The Year of Living Frugally – Week 6

Employment Planning

The caffeine, carbs and sugars have finally begun to kick in. Arriving at the airport at 5am (Sunday), I am almost tempted to stay asleep. Do I need to be fully present for this portion of the work-day? My supervisor doesn’t look all that aware anyways.

The destination: Monterey Bay. Four days and three nights of a dual-geek-type conference (IT geeks and Research geeks). As usual for geek conferences – especially geek conferences where cross-species communication is necessary – all meals and social activities are pre-arranged. We will be locked into the conference area starting with the 8am breakfasts until the last call at 10pm for the late-night hospitalities.

No sight-seeing on this trip. At least none that is officially sanctioned by our corporate multi-billion dollar hardware and software sponsors.

Monday is St. Patrick’s Day – and alternative plans for the evening quite possibly need to be created.

“…the threat level is orange, please be aware of your surroundings and report any suspicious activity immediately…”

Fascists.

The threat level has been orange every day for nearly seven years at this rural backwater airport – but hey, maybe today is the day I can run into the woods and fight insurgency-style against the invading al Qaeda.

(Anybody else ever read “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”?)

Remember all the portrayals of Nazi Germany and their brownshirts, or the USSR and their KGB – wasn’t a big chunk of their power due to the fear they instilled by brainwashing their citizens to report each other’s “unpatriotic” behavior?

I look around. No al Qaeda. Just my supervisor and two dozen other sleepy people. My supervisor does look suspicious – he is making strange motions with his face, and sounds are coming out of his head.

He goes through another round of bizarre mouth movements and escaping sounds…

I slowly realize he is talking to me “… and during the layover in San Francisco I’ll need to use the laptop to check my email…”.

“Maybe you should carry it around during this trip – so you can stay connected.”

He replied: “No, I don’t need it all the time…” – and he continued to leak sounds out of his head.

(a note from my future self, my semi-cranky response did result in no more requests for the laptop after the layover)

The caffeine and sugar have a soothing effect on me – I engage my supervisor in conversation. It’s not that I dislike the personal version of him – it’s the professional version I despise. He insists on only supporting projects that were his idea. All of his ideas involve technology and solutions that are more than ten years old (a bad idea when dealing with technology and business intelligence).

For the next four days, I get to spend 12 hours+ per day with him.

My supervisor just asked me for advice and information to write a bad report about a human resources manager (who has been compiling bad reports from others about him).

What a tool.

If they made a sitcom about my office, it would be called “Tool Time”.

This is, of course, the perfect time to re-think my employment plan.

My Employment Plan

I have an analyst/programmer type job. These skills are my bread and butter. I imagine that this type of work is always available – as long as I keep current with technology. This work is as exciting as painting all the lane-divider lines on the highway – by hand. I did not major in analyst in grad school, but it has provided me with extra money while I was still a student. When I was pulling ‘spro in Minnesota, unable to get a job in my field – I was able to finally find full-time work as an analyst. When I needed a job in California to escape Minnesota – more analyst work.

Somewhere in here there should be a cautionary tale: when mentors and family warn you to take more math and less arts so you can get a job after college – be aware of the type of job you are training yourself to take.

Like the ingrate that I am, I’m ready to leave the analyst world for something more interesting.

As you can see from my flow chart, the analyst-type skills are the backbone of my current marketable skills. I have other marketable skills and interests – but the more time I spend working as an analyst, the deeper the job rut I create.

The other jobs on the flow chart fall into two functional types – static and dynamic.

The static jobs are traditional full-time-type jobs. With a static job, I work for another entity. My analyst job is static – but I will leave this job after a year if nothing else is found. If my supervisor is run out on a rail – I will take his job (and run the office like a champ to make the most of the opportunity before leaving for a dynamic job). A teaching job is probably the only static job I can see myself thriving in long-term (because the work itself is very dynamic due to human nature).

The dynamic jobs are all centered on going into business for myself. These include consulting by programming and/or analyst work of some sort, teaching or tutoring, or writing. Of these, I currently find writing the most intriguing. After spending 50+ hours a week only using my left brain, the right brain likes to put words together for this webpage. However, dynamic jobs, while satisfying, are the riskiest financially.

The year of travel can actually have a positive affect on my employability for dynamic jobs – if pursued properly. Fluency in Spanish opens many doors in the western hemisphere (and other Spanish-speaking countries). Travel can foster an understanding of other cultures and business practices – in addition to providing opportunities for meeting those who may need your services. My year of travel will be more than catching waves, catching a buzz and lying in hammocks.

The flow chart is currently incomplete. At the moment, I am more concerned with my escape than what to do after I escape.

How many prisoners plan on where they are going to go before breaking out of prison? (I suppose the successful ones do…) The first task is figuring out how to escape – how to break the chains – then the possibilities will become more apparent.

(continue on to Week Seven)