I fully expected to type that title… I just didn’t expect to type it now. I figured in 2-3 years it would be appropriate. If I typed it before that, it would be a joyous occasion – followed by the popping of champaign Champagne. So now I type it, but there is no champaign. Truth be told, I spent much of last night choking back tears… Why?
The company I worked for decided things weren’t working out and gave me the option to respectfully resign. It came a little bit as a shock simply because I had been there a year and other than a feeling that I wasn’t completely pulling my weight hadn’t received much of a warning. At the same time, I’m not dumb (at least most of the time) and if you don’t pull your weight and do your share, this is the likely result.
As I write this, it’s just four hours after I’ve received the fateful news. I’m still sorting out thoughts and emotions. My first thought was, “Was this preventable?” The answer to that is, “Of course.” I simply needed to focus on doing a better a job. It didn’t take a lot of time for me to move on from the question of “what if” to a different question.
What now? There are no shortages of software engineer jobs in Silicon Valley. I could probably have 5 interviews lined-up by the time you are reading this. However, we are going on our honeymoon in 3 weeks. Is this the proper time to be looking for a new job? I talked it over with my wife, and an obvious question came up, what if I didn’t look for a job right away? Money would tighter, but exactly “tight” as my wife makes a very generous salary – and the health insurance. What if I wrote more often and perhaps tried to… wait for it… blog for money? It’s too early to think such thoughts, isn’t it? For now, we’re thinking in a different direction…
It’s time to think about survival mode. What areas can we save money in? We certainly won’t be buying any robot vacuums or FoodSavers. Our food bill will go up as I won’t be eating at free at work anymore. Our car expenses will go down slightly since I won’t be driving to and from work. As far as I can tell everything else will remain the same. However, our housing expense will be only around 23% of our take home – and that is by far our biggest expense. Thus perhaps we don’t need to be too much in “survival mode”, which is dangerous for me.
Why is it so dangerous? I’m tittering teetering on the edge of being depressed about the days’ events. I could very easily spend the next couple of months wearing out the couch. Or I could utilize the time to do one or more of the following a) find my dream job b) explore new business opportunities and actually act on them c) exercise d) learn all the computer science skills that I should have learned a long time ago e) make reading my writing the highlight of your day.