that, I faced significant financial hurdles. The so-called Ministry of Social Development didn’t just fail me—it felt like it was actively working against me, like it wanted me to fail. My support was reduced for debts that were never collected, leaving me constantly struggling, like being dragged underwater every time I surfaced for air. To keep myself and my children afloat, I took in Korean students as boarders, effectively taking on the care of an additional child, a ten-year-old. It was a cultural experience—it was exhausting, just another layer of survival.
During that time, like all of us, my son was deeply upset, struggling with the upheaval of our situation. In an effort to bring him comfort, we got a dog—a source of companionship and stability in a world that felt uncertain. Around the same time, we were also given a cat. In the bitter cold of winter, with the heating off until the children came home, the cat would sit next to me as I studied, providing silent reassurance as I pushed forward through long hours of work.
There was no joy, no adventure—just the fight to put one foot in front of the other, day after day. Every step forward felt like defying gravity, forcing myself through resistance that never let up. The system felt designed to break me, but I refused to let it.
And through all of it, one thought kept me moving—I knew that if I could just get through this, if I could just hold on long enough, there would be a job at the end that could finally give us comfort. That hope, that possibility of something better, became the lifeline I clung to when everything else felt impossible. My children gave me the strength to keep going, and knowing that I was working toward a future where we could finally breathe made all the difference.
Just as I graduated, Vodafone—one of the largest tech employers in New Zealand—laid off 300 staff. Suddenly, I wasn’t just competing against other graduates but against seasoned professionals with both experience and degrees. At the time, Vodafone was known as a company where you needed a degree just to sweep the floors, let alone secure a proper role. My qualification didn’t guarantee a job, and the odds weren’t in my favour.06
But instead of relying on traditional recruitment pathways, I applied directly—and that decision made all the difference. Against tough competition, I secured a role at Vodafone, proving that persistence and strategy were just as critical as formal qualifications. I was given a work phone and laptop. As smartphones began emerging, I won a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, a sleek touchscreen music phone. I later passed it down to my daughter, marking one of many moments where my children were exposed to cutting-edge technology from a young age.
Vodafone eventually transitioned its financial system to SAP and outsourced operations to India, leaving me out of work again. Facing three months of uncertainty, I used my redundancy payout to take my children on a final family holiday to Australia before stepping back into the job market.
I landed a role at a software house, providing support to more than 1,000 mid-sized businesses worldwide. Greentree was growing rapidly but was later acquired by MYOB, leading to ruthless staff cuts. As a team leader, I took on interesting projects, but the pressure mounted.
When MYOB took over, staff were upgraded to laptops, and employees were allowed to take home computer boxes (after hard drives were removed) and office furniture. My son, a keen gamer, built his own computer from one of these boxes—a skill he continues today, upgrading his setup to far superior hardware at a fraction of the cost by assembling the components himself.
A couple of months later, I secured a role with an organization supporting disabled people. While this was a step back in my career, it allowed me to apply my skills in a new way—and this organization truly needed help.
I re-engineered processes and introduced new online tools that collected essential data from the disability sector. The work was complex, but we even managed to create systems that were accessible to blind individuals, ensuring wider usability.
During the pandemic, the software I helped design—alongside a talented developer in Japan—became critical in maintaining communication with the disability community when lockdowns prevented in-person visits. The company expanded rapidly, but something felt off.
Eventually, I realized the business was in serious financial trouble, and the true picture was being glossed over. While the company embraced IT advancements, its core mission to support disabled people was falling behind financially. As tensions grew between IT and the business side, it became clear that the company was losing its original focus.
After various restructures and feeling unsupported, I decided to take redundancy again. That brings me to today—unemployed again, using a laptop borrowed from my son, fighting hard to find my next opportunity.
My Job Searching Strategy has evolved dramatically over the years. My first full-time job came from a small ad in a local paper—a simple phone call led to an interview, and then employment. Later, recruitment agencies became the standard, with companies holding job listings and sending candidates for interviews. That method secured me my insurance job, and in Australia, temp agencies played a major role, followed by word-of-mouth referrals from previous employer.
Then came a shift—Air New Zealand required a CV, something that hadn’t been necessary before. At Vodafone, I applied directly, while my next role at a software company came through Seek, an online job listing website. The disability organization also came through Seek, showing how digital job platforms had become the new norm.
Now, as AI and automation flood the job market, traditional methods are no longer enough. That’s why I’m thinking outside the box—using LinkedIn blogs and this website to build opportunities rather than chase them. The job market isn’t what it once was, but I know there’s more than one way to get where I need to be.
And that’s how this website and blog came to be. I’m learning about AI, using Copilot to polish my work and develop new skills. I've never built a website before, and I've never written a blog, but here I am—figuring it out as I go.My direct approach with companies hasn’t worked, and agencies that once offered me roles are no longer looking my way. With AI entering the market, I now face an even greater flood of candidates.
At first, I wasn’t sure what to write about, but it’s slowly coming together. While it’s not paying the bills (yet), I believe something will come out of it eventually. Applying for work the traditional way hasn’t given me much hope, so I’m using this platform to showcase my skills to anyone who might be interested.6
The Digital Bridge—Surviving in a System That Wasn’t Designed for You
