Monday, November 03, 2014

Pass The Catch-Up, part 1 (“Dammit, I Really Needed That Money!”)

Day 2, biotches! Technically it’s day 3, but I’m hoping to post again tonight, so close enough and get over it!

I alluded to a number of changes that have taken place over the past couple of years, so I thought I would start by getting you up-to-speed as to what’s been going on. I could do this as a single, longer post, but instead I will give you a bit at a time. That way you don’t go into information overload, and I get to stretch things out a bit,and get more for my NaBloPoMo dollar.

In January, 2012 I was laid-off from my 18-year gig at Stratus Technologies. Apparently, my job function as a System Certification Engineer could be performed more cost-effectively if outsourced to another company, and all that blah, blah, blah. Honesty, I wasn’t too offended at the time because for one thing, I was definitely feeling burnt-out and wanted a change. For another, I had wanted to begin pursuing photography as more than just a hobby, and had enrolled as a part-time student at the Boston University Center for Digital Imaging Arts. As it turns out, the lay-off gave me the opportunity to attend full-time and would be able to complete my studies in only nine months, instead of eighteen. More on that in a later post.

While I felt I left Stratus on good terms, I have to admit that even now I harbor a small amount of resentment over the lay-off, because dammit – I needed that money, and still do! Yeah I know it can’t all be about the money, but try telling that to the mortgage company, the utility companies, and the lenders of your 20-year old student loans. And – as I have learned over the past two-and-a-half-years – the longer you are out of the computer industry, the harder it is to get back in because it is a constantly-changing, continually-moving target. Sure I wanted out of the industry, but I wanted a lot more say of when that took place, and a lot more control over the pacing of the transition.

But everything happens for a reason…

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