the blog: tag= career
Todo
- Date
- 5/08/2008 09:31:00 PM [permalink]
- Author
- yahooza
- Entry
- I started a brand spankin' new consulting gig w/ zvents.com this week. Folks are cool, laid back and the office is less than a mile away.
M' boss and I took a walk 'round the block and he asked about full-time employment. Frankly, I don't know what I want career-wise. I don't want to commit to a company if I don't know what I truly want; thus, contracting short-term gigs are good enough.
During interviews, I would tell folks bout m' carrer path, "I dunno. I'll probably be outta tech in 3-5 years." Maybe that's why I don't advance in some interview processes =) If so, then I'd learn to be less truthful and sell m'self better .... uhhh, yeah.
Seriously, I don't know what I want to do. In the past eight weeks of underemployment, I've enjoyed an active and stress-free time-off, enjoying the fun of casual hacking, reading graphic novels (and real ones), swimming and spending time w/ friends. It's been real hard to resell m' soul back to work and the 'urgency' of everything in Silicon Valley.
Well, until I get a clue, I shouldn't fret it and continue to smile at the sun and dip m' tongue in the pudding. Mmmm, tastes good! - Comments
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Limbo
- Date
- 2/21/2008 10:18:00 PM [permalink]
- Author
- yahooza
- Entry
- In the last 10 days, I left two job offers and tomorrow m' months-long gig in Los Gatos will end. I will be enjoying time-off.
The first job offer was the Los Gatos gig tempting me to join fulltime. I said nah, because they are running short on time and funds. It's been two developers hacking together a rather sophisticated web 2.0 (love that buzzword) site. Sooo many bugs =)
Anyways, to the second offer .... the company is small, the peeps nice, the pay above average and the benefits very good. The caveat: a technology company that serves adult video content.
I kinda believe that internet pr0n keeps the creeps at bay, in their fantasy caves to .... do whatever that they do. So what changed m' mind about the job? Talks w/ friends and m' mom. Not enough pros to offset m' hesitation about the gig. Also, while flipping channels, I saw the Maury (Povich) show about sexually-abused women. I didn't feel so well w/ m'self afterwards. In the end, I could not wrap m' head around it.
So, I'm back to unemployment purgatory. I will be doing the same ol' thing minus the stress of frantically building software. Maybe in 3-4 weeks, I'll take another shot at Google and attempt Facebook.
Tomorrow: last day! School's out! Yay!Labels: career
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Back in the city, round two
- Date
- 1/31/2008 11:03:00 AM [permalink]
- Author
- yahooza
- Entry
- So, I'm scheduled for a second round of interviewing at "place in the city" next Tuesday. I had almost forgotten about the first round, remembering the night prior. ACK! Man, I need to use m' calendar better.
I don't know where I'm gonna be—yep, there are options. There's a good job market out there and hopefully I will know soon.Labels: career
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Resuming and interviewing
- Date
- 12/28/2007 04:16:00 PM [permalink]
- Author
- yahooza
- Entry
- I dislike the job-seeking process. A little less than three years ago, I poured 26+ hours while interviewing at Yahoo!, Google, Zazzle and Wily Labs. Painful. Plus, I get the jitters whiteboarding w/ the interviewers.
I really wished that Linkedin released their API, so I could parse m' data to generate m' resume. I'm already doing something similar w/ m' Facebook profile on m' "About Me" page.
I've already set minimum requirements regarding compensation: nothing less than Alex Rodriguez's 10-year, $275 million dollar contract w/ the Yankees. Hey, I don't use 'roids. That counts for something right?
Oh, the new year is approaching mightily fast .... back to hackin' m' resume. - Comments
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Two whole weeks.
- Date
- 9/27/2007 03:56:00 PM [permalink]
- Author
- yahooza
- Entry
- Yesterday, I gave notice to m' boss. Where am I headed? I don't know yet.
A brief timeout is first and most important. Then I'll contract part-time for a colleague o' mine in Santa Cruz and see if I can contribute to the feedeachother.com song and dance. I'm in no hurry to return to corporate America; eventually, I'll crave for a source of stable and consistent income. I just need a break from the mind-numbing big company politics and bureaucratic processes. To me, that's just life, and a career that's very different from older generations where your parents held gigs for decades. Change is good.
So, the fairy tale ending and a new chapter begins like: 1) hand-off work, say good-bye 2) half-week vacation, soaking in rays on a white sandy beach — though the vacation packages I've reseached require two tickets and HELL-NAH, I ain't bringing m' mom 3) contracting for a couple of months 4) and start interviewing again for my next long-term adventure.
