Presidium Podium

So, yes, for the first time in my adult life, I’m unemployed.

I was dismissed from the concern for which I have worked for the past two and a half months last Thursday. It is impossible for me to go into any detailed explanation in a public forum without greatly compromising my professional position and, as increasing numbers of people blogging about work-related matters are discovering, potentially creating legal exposure for myself for libel, defamation, breach of NDA, and whatever else employers can come up with.

It suffices to say that my relationship with the business owner was problematic and not without recurring friction, and that various chronic personal choices, behaviours and shortcomings of mine are culpable here as well. No, I don’t feel that I bear full responsibility for this outcome or feel that my termination was somehow fair and reasonable, but it would simply be disingenuous and immoral to lay it all at my employer’s doorstep. It is as complicated as it is simple.

Contrary to what I always expected to be the case if I ended up in this position, I am actually all right at just this moment; if utilised in a fiscally conservative manner, I’ve got about ~2-3 months of cash reserves to float by on. But that’s not really a relief in any kind of grand scheme. As an individual living in downtown Atlanta, I have very high living costs and lead a high-overhead life. This would be a good time to be still stuck back in Athens with a few hundred dollars in recurring expenses, not in Atlanta with two mortgages, a car payment, HOA dues, insurance, and whatever other goodness.

Indeed, from the standpoint of my first instincts, it is quite terrifying to not have an income, and worse, no concrete, anticipated means of having one. I’ve never really been in this position before — even for a short time– since I got out of high school. The potential ramifications of financial failure in some or all of the above-mentioned asset / expenditure categories are absolutely not an option, without a doubt. And I have enough life experience to know all too well that two or three months is practically nothing compared to the average required turn-around time on a variety of economic pursuits, including jobseeking. Actually, finding a job in my field can easily take much longer than that.

That’s the take of the first instincts, anyway — yeah, despair and feel like a miserable failure, pretty much. But this is not the time to listen to those first instincts. This is a time to figure out what I’m going to do next and execute it. Quickly.

So, despite my despite my strong inherent anxiety about having ended up in this situation, I’ve decided I’m going to listen to my rational side and see this as an opportunity, not as a tragedy.

The truth is, ever since I developed my entrepreneurial ambitions with Evariste Systems in late 2006, I’ve wanted this. No, not to be fired, of course, nor to be jobless quite this very moment, nor to otherwise have my hand forced. However, in my head, I wasn’t planning on staying employed much longer; it’s hard to say how much, since I was so squeamish about taking risks and putting myself in this position of acute insecurity. Maybe a few months.

All this time, I’ve been miserable at every job I’ve been, pretty much irrespectively of whatever objective engagement I might have otherwise had with its content (although, the inane and bromidic content figuring into a lot of them didn’t help at all). It was the mere fact of the condition of employment in an existential sense.

I haven’t been able to entertain a professional self-concept that left me feeling “at home” or “comfortable” with what I was doing at a company; all I ever felt was that I was “stuck” there. Those who have known me in this period of my life can attest to a dense narrative replete with practically daily, unabating gripes about how impossible it is to try to do side-work, work on side-projects, and/or engage in some form of side-business on top of a taxing and exhausting “day job.” Oh, and my level of enthusiasm for working on anyone else’s stuff, engaging in their process, following their dicta, etc. when my mind and my heart is entirely about my own business ideas and ambitions. That enthusiasm has been on life support and barely breathing for a good while now. I just don’t care to do anything for anyone else in anyone’s office any more; all I can see and feel is how putting any spirit into it takes away time and energy from my own projects. I’ve found that it doesn’t even matter if the substance overlaps considerably with my personal technical and business interests; the mere fact of its being done in the context of employment asperates away all the joy.

I’ve also come into contact with a number of very viable and compelling opportunities throughout this time that I’ve had to pass up, neglect, and/or drop the ball on because there is no realistic way to execute them as side work in the evenings. There is just no way. And I’ve griped about it all the way, day after day, week after week.

Of course, all this hasn’t prevented the periodic burst of enthusiasm at something new and interesting, from a technical point of view, that has led people I’ve worked for to be really impressed with my skills and initiative. But it doesn’t stay, and before I know it, it’s back to the same old grind. By and large, I think I’ve been dwelling in mediocrity for quite some time now.

Pretty much everything I experienced in my daily work life was experienced in terms of how it takes away from my own business goals.

It is also fairly certain, upon reflection, that the mental and economic phenomenology of this mental disposition contributed to what ultimately got me fired. Besides, I’ve even expressed to myself and those close to me the occasional yearning to quit, be laid off or fired so that I could get the necessary kick in the pants to start pursuing what truly makes me happy. I just never took the steps. Laziness, security, inertia — let me just flip my excuse calendar here.

