Do Not Let the Bedside Win

If there is one piece of advice I could give to those who find themselves newly unemployed, that is to keep to the same pace of work that they're used to.  You'll just need to spend your time working at tasks other than what you might be familiar with.  

The sabbatical is a dream for many people in the tech industry.  When I speak to people about how I've spent my time since my last position, what I've been doing, the training I've taken, the conventions I've attended, the programming languages I've played with, there is this pain filled sigh they release.  This is usually followed by an "Oh man, that sounds so good."

Being able to take the training that you want, when you want is a luxury.  Unemployment is viewed with suspicion.  I'm not quite sure why that is.  To me, it smacks of victim blaming:  "Her skirts were too short, she deserved It."  "He shouldn't have walked alone down the street that night."  That sort of thing.  The fact is that in our culture we expect people to remain on the hamster wheel until they drop dead at their desk, or they hit "the age."  Otherwise: "There Is Something Wrong.  Red Flag!  Red Flag!"

If you've followed the standard advice & socked money away in case of a layoff (hello!!! Uncertainty in the job market has been going on since the devastating layoffs of the '70s, and really, well, since FOREVER - Hello Industrial Revolution), you have an opportunity.  One which shouldn't be wasted. 

Job searching is painful.  Brutal on the ego, often times anxiety ridden because your efforts are met with a wave of incredulity, suspicion, and cynicism.  Still, it is an adventure, an exploration, an opportunity to add to your skills, and frankly - there's a lot of personal growth which can come of this time.

Hopefully, after your initial shock, you take your "vacation time" but then begin to set your clock to get out of bed to be "at the office" - bankers hours.  No joke.  Set yourself a specific time when you will be "at work."  Because you will be doing work.  I, myself, begin my day at my desk or heading out at 8am.  I usually wake up between 5am-6am (when I haven't done the menopausal wake up at 2am, fall back asleep at 4am), and never any later than 7am.  If you need to set an alarm to get your ass out of bed.  Set it.  I don't care if you don't have breakfast, go drink coffee, or spend your time doing yoga, just don't let the bed conquer your will.  

Set a course of action for your day is a scheduling problem we've all worked with in our professional lives.  Frankly, I work two weeks in advance.  Yes, I'm scheduled out, booked nearly solid every day, with events, training webinars, meetups.  This month is NaPoWriMo - National Poetry Writing Month - so I'm writing a poem a day.  Make sure you have planned days to hustle your submissions

into the Applicant Tracking System BLACK HOLE.  Set yourself a weekly target.  I can tell you response rates will vary widely according to season.  Call back some of the recruiters you liked and see if they have anything for you.  If you haven't had a recruiter contact you, and you have more than seven years' experience, something is seriously wrong with your LinkedIn / Indeed / Monster / TelecomCareers.Net / Dice / CyberCoders entries.  I'm your friend.  You can contact me and I'll go look at it and give you some feedback.  Take up reading technical / business related blogs.  Catch up on the industry news you haven't had time for.  Now might be the time to learn about how to launch that business / app / game idea you've had rolling around.  Although, one piece of advice I did receive is that if you have worked with only one company (like I did), or in one industry (like I did), it would be good to get some work experience with another company or another industry. 

I've also taken up getting up from my desk, adding more exercise into my life - even if that does include shopping.  LOL.  So make sure that this time off includes time for pleasurable events you otherwise haven't had time for.  Settle in at an independent coffee house on a Tuesday morning drinking a cappuccino in a wide mouthed white ceramic cup.  Pour a heap of sugar on the top of the white foam, and watch the foam turn to a light brown as you mix it in with the sweet and the espresso.  Sip your coffee slowly while you nibble at the ends of a croissant, the flake so crunchy they burst around you making a mess at the table.  

Buy a small notebook and carry a pencil with you.  Consider your options.  How little can you live on?  Contemplate downsizing, moving to Italy or Portugal, or to Key West.  Desperate times call for desperate measures, think of how your skills might be transferable into becoming a magician's assistant, or a personal assistant.  Conquering the world is over-rated anyways.  It's too much work.  There's little or no downtime when you are building an evil empire.  

For some, these small luxuries I'm writing about will still be not enough.  I can tell you from a friend's experience who's gone through quitting one job, moving between two others, and experiencing two layoffs (i.e., lotsa mobility), 2015 was weird.  W.E.I.R.D. Weird.  He didn't get any nibbles on his submissions for months.  Then everything picked up in the fall.  Me.  I went from a 1:20 response rate to a 1:2 during the months of November & December.  I'm running a 1:2 right now, even if it's negative.  

