Job Hunting

egad. it's job hunting time again. I am tired of this...it's not quite retirement time, altho it's close...

Earlier this year was my 40th (yes, 40) anniversary of when I started writing computer programs. Jan 1976. So I've been at it a while. And I'm very good at it.

My employer is not so good at getting new business, these days. Result: a year ago I had a project I was running. That collapsed in Feb due to a mgmt error re funding, and some customer error that we got blamed for also re funding; I had no idea anything was wrong until mgmt said "everybody stop charging this project today." In the spring I wrote a proposal for something new, that dawdled along until late Aug while the customer kept trying to get us to cut our price (while the scope and certainty of failure got larger), and we finally had to say no we aren't going to do this. Then I helped write another proposal that would start Oct 1, and we lost that on price to another group that is going to fail to perform by virtue of having to put really cheap (i.e., inexperienced) staff in 90% of the positions.

And now there's nothing else coming up for me. That's THREE fails this year. So my employer is going to have to lay me off in the next few days. I've been asked to give numbers for doing some contract work. I've never done that before...

So now I'm trying to figure out how to become an actual contractor.

Had an interview today at lunch with another employer just 3-4 miles from my old house...that'd be convenient for a while...we didn't talk about my planning to move and sell my old house in a few more months. I didn't think that was a good topic for this first meeting :)

I'd rather just retire, but I can't afford to do that until after the old house gets sold.

Yesterday I was at the new house. Because I was in the basement, I counted just how many model railroad structure kits I have to build...it's about 500, which means that if I build one a month I'll die before I get too far...one a week takes a decade to complete, and there's not way the bigger ones are only going to take a week--nor would I want them too, lest I be making mistakes all over.

Which means I need to get busy building these things...i.e., I gotta retire.

Which i can't quite afford to do. I gotta figure out how to work remote some of the time, how much to bill for that, etc.

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Next day: agreed with my employer to take a 30-day LOA. Now I can build my outbuilding!