Minor deity seeking employment

The past year has been a pretty wild ride. I could write a blues song… or worse, a country song. You know how those go.

A lot has happened, but long story short… This morning I and what seems like half the cool kids at my company got laid off due to a rather sudden corporate change in direction. Barely over a week ago, they were still making promotional videos about the stuff which is now cancelled.

So… know anyone who needs a quirky tech generalist and professional goddess?

Ideally I’d love to do something which benefits a collaborative maker community… like we do on BLF; you guys are awesome. But I realize that may be a tall order. Working remotely is good too, since I’m currently stuck in Asgard until I tie up a few loose ends. And some of you may have noticed I enjoy playing with people… so that should probably be a thing I can keep doing.

In the short term I plan on taking a bit of personal time to recover before I even think about jumping into anything, but I’ll start putting in applications before it goes out of style.


Edit: So… I thought it was funny to say I could write a blues song. But you know what? Screw “could”. Why not actually do it? So I did. I had some time to kill anyway. I call it the Ubu Blues, since I’m not doing Ubuntu any more. It’s short and sweet and sloppy, not unlike this sudden layoff process, and ends with me leaving in my TARDIS.

(if you were wondering, my Wondrous Rod of Light also doubles as a sonic screwdriver… and a guitar… and it’s also good for scratching hard-to-reach places… it’s multi-purpose)

Edit 2: No, I’m not going to write a country song… no matter how nicely anyone asks.

Pbtbtbt.

Edit 3: Sorry about the excessive avatar use. A girl’s got to do something to keep herself entertained, you know?

2 Thanks

Dang, good luck!

Well that’s a crappy turn of events. Best of luck! I’m sure something will come up.

Sorry to hear about your predicament :frowning:

On a positive note, the Ubu Blues is pretty cool :+1:

Very Doom-esque sounding.

Ouch, sorry to hear that TK…. best of luck going forward. :slight_smile:

Nice song, good beat. :wink:

Sorry to hear TK. All the best for the future. :weary:

Whats wrong with Blues ? as a Dane that’s all i have been listening to for the past 2 decades.

Okay on a nice sunny day i might put on a little Bob Marley or something else, but in general blues is what i listen to most often.
If only the brainwashing that seem to work fine on the other +5 million worked on me, then i would be listening to Justin bibber and what not too.
But when they make the annual ranking over the most happy nations in the world, then i am always the one here that is on the negative side.

Hope you find something really cool to tear into Toykeeper.

Hey TK, look into Universities… I think with your desire to work in they type of environment you have selected… a University would be a good fit.

ReactOS?

1 Thank

Minor deity ???
I did not know they exist.
Some may simply be shorter.
I don’t think there could be anything else minor about you or your contributions around here.

Sorry to hear ToyKeeper! I was laid off many times in my life and always bounced back. So will you!

A professional with your intellect, skills and social IQ will really be an asset to any business venture.

Best of luck.

My idea would be a spin-off from BLF that community-designs flashlights and sells them on a large-scale with the help of a manufacturer like i.e. ThorFire! A small, innovative and nimble tech startup focused around the future of personal lighting products.

Do you have an active security clearance?

Drats- hate to hear of this happening to such a giving person :frowning: While I’m still going, I’ve spent most of the last 2 weeks trying to sew up what could be a lucrative deal for me and so far all I’ve got to show for that are serious financial losses. And now that I’ve done my part, the deal is in the hands of those who had it all messed up from the start so they will probably sink it even after all I’ve done to make it happen.

Things will get better, they always do. Keep the faith and smiles going, and good luck!
Phil

Hope all turns out for the better :money_mouth_face: Good luck! :+1:

Good luck moving forward and I hope you find something you enjoy twice as much.

Thanks, everyone. :slight_smile: I’m not really too worried; just bad timing.

I did enjoy university work last time I tried it. It tends to be a little bureaucratic, but it’s also nice being around energetic students. I’ll have to check if there’s anything open nearby.

ReactOS is interesting; I didn’t realize it was still around. A Windows clone seems like an odd choice though, since I’ve been avoiding Windows for ~20 years.

I’ve never tried to get security clearance, but I’m somewhat familiar with the process. Some friends could point me in the right direction if I need it. However, I have lost projects before when they became classified. There was this remote-control deep-sea sub we designed so that land-locked researchers and professors could pilot the thing real-time during class, in deep parts of the ocean, discovering new species and such. We got it far enough to demo in a lake, and then DARPA bought it and it disappeared. I assume they’re now using it to play underwater spy-vs-spy.

There are all sorts of awesome things being created, but I don’t know what most of them are. I keep finding cool stuff lately though, like open-source music hardware. Some interesting ones are the Linnstrument, the Atmegatron 8-bit synth, and the Axoloti synth/effect board. And that’s just part of one specific industry; this sort of thing is happening everywhere.

There’s also a 3D printer company close to me where a couple friends work. It’d be a pretty convenient option, though I don’t know what sorts of jobs they have open.

Or a friend at Red Hat told me to come join him. I’d feel a bit weird about that though, since I accidentally created their package management software and I’m still a little embarrassed about it.

Or I’ve been tempted to start the Society Moderately Against Extremism, to encourage people to calm down and use empirical approaches to tricky topics, but I have no idea how to pay the bills that way.

Or find a consulting / support role in a tech company, since I’m a weirdo who likes both tech and people.

Or perhaps I’ll stop rambling, get some sleep, and think about it more later. :slight_smile:

Here’s to finding a cool new job that’s interesting, challenging, and loaded with great people to work with. :beer: Make the most of you’re involuntary sabbatical. :partying_face:

Good luck with finding a great job! From what I gather, you have everything in house for that. :slight_smile:

Well, it does seem like choices are going to abound for you. As far as the ReactOS thing, avoiding Windows and working for ReactOS are not mutually exclusive! All the reasons I personally try to avoid Windows seem to be the same reasons ReactOS exists! In fact, if ReactOS had been at the same level of usability as Ubuntu in 2004, I would have probably never used Linux. Now, if it’s the NT architecture or some other root-level characteristic of Windows that you’re actively avoiding, then ReactOS is off the table. They are a “clone” of Windows in the same way that Linux is a “clone” of Unix.

I am writing this on my laptop running Ubuntu 16.04, have been using Unity desktop since 10.10 and can not believe that I am going to loose unity? I have no clue what to replace it with. I guess I have until 2020 or something to figure it out. I did run Arch with unity desktop for a short while, maybe the community will continue to develop the desktop even if Ubuntu have decided to take a step back. I have been excited about Ubuntu for phone/tablet as well, but always felt it wouldn’t make it because of the wast majority’s lack of interest in anything but Android/whatevertheapplesystemscalled.

So, I was sad to read about this both for you personally and for the future of Ubuntu, best of luck to you in your new situation!

Elchund