As I sit here in the coffee shop, staring at WriteFreely's beautifully blank page, it occurs to me I have little in the way of organized thoughts to relay. I have plenty of unorganized thoughts, and hence the desire to write.
There's plenty going on in my life, not the least of which involves emotional recovery from my very first layoff experience, along with the ensuing job search. The layoff wasn't a major surprise. I'd been working to transition from direct Software Engineering responsibilities to Product Management and was arguably being paid more than I was worth in that migratory role. Combine that with a recession, if you subscribe to such concepts, and wammo, LinkedIn is my best friend.
I've been given 6 months of time with an “executive search firm” to find a place to land. They seem like an engaged and valuable part of a search and I'll surely integrate their input. However, there's a big part of me who wants to try another way.
I'm not always the biggest fan of America's particular brand of capitalism and don't always see eye-to-eye with the average corporate board. Stumbling across Mastodon and the idea of federation recently gave me lots of ideas. There is a democratizing force at work in these circles, one that I'm sure my friends at the Free Software Foundation, for example, are fans of. I have a renewed interest in learning more about these and other movements more inline with my morals and values.
It's going to be an interesting 6-9 months here as I search, learn and write. Writing has always been a valuable tool for me and this initial piece represents an attempt at returning to a daily writing practice. It might be hybrid, “stream of consciousness” writing mixed with more well thought out posts. Certainly a fair amount, at least initially, will chronicle the next leg of my journey toward truly meaningful and fulfilling work.
To you the reader, thanks for joining.