Starting Over

Losing a job because you are not capable is something that I have always been able to handle gracefully. I have never thought that I am owed continued employment if my skills and abilities were no longer serving the purpose of the company. I even find it somewhat tolerable when the views of my employer and myself are no longer the same or differ too greatly. For the first time, however, I have recently been in the position of losing a job due to financial reasons.

Working for a start-up is always a fun and exciting venture (if you can stomach it). There are late nights and tough days but the ability to produce something from the ground up is a wonderful and fulfilling experience. It is difficult, however, to find that what you have produced wasn’t good enough to gain the attention of enough investors or customers to keep the “lights on.”

What makes everything more difficult is having to start over.

The root of the problem is my own. While gainfully employed I didn’t take the time to “get out there” and spread the name around. I didn’t shake hands and schmooze. I didn’t go to my local .Net user group meetings, didn’t go to networking breakfasts and lunches. When the lights turned off… it was me, myself and I. Not knowing anyone (or anyone who is still around) means giving up your soul to the recruitment process and attempting to find “a match” like it was a dating service.

It was a naïve thought to think that my body of work would speak for itself. Simply putting it down on paper to have “those who read resumes” identify the full breath of my knowledge and capability in all it’s glory is almost worse. Curtailing a resume to make it easy to read while having enough information for someone you don’t know, for some position you have no information on, is yet another exercise it futility.

So instead of paying my dues, doing do diligence and focusing on the networking aspects of software development; I am starting over… again. A little more seasoned and a little wiser but on the ground floor none the less like a wicked game of Chutes and Ladders.