The sun's smile is a little wider today =D - Comments
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Serenity
- Date
- 7/17/2007 10:58:00 PM [permalink]
- Author
- yahooza
- Entry
- Life is calm. It's great to feel in more control. Since leaving the Answers project, I've had more time to do anything without worry. During school days, I can leave at 6pm and get shit done during w/o interruption. And I don't need to work weekends. Imagine that, being paid the same and not have to work two extra days. Hmm, somehow that doesn't add up.
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A decade of labor
- Date
- 7/12/2007 05:35:00 PM [permalink]
- Author
- yahooza
- Entry
- In October, it'll be my 10th anniversary since joining the workforce. 120 months. Minus 8 months in between jobs: 2 months after moving to the Bay Area in 1999 and 6 months after I quit Razorfish in Summer 2001 -- the dot-com bust and 9/11 didn't help getting another.
That's 93.3% uptime. Feels much, much longer.
Only 35 years til retirement. Can't wait for Social Security and Medicare! - Comments
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Vultures
- Date
- 6/13/2007 07:57:00 PM [permalink]
- Author
- yahooza
- Entry
- Man, since yesterday's ultimate fighting challenge, aka Yahoo!'s annual shareholder meeting, it's been non-stop w/ the recruiters. I'm guessing a lot of Y! employee phones are buzzin' w/ consultants poaching for talent.
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Where's Waldo?
- Date
- 4/25/2007 01:17:00 PM [permalink]
- Author
- yahooza
- Entry
- So I've finallllllly left Y! Search, doing the internal transfer dance back to the main campus. Now, I'm 'doin' mah thang' on the i18n Tiger Team, mostly adapting webapps (HTML-based, Flash-based, client-side frameworks, server-side libs, etc.) to support multiple languages. I've always believed all software should be language-agnostic, much like how Answers has been deployed to 15-20 diff. countries. It's much harder than people think and certainly much more than just encoding your content as UTF-8. I've got lots to learn ....
It's bittersweet to leave after watching the team grow from the 8-10 weekend warriors to over 60+, the number of servers shooting from 15-20 to 250+ presently .... a total of 20 action-packed, drama-ridden months in Social Search, beginning in August 2005 .... the Answers Beta, the Donald Trump barrage, the GA release, the "Ask the Planet" campaign, late-night Mario Kart racin', the Superstar award ceremony at Spago, the Better Bookmarks launch, del.icio.us stuff (top secret) and finally the Peeps network ....
It's been one hellava run.Labels: career, del.icio.us, i18n, socialsearch, yanswers, ybookmarks
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Gratitude unrequited
- Date
- 4/04/2007 03:05:00 PM [permalink]
- Author
- yahooza
- Entry
- Methinks I'm underpaid. Must remedy.
Labels: career
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TGIF
- Date
- 2/23/2007 08:34:00 PM [permalink]
- Author
- yahooza
- Entry
- Thank Golly It's Friday!
Well, not really. I'm still at work fixing bugs. Things are messed up and the engineers are "encouraged" to put in extra effort to get it done.
Funny story: A bunch of us were about to hit In n Out Burger for dinner. One of the Product folks then offered to buy dinner, because "if we went, we couldn't get any work done." I explained that we needed food and most importantly, a break.
*sigh* Such is the life of code monkeys.Labels: bureaucracy, career, life
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Smokin' Aces
- Date
- 1/23/2007 10:28:00 PM [permalink]
- Author
- yahooza
- Entry
- I had a 'confrontation' w/ a product manager today. I reckon, just one of 'em days. I get really snappy at people who try to push my buttons. If someone asks politely, there is a 96-98% probability that I will oblige. Those who demand or bark orders don't receive a kindly response. And again, it falls back to my relationship w/ my father. Oh daddy, you were too proud and still are =)
The argument turned into one of those Parent-child dialogue. The product person shifted the argument, asking questions and making statements that I couldn't respond appropriately (lose-lose situation). I just left the building to take a timeout.
(Transactional Analysis is a fascinating theory on group dynamics and communication. I've only read "The Games People Play." If you have the time, read some. It'll open your eyes to overlooked aspects of human interaction.)
Overall, I'm burnt out. I'm tired of being just the 'implementer.' There is too much stress daily. Not from the Y! peanut butter fiasco, but rather the "need" to squeeze everything out of the engineers. Sprints overlap each another as QA and patch releases run into design or development from the next. Some of my peers work late nights and weekends to fix bugs or production issues because of the need to "go, go, go!" There's not a moment to breathe normally; it's fun and beats complacency, but not for several months straight.
I am building nothing cool. I am innovating none. Oh, the pleasures of being a corporate worker bee in a top-down organization; all because I need direction and nudging to work =)
Ha. At least I have my health. - Comments
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