What will tomorrow bring? Fingers crossed... Self.Newsletter - Issue #23

The exciting world of job search!

I could have included “Manic” in there, yes, but not everything needs to be a song reference.

I’ve got another three weeks to spend in Phoenix, Arizona, so here are a couple of things I’m up to passing the time (no, wait, bear with me):

The backstory for those joining late, includes an unplanned move thanks to a No-Cause Non-Renewal Notice after 8 long years in the same spot in Vegas (the longest I have ever lived at one address since heading off to college so many years ago, so a move was probably due, though I would have preferred to select the nature of my departure. Getting used to disappointment is something Wesley suggested we all do, I think) and an extended visit to Glendale, Arizona with a subset of My Stuff, wherein I visit my parents, hang out for a few weeks, get some work done, then move into the new place I arranged for on 19 October when it becomes available.

On balance, staying in Vegas somehow would have been a lot better, but without resorting to Rumsfeld quotes, we all must deal with the situation in which we find ourselves. Okay, here’s a more straightforward quote, with the not-great formatting option afforded by Revue:

Some will equate this immediately with giving up on my various projects and notions and pounding the pavement to work in a cubicle and uttering the time-honored phrase, “Why would someone want to do that?” whenever we go over various user-submitted bugs.

No.

Revenue is nice, and regularly-occurring revenue is even nicer, so that is certainly a good reason to add a gig or two to the mix. This is one of the several reasons that I formed ReallyCool Technologies, LLC in Nevada, to enable corp-to-corp or similar engagements with client companies near and far.

After spending a year or so laying extremely low and avoiding the thing and the people who might be carrying it, I have spent far too much time with me, myself, and my keyboard. Taking on a gig or two (or more?) and adding to my potential to interact with people, especially in some thinking capacity, is a good idea. Doing so with revenue as well? No-brainer.

Part of the gig search included updating my CV and searching for gigs, and both were sort of eye-opening. The former not quite so much, though it was a good idea to re-word some things like titles and even the simple parts like the tense of my descriptions of previous experiences in each role. I think it could still use more polish, and since I do include everything on there I will always get some push-back, to prune and cull, but I am the sum of my experiences, why represent something else?

Going through the search for gigs, or really remote jobs of whatever kind, began with Indeed.com, which I first found the time I made the insane decision to relocate to Phoenix from silly valley back in the 2001-2005 time frame (a story for another time, which I may have said previously, still true), and I am completely and utterly disappointed that Indeed has become a somewhat high-profile job site (the Dice or Monster of our time? Yipes), but at least I know mediocrity is sustainable sometimes.

That said, I have a pile of code that I had been re-factoring into reusable bites that fit into the architectures of various projects that have been on various burners over the years, and prior to the chaos that is moving, I had been converging on a reusable design that will work for me and my many, many collaborators (also me), which I have re-joined already in progress here in Phoenix.

The notion is to be able to implement the current slate of ideas as well as new ideas (including, perhaps, the idea I had back in 2001-2005 or so concerning job search) using a common code base that I have complete and in-depth knowledge of. Were I to use canned software, there is essentially (and I do not care for this term, though it is sometimes apropos) technical debt to manage into the future. If I end up in the rabbit hole of core code coming from somewhere else (if you want an example of this, check out the history of the Palm Pilot as one of so many), well, I don’t want to do that.

This is not to say that the core will be Done, but rather it will be usable for production while also being maintainable (by my crack team of Me Me Me, as Agent Smith might say). This has been something of a road block for too long, why not spend my time in Purgaphoenix working on wrapping this up for at least version 0.9?

Indeed.com is one example, but in recent weeks and months I am finding myself faced more and more often with user and customer experience issues that do not appear to have been considered or addressed by purveyors of services we pretend are useful.

This very service, Revue, is on the list. Indeed.com does not use their own platform tools to interact with potential candidates who apply to their own posted jobs, so I cannot be surprised that the features that do not work on their platform are the way they are. I have grown less and less patient with entities (companies or otherwise) who do not appear to care about their products and/or services, and I do not wish to fall into that trap with any of the things I am working on.

To that end, then, the first project or two to get out of the crystal palace should be one I like myself, and which would have some curb appeal to draw in some users and, I would hope, feedback. The upside to a solo startup, from the customer point of view, is that there are few barriers between the issue at hand and the person who can address it.

From personal preference perspective, I like these to kick off with:

I have also been shoving the notion of publishing a simple site like one for ReallyCool.com (my company) or DanHugo.com (my personal web presence) or even a podcast website for QuogglingSand, and others, down the road for too long. This has been a matter of priority inversion, and I am always reminded of a quote from Detlef Jenet, an (East) German colleague from my months at SCM Microsystems back in the day:

I am also particularly interested in self-publishing (I may have mentioned this) and while I have signed up with Dev.to and Hashnode for yet more blogging opportunities on someone else’s platform (yes, Hashnode makes it easy to attach my content on their platform to my own (sub) domain, but still) focused more on the tech side, but I really do think these two are interesting but also need substantial story to make sense of the ideas and how they fit together:

Both of these projects fit together in that the former is for people and the latter for, well, not-people. These will be the subject of much more discussion and effort in coming weeks and months, likely in the QuogglingSand context until each or both get their own podcasts or video streams or whatever, but for now, ponder.

So finally pushing the FTYP family out the door is in one of the first two positions, CantHave seems like a practical second, the other low-hanging fruit (still needed, no doubt about that) for my business, continued effort to self-publish over giving my content to others, and supporting podcast efforts, are next, then the rest of the various projects can leverage the headaches I overcome with those first two.

Piece of cake? If only.

Normally I stick with stand-up links in this section, but I did find the Sofia Vagara compilation entertaining. Perhaps you will as well. The stand-up I have included here is, always (even though I may not point it out specifically every time) not safe for work.

I make as much use of our public library in Clark County as I can, and so when my hold on this one came in (in digital, audio form anyway), I wrapped up my replays of Anthony Bourdain’s books (both really interesting, to me, for different reasons each) and jumped in to this tale of disappointment on every level, across political parties, administrations, individual officials, and maybe even humanity (what there is of it). Not an affiliate link.

Photo by Luzelle Cockburn on Unsplash