I return to work on Monday, so today ends the unjobbed time. Technically, it's as long as the six-month lapses in 2001 and 2009, but those were a lot different, with recessions in play. This time, I didn't even spend much time looking for almost two months. I was ready for a little sabbatical. Then Diana's appendectomy and subsequent related issues came next. I would measure this more around four months, which is maybe a hair longer than normal. When I look back, gosh, it happens a lot in my line of work.
Time moved kind of slowly this time around, which is welcome for anyone middle-age and feeling like time is getting away from you. The absence of routine always slows things down. Psychologically, it was challenging for different reasons. The financial situation was better and worse than previous. With a fat severance, there was no hurry. I never applied for unemployment. On the other hand, I also started to game out what offboarding from my tech career really looked like. I solidified the idea that I don't want to wait for "retirement age," which is still so far away. I did the math, and I'm realistically in "FIRE" range by a year or two. Provided that Diana had health insurance for us, I could have possibly made it work today, but our investments aren't liquid enough. That, and the volatility caused by an unstable guy in the White House means the market is constantly up and down. So I was simultaneously in great shape, and not close enough to make a safe change.
I had no problem finding purpose. Building out TogetherLoop was super fun, and I really shored up all of my coding projects. I made the most of my $20 monthly Claude subscription, and I've never had more fun doing this sort of work. I wouldn't want to code full-time again for work, but AI makes it so that you can concentrate on technical design and architecture, which is the stuff I'm most interested in. I also spent a fair amount of time building LEGO, playing video games and hanging out with Diana and Simon. We had two cruises already on the books, so we did those, too.
My biggest source of angst and anxiousness came from the job hunting itself. The job market has technically been stable, and the reporting around "tech layoffs" tends to be more with the giants than medium or small companies. What has changed in the four years since I last had to look is the way recruiting and interviewing goes. It has not changed for the better. That alone is worth its own blog post. I'm certain I applied to 200 job listings, and scored zero calls from them. The action that I did get was all from referrals. Some of those interview loops were as broken as the rest of the process, and even though I knew it wasn't personal, it really wore on me. Combined with a very challenging parenting season, especially with me being the most accessible to Simon, and I got to be a hot mess at several points.
That's all behind me now, and for the first time in my life, I have an idea of where I expect to be in five years. People ask you about stuff like that all of the time, and I never have a very specific answer. This time, I do. And the job I landed has so much potential, and I'm already seeing it just in the onboarding and setup prior to starting. It's pretty exciting. I haven't looked this forward to starting a new job since Microsoft.
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