In a way, it’s redundant to talk here about a career reboot, since that was part of the entire point of the my-name site, and not completely a new thing. It always came down to money and logistics. I mean, apart from any questions of what in the world I’d doing, feeling (probably far more than actually being) washed up in the computer-related areas that would be most logical.
A little history:
I’ve been into computers and gadgets to some degree since the seventies, experienced with PCs since 1988, building/rebuilding/fixing them (PCs – I was good with electronic gadgets at work from one of my first jobs, when I’d save the company service calls on their fancy package scale postage meters) since 1992. I first made a living at support starting in 1993, ended up with the kind of support/management job by 1998 that impresses people to hear about, went off to be self-employed full time in 1999, went out of that business in 2007, and continued to dabble in updating a web site here and fixing a computer there since then. I was management at the business, as well as all the other hats involved in writing and maintaining software, running networks, supporting applications, PCs, and so forth, mainly for a good-sized law firm client on which I was almost completely reliant. I’d always expected that the only way to get them to update adequately would be to turn them over to another provider, but that made it no less devastating when it came and I closed up shop, now behind on technology and, more importantly, confidence. Even though when you get me going, I’ll admit that I am Just That Good.
Meanwhile, I’d married and had kids. We ended up in a state of equilibrium, where she works full time for too little money, I work a compatible part time schedule for too little sleep, we come close to making it, we avoid the “donut hole,” and the kids are cared for without daycare and the hundreds of dollar a week that would entail if we both worked full time.
Well, it may be time for a flip of positions.
That means on the one hand deciding/figuring out what in the world to pursue for work that’s full time, and on the other hand how to prepare myself for it and sell myself. On the plus side, the financial angle differs from what it would be were I trying to work full time concurrent with her also working full time. I could make as little as double what I make in an average of 22.5 hours a week, rather than asking more than four times that. Just to account for tax, benefit and child care consequences.
Not that I couldn’t have done with more money already. I had already settled on writing as my next career to start on the side while still working part time. A good thing to engage in with no downside, under the circumstances, but riskier, to say the least, if I were swapping to prime earner.
Now it’s a matter of dusting off my resume, evaluating my experiences and interests all over again, updating this site to what it was meant to be, editing LinkedIn, letting people know, brushing up some skills, those sorts of things. I’m excessively generalist, computer-wise. I have the business/management background, if not seriously high-powered. Failed interviews before I gave up included basically being laughed at for going out of business. In one case, from a “if you’re a failure, how can you be management” perspective. In another case, from an “it’s raining IT work soup, how could you have been reliant on one client and gone out of business unless you were a complete idiot” perspective. Apparently not everyone has heard that you learn from mistakes, perhaps even more from successes.
Sometimes I regret not having pursued the accounting/finance angle that my degree would suggest. I can’t see making my way back to that now, or wanting too beyond a what-if minor wistfulness.
We’ve more than joked about my becoming a chef, but that would involve culinary school, and might not be a great move financially and in other ways.
It always comes down to some confluence between management/coordination and IT. Or perhaps writing and IT, since the second biggest skill group I’ve been endorsed for on LinkedIn involves writing, be it software documentation or otherwise.