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    So I got laid off a couple of weeks ago...

    Forum post

    Author
    Message

    Jeremy Reimer
    Posts: 9342
    Posted on: 2013-01-02 01:12:07.000
    Life is full of uncertainties, and these days there is no such thing as a secure job. I found this out quite suddenly in the week before Christmas.

    Basically what happened is that our company's largest customer, United Rentals, merged with our fifth-largest customer, RSC. This was a problem because the new united company decided to cancel all of their seats associated with the old United Rental account, which meant a sudden 20% loss in the company's total revenue.

    Cuts had to be made, and companies undergoing downsizing often cut R&D. Since I was the entire R&D department, I was laid off, along with two other managers. I had been at the company for over five years, but the other two managers had been there for over ten years each.

    So it was a shock, but I've had a few weeks to think about it, and I've made my plans. Because of (un)employment insurance and our savings, and because my wife will be working again in the new year, I have a six month window where I don't actually have to worry about getting a new job.

    I've decided to make good use of this time.

    Starting tomorrow, I will be blogging once a day. Many of these entries will be short, but I will be doing a daily journal of sorts describing my attempts to make a go of self-employment.

    The last couple of years at work were very productive for me. I learned how to write web applications very quickly and learned how to make them robust and useful. I basically made a new webapp, working alone, using Solr as a database and newLISP as the front-end using SQLite to store user data, using what I learned by creating this blog software.

    It was an interesting learning experience, and one thing that I learned that may sound like I'm bragging (and okay, it kind of is) is that when using these tools I am actually, verifiably, as productive or more productive than a team of four developers and one manager.

    This was verified because my application was labeled as a "prototype" and a team of four devs and a manager decided they would rewrite it to be "better". Senior management went along with this decision and I was a bit bitter about it for a time, but I figured at least they could build something that was a little more industry-standard in terms of technologies while I went on to the Next Great Project on my own.

    Okay, so the team did eventually rewrite my app from scratch, but it took them twelve months (I had taken less than nine to build the prototype by myself), and they didn't actually have as many features as my app did. The application was also slower. And buggier. And harder and slower to change. But hey, at least it was "industry-standard", right?

    Well, all that is moot now, but I have the curious position of knowing now that I can out-compete a team of five people. This is an interesting position to be in.

    One could have a nifty little startup with a team of five people.

    Or in this case, one person.

    So I'm going to try and build something, I'm not entirely sure what yet, that will produce a modest income for myself. I will be supplanting that income with other writing income (for Ars Technica, mainly) and also trying to promote my novels and write my third novel.

    It's a lot of projects to have at once, but I figure that right now is my best chance to try and make these dreams-- which I've had for decades--actually come true.

    Wish me luck! I'm going to need it.


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