What I can tell you is that this time since I walked away from the tt is not what I call "unemployed," or even "looking."  Because I'm not.  I'm fully employed with various projects including my writing.  

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“Don’t aim at success— the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect...

Frankl, Viktor E. (2006-06-01). Man's Search for Meaning . Beacon Press. Kindle Edition. 

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Some weeks, I'm over-employed, exceeding 40 hours of work related to meetups, technical talks, conventions, poetry, blogging, webinars, and working on my portfolio.  Am I looking for a job?  Yes.  Yet I turn down more requests to interview than I submit.  Interviewing is exploration, it's meeting new people, hearing new things.  Being new myself.

There are many reasons to "want" a job, including financial necessity.  I can't speak to that at this point.  I can only speak to the experience of having the opportunity to step off the hamster wheel, breaking the mold, trying to find another way to earn a living.  If you have this opportunity of sheer time separated from financial necessity, it is a blessing.  Take a deep breath.  It is spring and the lilac are blooming.

best wishes,
-a

Frog Kissing

So no, not all fairy tales have happy endings and sometimes a frog is just a frog or the parties Prince Charming's Mum puts on to marry her son off breaks the Kingdom's bank and since all the money's spent, the search for Cinderella cannot take place.  It could also be that Sleeping Beauty didn't like waking up to some strange man sticking his tongue down her throat.  Turns out she wasn't eighteen anyways, but a wee bit older and more experienced than Charming realized.  Who knows.


My adventures have always started off rocky.  Once there was the time my brother, I'll call him Moe, picked me up from college to take me on a five-hour motorcycle ride home.  It was my first  "Born to be Wild" adventure.  The spectacular event was highlighted by a wipe-out making a tight curve.  We hit gravel, the bike slid out beneath us going sideways.  I remember tucking into ball as I flew over my brother's head.  I landed like a snow angel in the middle of soft green grass looking up at a blue, cloudless sky.  I'd missed the road stake by 3 feet.


After I graduated with my first degree, one in East Asian Studies, my brother Larry and I (I'm Curly, ya see) rented a U-Haul and drove from Georgia to San Francisco.  I had an acquaintance who was willing to let me stay with her while I got my feet under me.  Larry and I arrived with pennies, quarters, and nickles rolling around in one of my empty stationery boxes.  I woke up the next morning knowing I had to abandon that dream and let my grandma bail me out and ship me, my record collection, and sheet wrapped dirty clothes up to Alaska.  Where I met my future husband seven months later.

We later left Alaska to attend engineering school in Arizona.  See, neither of us had lived in the desert and so being tired of Alaskan winters thought living in the desert would be cool.  Dave went first, I kept my job in Fairbanks and planned to follow when he was settled.  The car broke down on Dave when he was at the highest peak along the AlCan highway.  It was the water pump or something, and luckily he had a spare - but it was the wrong size.  Now this was late September, so there was already snow.  He had to hitch rides to get to a motel, to pick up the ordered parts, to get back to the car.  I don't remember all the mechanical details, but I do know he ended up having to drive without the engine cooling system, so could never really just pull over or idle the car or it would overheat.  I arrived in Phoenix a week after he did, having sold all of my books and knitting supplies, but having packed all my shoes for shipping that same day.  All I had were the snow boots I'd worn on the plane.  I walked barefoot into the shoe store in Phoenix to buy a pair of summer shoes to last me until mine

My first job in Phoenix lasted five weeks.  It was at a newspaper.  The job was advertised as writing for a small neighborhood paper.  Turned out - it was cold-call sales and the owner was a screamer.  Walked away from that one.

I wish I could say that arriving in Seattle had some epic moment, but the moment itself was epic.  Dave and I drove 24 hours straight from Phoenix in our Hyundai as it lost pieces along the way.  Still, the moon roof worked and I remember lying back that night as we were driving and watching the stars in the dark sky of a traffic-less I-5 somewhere in California.

Neither Dave nor I had jobs waiting for us with either of these moves, yet we had some of the best times of our lives after the shit hit the fan.  But to cut this long story short - yes, I'm looking for a job again.  The project was cancelled.  I was laid off. I learned a lot in a short period of time, so that was cool.  I now have experience with those data sets and metrics, so that satisfied that bit of curiosity.  Now I have to try marketing data.  Definitely not worth doing a three hour commute for though and this also reinforces that I shoulda stuck to smaller companies.  Those were my two big "No"s and I gave into them.  Ahhh well... curiosity and cats 'n all.

So my luck usually gets better after...
 

2015 - The Year I Lived Dangerously

Some women collect diamonds,

others collect husbands or lovers.

