Late to the Party

Hi, Kids.

Long time no blog. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to “properly” blog this, but I got laid off a few weeks ago (3? 4?), and am now searching for a new job. It’s really frustrating because a) there aren’t a whole lot of jobs in the Chicago area for C++ developers, and b) I’d like to move beyond software engineering, but my skill set doesn’t seem diverse enough (or at least I don’t have enough experience in areas beyond software engineering) to qualify for other jobs, or so the listings would have me believe.

Ideally I’d love to have a job where I work from home. I probably wouldn’t mind doing a C++ programming job (or similar…if you know object-oriented programming, how hard is it to learn others?) if it were in an area beyond telecommunications, which is what I’ve been doing since graduating in Dec. 1999. If it were a job where I could do some writing of a tech journalism bent, that would be even better. It seems, however, that these job requirements of mine are not the norm. Also, it’s hard for me to fully express my frustration with the situation without perhaps saying some things that would give future employers pause, should they find my blog during a routine Google search. So I guess I won’t make this blog post too long.

If you read this and happen to know of programming opportunities in the Chicago area for someone like me, or maybe another job that sounds like what I described above, I would be eternally grateful for the leads.

In the meantime, I might try blogging more regularly to help give me a regular thing to do while my job search is going on, to help focus my schedule instead of seeming like an endless weekend to me, as it has over the past few weeks. It has been nice not to have to worry about work deadlines, but going from working for over 8 years (over two different jobs) to not working is still quite an adjustment.