Rantings of a Black Polemicist

Being a grown-up sucks…

Thursday, May 20th, 2004 | Personal | 32 Comments

Making a transition in life is never easy. Free to pursue my business full-time after I was laid off from my last job nearly a year ago, I was filled with determination. I wanted to prove to everyone that I was more than they made me out to be. I was up to something big, and one day they would all see.

Now things are a little different. My entrepreneurial drive, fueled by indignation towards those who dared to antagonize me slowly faded. Getting the very thing that I wanted - independence from an employer and freedom from “the system” ? started to put out that fire inside, leaving me to look within myself for a consistent driving force to push ahead.

Being angry motivated me to achieve things I never though possible. Once I wasn’t pissed off anymore, I wasn’t as passionate about getting what I wanted. I guess I’m like Sean “Puffy” Combs in a way. When people start telling him that he can’t do what he’s set out to, he comes alive and makes liars of them all. Bill Clinton was similar, as he seemed to perform best during a crisis.

I think going back to work is going to help me get that fresh look on things that I need and recharge my batteries so I can get back into the game with more determination than ever.

Melanie can’t figure out why she soon won’t be able to sit next to her daddy while he works all day.

Well, on the upside of things, a second (hopefully six-figure) income will enable me to indulge my wife’s retail shoe addiction. Who am I kidding? It?s more my addiction than hers.

Even before J.Lo and Carrie from Sex and the City and made them a household name, we were buying Manolo Blahniks whenever we got a few spare nickels to rub together. Since my wife shops mostly at thrift stores and consignment shops for her clothes, our deal is that she can buy one pair of oh-my-god-how-can-a-pair-of-shoes-cost-this-much shoes every spring/summer. It works out pretty well, actually. She finds some of the most incredible stuff in these stores for mere pennies on the dollar. It’s not uncommon to still see the original store tags on some of the stuff she finds.

After my first paycheck, I think my wife deserves a treat after having been so patient with me over the last year.

Getting a job, continued

Tuesday, May 11th, 2004 | Personal | 27 Comments

Ok, so it’s on.

I’m in prep mode as I get caught up in the area of software development I was working in when I was last employed, Java web applications. You’ve seen them everywhere. DirecTV and Kinko’s websites (web applications) are examples of this technology in use.

With my previous employer, most of the work I was given not only failed to challenge me, but prevented me from getting any experience with design and architecture of these types of software applications.

I remained a little web page bitch for much of my stay at that place. Menial work like creating forms for users to input data, displaying tables of data, testing data were typical responsibilities for me. Most of the other aspects of design, best practices and architecture I learned by eavesdropping though the partitions that separated me from the project’s architect - a pretty brilliant guy - and my project manager.

Every now and then, I’d hear the more senior developers having a discussion about the system’s architecture and how the best solution for the problem at hand was by using some simple technology that would be tedious to code and maintain, like JavaScript.

One of them would call out to me: “Oh, Melvin…” I’d then be assigned to that lowly task, as it was beneath these more senior, god-like developers.

Well if I have to go back to work, I’ll be damned if I do it as a little user interface, JSP flunky again. I was vaguely familiar with the J2EE architecture and best practices by what I worked on and overheard. Now I’m going to be proficient in them. I’m going to land a job as a Senior J2EE Developer.

The stack of reading that I’ve been taking in non-stop since my last post

Over the kast week, I’ve been reading up on J2EE and Application Servers like my life depends on it. I’m giving myself 21 days of “review” before I start submitting my resume. I’m hoping that it will only take me 2-3 weeks tops to land my first consulting gig. During that time, I’ll be still be reviewing, now less on theory and more on practice - designing, developing and deploying my own sample applications.

An interview is about selling yourself. Sometimes I can be quite the salesman. Here goes nothing.

Ok… so I have to get a job

Thursday, May 6th, 2004 | Personal | 38 Comments

Just a month ago, I wrote openly about my disdain for becoming a disposable employee for yet another company, to be discarded with the recyclables when my services are no longer needed. However, as I face the inevitability of personal insolvency, clinging to my previous position for much longer just isn’t feasible.

I need to get a job now. It’s been a year since I was laid off from the last one and my unemployment benefits came to a halt in early February. My original plan was to use those nine months to sell two more of my own start-up software company’s systems, gaining favor in the eyes of financiers, enabling the business to be self-sufficient.

That didn’t happen. I sold my first wireless point-of-sale system to a restaurant in April 2003, weeks before I was laid off. As I supported my product throughout the summer, I began to see design flaws that needed to be addressed for my product to be ready for the big leagues. After all, only the bigger players will get real value from my $24,000 - $35,000 system.

At my first customer’s site, I solicited feedback from waiters and managers and took note of issues to tackle in next version of the product. Back to the drawing board I went, taking out a business loan and a second mortgage. I filed a patent application on the new design, hired a new software development team, and by January I was ready to move forward with development. The clock was ticking, but I was moving along at an acceptable pace.

Then I got a few surprises that I wasn’t prepared to deal with. My most expensive developer stopped working on the project (soon after I paid him 50% up front for his portion of the work), stonewalling me for another 2 months, manufacturing a new excuse every week. After siccing my attorney on him, I extracted another week of work from him, but nothing substantial.

Finally, 2 weeks ago, he tells me that his wife asked him for a divorce. His time had been and is now consumed with custody issues, liquidating and distributing his assets, blah, blah. Despite the fact that he signed an agreement and has half of my money, there is no way I am going to get a completed product from him. As my attorney reminded me, the agreement we signed wasn’t tight enough for me to take any real legal action. I certainly learned how important a “time is of the essence” clause can be. That’s just great.

Now it’s one year after being forced out of my last job and I’ve only sold one system. Incidentally, that restaurant has closed its doors. I have at least 3 months more of software development left (now that I’ve taken over the work I’ve partially paid for). Our finances can’t hold out that long.

My wife’s income alone is just enough to keep our heads above water, and just barely. If one more major unexpected expense hits us, we’re toast. I’m still trying to figure out where I’m going to find the $4k I need to replace our roof ; It’s leaking into our upstairs tenant’s apartment at this point. God forbid our tenant should ever decide to move out, leaving us to pay the entire mortgage on our duplex alone.

So here I am, getting my resume ready to get back out there to clock some cash. My goal is to land a gig as an independent consultant for a short period - 3 to 6 months - then jump out again to continue full-time with my business. The tech job sector is bouncing back finally, so I’m optimistic about my prospects.

I’m going to pimp The Man this time around. With any luck, that trick will get me back on solid financial footing and continue to fund my endeavor to be financially independent by growing my own business.

Here’s to the hustle, and the struggle it entails.