I collected socks with the F-Bomb in it.

I know some very talented people are leaving in the next two weeks.  To those of you who asked and received the pink slip - yes, it is fun.  To those of you to whom it was unexpected - there's no reason why next time it can't be better.  You have the talent.  You've worked with networks and systems beyond the experience of what I've been able to find "out here" in the outside world.

Will it take more time than you planned?  Most probably, yes.  But that's because everyone I know operates at such a high level that you will be intimidating to those who are unfamiliar with how truly complex wireless telecommunications / mobility is.

Other carriers are hiring.  SQL / query skills are valuable.  Cloud networks are congesting b/c no one knows how to engineer for high-demand, high-availability.  Monster.com garnered me my best recruiter responses.  Monster's changed something between the September / November time frame and it was noticeably easier to be "found."  Recruiter "spam" is a positive indicator that your resume is getting pulled in for interest - it's proof your SEO is operational.  Read about the company on glassdoor.com before you get too excited.

Enjoy yourself.  Eat brunch on a Tuesday.  Walk the beach.  Sweat the interviews.  Take a spring break, or plan for a summer one.  Pick up a cappuccino and a croissant and people watch at your favorite bakery.  You will have days where you feel bad, so you need to have places and things in place which make you feel good.

Who knows... I might be joining you faster than projected, but my first week was amazing and terrifying and wonderful.  I love the Director's vision.  I love the group dynamic.  The team leads are sharp and smart.  Of course, I'm too brash and bold, not like a contractor at all but a veteran FTE with 25 years in one of the most treacherous industries on the planet.  Of course I've had people beginning to laugh a bit around me.  They even pulled a practical joke.  I've also been prohibited from singing ( *smiles*).  If anything might get me kicked out, that would be it.

This will probably be the end of Badbatical unless / until I go willfully unemployed again.  I'll pick up my travel blogging at soyouthinkyoulikesushi.blogspot.com if I ever decide to pack my bags again.  That won't be for awhile.  We're gonna sock money away first and think about travel second.

Thanks for encouraging me to continue to keep you up to date, to write this blather.  I loved being missed.  And you are missed by me.  May we meet again in another life.

Much, much love and admiration, and ping me on LinkedIn if you need me.

-a

I was able to get my own pencil. In less than 5 minutes.

Yes.  The office supply closet is unlocked.  The door is open.  They have pencils, paper, and sticky notes.  There is even scotch tape.

I'm drinking a company subsidized Diet Coke

My PC and laptop are up, running, and I'm logged in.

I have my Orca card for commuting.

My health insurance is great.

I know nothing about this industry, but listened in on one of the meetings.  It was so cool.  Very interesting talking about Halo 5.  Yes.  I'm embedded in the XBox Business Intelligence Data Science group.  WHOO-HOO!

Me: Preparing for my new work enviornoment

Lightning Struck

13 months ago, I walked away from a wonderful, frustrating, engaging, amazing 25 year career in wireless telecommunications where I had the opportunity to work with such fabulous people.

We changed the world, we did.  We ripped networks, implemented new technologies which were obsolete before we finished installing their first generation; we deployed over the air data at rates which beat the landlines; tested satellite communications; did big data before big data was cool... Sheez.  When we started it took 10 people to budget / build / and maintain an entire network we used to figure.  Now, there are nearly as many connections as a human brain.

But yep, I walked away.  The chaos I thrived in was tidied.  There was a process for everything and everything had a process.  I'd helped build those and the standards. I'd seen the network grow and contract, domains split  But we know I suck when it comes to following the rules - even rules I, myself, might have made. 

I spent the next 13 months learning how the world had changed since last I looked for a job. 

I just accepted an offer today.  I'm moving into a data science role as a Senior Consultant with Design Laboratory to work with Microsoft's Shared Services BI group in games.  GAMES!!!!  I still can't freakin' believe it.  Nope.  I can't.  I'm excited/scared.  I start the 21st.  Now I gotta go scrub my mouth out with soap for practice. 

Yep.  I got the industry leap I was hoping for.  Nope.  This consulting gig doesn't fall under an 18 month thing. 

My biggest weakness:  "I left my network of engineers and lab rat friends behind when I walked.  That network was a source of strength."  I can't ever thank you all enough for your help and support over the years.  I love you.  Thank you.  You made me a better person and we did amazing work together.  And thank you for your laughter and support even after I walked.

That said, I had to turn down two other companies which were still interested, but hadn't offered.  When push came to shove, I had 24 hours to make a decision, but honestly, I was really impressed with the one I accepted.  The consulting firm is small, but the job is with a big company again.  It's in Redmond.  Again.  But it's games.  It's building new systems for analytics, it's metric design.  and it's in Games.  It's the industry I wanted and with one of the only divisions I'd cross the water for.  There were only two other companies I was willing to do that for.  All the others, I turned away.