I’m done with employment. Another job — more of the same sort of thing — isn’t what I want. If you believe everything happens for a reason, then consider that I’ve had six jobs at five companies in the past three and a half years.¹ Surely there’s a reason for that. It’s just not the cloth from which I seem to be cut, my increasing self-awareness in this area tells me.

I’m going to put my money where my mouth is, to so speak. This is what I’ve been wanting. I just never had the cajones to take the leap, and now someone’s kicked me off the edge.

I’m going into business for myself.

I’ve got a few things going for me.

For one, I leverage a good bit of quality relationships and industry contacts. I’ve become increasingly adept at selling myself at a high level, and have earned some respect and acclaim in doing that.

For another, a great deal of the preparation for this eventuality is already done. I’ve set up a great deal of business infrastructure for Evariste, including plans, documentation, specifications, procedures, and other information. I have learned a good deal of what is to know about accounting, taxes and finances relevant to small business, and have been doing the accounting for quite some time. On the technical side, I already have and/or lease services and equipment such as colocation space, servers, VoIP, etc.

Third, it’s what I really want to do with myself. There’s nothing like doing what you want to do. It produces results, it really does. In fact, I’m pleased to report that in my first few days of unemployment, I have already made enough money this month (on an accrual basis, at least) that I do not anticipate having to dip into my savings at all to pay my bills. And it’s only the 6th. I’m shooting for much more. That’s a lot better than the first-month stories of most people I know who have traveled this road.

I will save extensive discussion of my goals with Evariste for another time, but it suffices to say that its mission as a software vendor and service provider doesn’t have the sort of time-to-market that allows that mission to be realised in a time frame that would allow it to monetise my existence by the time that becomes necessary. In the mean time, it’s going to have to be freelance consulting - a business unit of Evariste I intended to build up all along in the form of Evariste Professional Services.

A little note about going into business. One needs to go into business for the right reasons. It is not a redeemable decision in and of itself.

Unless it is something of trivial complexity, don’t do it unless you are looking for a career change from ${the substance of whatever the product/value creation is} to management and business administration. I cannot possibly count the number of people that start a business of their own — and fail — thinking, “Well, it’s always more profitable to work for yourself, and I do XYZ well, so I’m going to start an XYZ business.” No!

If you’re a good programmer, that does not mean you should start a programming business. You may not have any ability and/or interest in what it takes to actually run a business. Even if you do, the most you’re going to end up doing is carving out a possibly decently-paying job for yourself, except you’re going to incur all the ineffiencies that come with the anxiety of not knowing where your next paycheck is going to come from, and working 90 hour weeks to ensure it does when you do. You would be much better off pursuing a career development track that finds you in a well-paid, sufficiently senior development / engineering / architecture role somewhere. It is quite possible to do that and make far, far more money for far less work than you’re going to do on your own, and lead a suitably happy life.

If you want to start a development company, it is because you want to do business as your next career. There needs to be a point — and that point needs to come as quickly as possible — when your coding ends. Businesspeople that started out as programmers pull this off because they have the right combination of personal qualities; among other things, including a certain extroverted nature and excellent people skills and political acumen (in a broad sense), they have a strong competency and abiding interest in economics and managemen. That is why they build business processes that can be replicated, scaled and delegated at decreasing marginal cost. If you are not knowledgeable and passionate about all that stuff, you shouldn’t be in business.

The second point is about growth, and applies especially to anything that falls in the province of “consulting.” Growth is the expression of successful business, and growth requires economies of scale and replication of process. If you do not properly plan and bring your goals into focus, you are going to simply end up reinventing the wheel every month with a one-off project that, however lucrative, cannot be reused in a strategic or cost-effective way. That is not a growth-oriented strategy. You’re just going to hit the limit of what one person can realistically do, get burned out, but be stuck in a position where you can’t get off this ride because you need to pay the bills. And you’ll be stuck there in perpetuity, in perpetual frustration, misery, and economic uncertainty.

I feel that I’m going into business for the right reasons. I’ve got a lot to learn, but this is what I truly love to do.

A part of me still twitches with anxiety and fear at my present situation, acutely conscious of the economic significance of every day that goes by for which I am not paid a comfortable salary. But no matter. I’m not looking back. It’s time to face this situation with courage, determination, and the best of the American “go get ‘em” entrepreneurial spirit in which this nation’s mythos rightly invests so much pride.

Besides, as I said above: failure is not an option.

^{1 As some of my close associates have rightly pointed out, this resume pedigree — combined with lack of a college degree — also conspires to somewhat disadvantage me when it comes to seeking employment. No, it’s not an insurmountable hurdle in an industry that values skills way, way above all that, but it’s a strike against me to appear to be this kind of job-hopping “loose cannon.” Unless it’s on a fixed contract basis, employers want employees as a long-term investment. I have averaged a new job every six months.}