Fair warning: this is a piece which is entirely personal. For those of you who don't know me, this may be meaningless. I will do my best to keep things simple. The short version is, as of today, I am once again employed. The long version is, well, longer. I will do my best to make it enjoyable, though the middle parts are a bit rough.
I'm going to start with a photo, because, well, it's what I do:
This is a 42-minute exposure I did last weekend at one of our local orchards, with the camera pointed due north. Clicking on it gets you to a version twice its size, with details about film settings etc.
This has nothing to do with the story I'm about to tell, but I just really like sharing my photos. Below, I'll pepper the story with several photos I've taken, without any real context to them. Clicking on them gets you to larger versions with details. Not clicking on them doesn't do anything.
So here's the story:
For almost four years, I had a very lucrative contract doing tech and training work for state government, and I was extremely good at what I did. But I was also one of the highest paid contractors working for this particular department, so when our budget went into crisis mode, I lost my long-time employment.
Fortunately, I was smart about this. I had a hunch in January that this might be coming, and I also had a hunch in January that come the end of the fiscal year, they wouldn't be rehiring me, regardless. I know they wanted me working there, but my services had originally been rendered to handle a crisis situation, and we were, after a few years, in post-crisis mode. I also know that I was a major contributor to us moving into post-crisis mode, and that part of my job had, all along, been to make my job redundant.
I think I succeeded in that regard. By the time I left, a variety of systems I had built were being housed by the state servers, and our primary support staff was mostly up to speed on the system and how it worked. There are, of course, exceptions. If there were budget for it, there's a lot I could have done to continue to support them, but I felt okay about leaving things they way I did. Not that I had any choice, mind you: it's not as though I was given an option, but for the most part, I was okay with taking a break from that sort of work.
So in January of 2008, I resolved to start saving money, as much as I could, just in case the axe fell in June. I had two big exceptions to that. We went on a trip to New Mexico, which was kind of awesome partially because it got me this photo:
(see here for my NM trip gallery)
I also upgraded one of my cameras from the Pentax K10D to the Pentax K20D when it came out in late February.
These were good things. The New Mexico trip was magical. The new camera is really incredible.
But other than that, I was mostly sensible. I made sure my savings kept growing, and took on some additional part-time work as well.
I got laid off in June and thought I could relax a little bit. Nearly four years of working for an agency which was in frequent and routine crisis mode was stressful. I thought it would be a good time to take a short vacation. The idea was to take the summer off, go on birding trips, relax a little, and then get back into full job search mode again in a couple months. When my job ended, I paid up my health insurance through the end of the year and paid my rent through the end of August, just so I wouldn't have to sweat anything for awhile.
This was a pretty good plan, but a few complicates complicated things. As it turns out. When I was getting ready to get back into the job market, the economy turned really sour. This was especially hard for people in my area of expertise, because I don't do anything. I teach other people how to do things.
That's an overstatement, but no one treats training and resource building as a core service. It's secondary. Employees will learn how to do their jobs with or without me, but learning with me makes them learn new systems faster, better, and without nearly as much pain or embarrassment. But organizations which are having trouble meeting their budgets will not treat my job as more important than the people I support.
So the rough economy threw me for a loop. I had considered changing jobs a couple years ago and got offered a job with the first interview I went to, so I figured this would be along the same lines. It hadn't honestly occurred to me that I'd have trouble finding work once I decided I needed to get into it again.
But, I still had a decent savings and, from my point of view, plenty of wiggle room so when my old laptop started giving me trouble, I had no real concern about buying a replacement (I really do like the MacBook Pros-- much faster than my old Powerbook G4).
But that's because I didn't see the problem on the horizon.
Many of you have read about this already, so I'll just give a summary. A lot more of the details are here. The short version is that I started getting really sick, as in doubled over in pain sick, and eventually got diagnosed with a kidney stone that was bad enough to completely block off the pathway from one of my kidneys, causing it to become (temporarily, though we didn't know this at the time) non-functional.
The extended period before diagnosis, the surgeries (yes, that's plural) and recovery for this ended up taking about three months when all was said and done, and it was bad enough that I had to suspend my work search.
So come December, I was starting to freak out a bit about money: no long-term income except for the small amount I was making teaching part-time, dwindling savings, and health insurance expiring at the end of the year? This was starting to freak me out.
I had been sending resumes out in the meantime, and no one was bothering to call me back. I finally got a call in late December. Did an interview, and it went well, but you never know about these things.
They asked for references, which I provided, but references can be tricky at certain times of year, so I was a little concerned when I found out that none of my references had connected with them.
I had an instinct though, that they wanted to offer me a job, but weren't able to yet, and it turns out my instincts were good. I got offered (and accepted) the job yesterday, after what was kind of like an extended 2nd interview (they asked me to participate in a few meetings and work sessions to get a feel for the place).
Now, I should emphasize something: I am over 40 years old and I have never had a regular, full time job with benefits. I've had full time work before, but only as a temporary employee, and never with benefits. The concept of paid time off is foreign to me, and when I've had health insurance, it's always been something I had to pay into out of pocket.
And I know full well that this is no more "stable" than any other job. It's for a non-profit in a bad economy. If they have to start laying people off, I'll probably be among the first to go. But in the meantime, I've got a job, with apparently nice people, doing training and support work. This is a Good Thing, in every possible way. I may be forced to dial back the blogging a little bit, and I make a rule of not doing blogging while I am at my place of business, so you guys will probably not be hearing nearly as much from me, but that might push me to focus my blogging to the higher quality stuff.
So, soon I start a regular, full-time job. How weird is that?
I'll be around: not as vocal, but around. Be well, everyone, and if you feel like it, drop a comment and celebrate with me.
One last photo:
An update:
I should have put this in the diary in the first place, but forgot: some of you have asked about eBooks and physical books of some of my work. I have both available, all here.
For those of you who are interested in getting prints, I've got this page where I'm selling prints.
Thanks so much for the rec list, everyone. That's very kind of you all.