So, remember y'all.  Sing often.  Laugh much.  Compliment each other when you're not cussing each other out.

One year ago

was my last day.  I'm not feeling nostalgic at all, but I am missing my friends.  One of the beautiful things, though, about this time off is that I've been able to reconnect with some others from way-back-aways.  Sometimes it's been for a phone conversation, or an email exchange, other times it's been for drinks and dinner.  We've worked with some amazing people over the years and the names I've forgotten... well, LinkedIn sure has helped remind me.

I'm sorry I haven't kept up with the blog but I've been going gangbusters since mid-October.  The most common word out of my mouth re: jobs though is "No.  No thank you," so nothing more exciting than that one flurry which ended in September.  That said, I've written a bunch of draft blog entries which I never finished.  I swear.  It's just because I got too busy.

So, I've had a lot of good intentions, just too many conferences, conventions, meetups, informational interviews, technical networking events, and Thanksgiving.

The last week of October I spent in conventions.  The best one was a virtual reality conference held in Bellevue.  I didn't make it to any of the developer's talks because, well, I don't write software for applications or games, but I did play with all sorts of hardware.  I also won a smart phone at another. The best part are the people I've met.

Networking has not turned out to be so horrible after all.  I've been learning tons about how the outside world here really is more stodgy than I thought "we" were.   What has been fun though, is that I've met theater people, young engineers from Boeing, people doing other things with technology - like fashion - which makes it so much fun.  What is striking though, is how little innovation there is in the realm of game or app or web development.  There's a lot of waste, which, I guess, if you have simple systems, is okay.  You can throw money away...until you run out of it anyways.  This is what just blows my mind.

And so, most of the "data" and analytics interest I've found out here in the wilds is related to marketing data and / or bioinformatics and healthcare.  Minor amounts of network performance, or app performance and little of that is predictive.  Most dashboards people come out with are monitors.  There's little to no forecasting.

And the people I've reconnected with, they confirm what I've only just begun to realize in the past few months:  that the work we did was ginormous.  A couple of people I've been reconnecting with were let go at the C. acquisition.  They've actually had some very interesting experience.  Most importantly, they've acquired the skills to deal with uncertainty more than those of us who were "left behind" have.  One guy talked about how he jumped through several companies after moving from HQ engineering into sales - and found he loved it.  Another woman made her way through contracting work after the 2008 collapse and is now poised to be one of the next gen IT leaders in her organization.  Still, I've met some new people and made some new friends who are teaching me more about how this outside world works.  This learning has been interesting.

Here's what I've learned so far:

1)  Most companies work reactively and there is little understanding about proactive, or planned operational events such as load redistributions / rebalancing; planned growth (how they do this without examining the budget impacts kinda makes me nuts); reboots / restarts to clear memory leaks during off-peak hours; development of overload control processes or mechanisms;

2)  Performance management is NRT (see #1) and forecasting is maybe a week out?  or based upon a 1.5 multiplier or something crazy.  There's no analysis of congestion impacts.

3)  No one seems to have budgetary responsibility, they just throw money at their networks.  Which works, I guess, as long as you don't mind being unable to access the website, the network, or have lots of capital to dispose of.

4)  Predictive analytics (see #2) and forecasting, are just beginning to become a "thing," as are GUIs for the NRT operational effects of load, or code changes.

5)  There's little awareness of network efficiencies to be gained with compression techniques in coding.  Everything is really big and sloppy "out" here.  There are a few innovators, but they're struggling to be heard.

6)  Everyone wants to be a "data scientist" as though that was a thing before.  LOL  There are now masters degrees being offered.  I guess that's a blend of statistics and software, but without the subject matter expertise, you're just a statistician who can write programs, or a programmer who works a lot with statistics.  Me, I'm keeping with the engineer in wireless core performance who can also code and applies statistical tools and machine learning algorithms to explore relationships.  I also practice data visualization as performance art.

7)  I turn down offers to interview with Microsoft, Amazon, or T-Mobile at least once a week, if not more.  If you want big, the big guns are hiring now.

8)  Yep, I'm a few years a head of the curve unless I want to go work with a big boy.  Predictive performance analytics is just a glimmer in the eye of a very few companies.  You can tell by the the Azure or AWS experience that neither Microsoft nor Amazon have that ingrained in their culture - yet.  They might be trying to catch up with themselves, but we know how well that works out - and how long it takes to do.