Look, when I left my last job I didn’t really know what to expect or have any plans, but I knew what I had to be prepared for. I was voluntarily leaving my job in a notably poor job market, and I had to be prepared to be unemployed for a while, take a pay cut, or both.

So when I wrote that post, what I expected to happen was for me to take like six weeks and just chill, not really doing much of anything. I’d play with my kid, take care of side projects, spend time with family, play some video games, read some books, cook and bake, and just generally relax.

When I left HashiCorp, I didn’t take much time at all between jobs. We were in the process of adopting, and the agency had some misgivings about me being unemployed for any length of time. I needed the next thing lined up when I told them I was quitting. So I ended up leaving HashiCorp during the winter break, while I was off work anyways. And I joined up with LaunchDarkly first thing in January, when I would’ve come back from break. There wasn’t really any rest or decompression time there, just the normal¹ PTO.

This was a mistake, and not one I was keen to repeat. And we had already planned to visit our friend for Lucas’ second birthday. So I thought: cool. I’ll just chill until that trip, come back from it, and start applying for jobs then, knowing I may not even get one this year.

Welp.

That is not, in fact, what happened. I published that post at 5pm on a Friday, Pacific time. 10am on Monday morning, Pacific time, my friend’s employer was in my inbox asking if we could talk. That Thursday we talked for an hour, and I realized I had a problem. I like to remain uninvested in companies while interviewing. I need to see what I could get invested in, but I like to not be invested until the contract is signed. It lets me retain some objectivity during the process about whether it’s actually the right fit or not.

But our hour-long phone call had ruined that for me. I was emotionally invested now. I believe the direct quote was “[i]t, unfortunately, sounds like it could be an opportunity to do the best work of my career”.

The rest of my interview experience was short, to the point, and pain-free. We actually verbally agreed a month ago, I’m just a problem child and some of my questions required them do some stuff with legal about contracts.² This actually sets a new record for how early in my employment I can be a problem.³

So much for that plan.

And so that vague plan of screwing around for a bit over a month and then searching for a new job until I find one is blown almost immediately. Instead, I start with Clerk at the end of July as a Staff Software Engineer. They were nice enough to be patient and still give me plenty of time with my family and to rest up between jobs.

And I’m pretty excited to get started.

Footnotes

• ¹ Yes, I know my “normal” is wildly luxurious for most salaried workers, and I know retail workers are struck mute with rage that I would characterize any sort of time off over the holidays as “normal”. I’m going to hold my ground on this one: it is normal, you’re being exploited. ↩⨂
• ² Pay attention to what you’re signing and ask questions about your contract, kids. Any employer you want to work for won’t be mad about it. ↩⨂
• ³ My previous record was set in 2016, when I had to ask HashiCorp to change the name on my offer because I neglected to tell them that my legal name was not the name they had been calling me. This was so mortifying I went to court to make sure I would never need to have that conversation again. ↩⨂