All About the Benjies

I’ve not blogged in a long time, I see. Forgive me, dear reader, for that. In fact, a lot has been happening in the week since my last post. In that time, I’ve been poring over the job boards, looking for something to do. I admit, I’ve felt a little discouraged and slightly dejected owing to the lay-off, but life, as they say, must go on.

So, I’ve been doing all sorts of keywords searches on those sites to find things that interest me, and discover how things I’m passionate about can become things that I can make a living out of. And, of course, I’ve been sending resumes out like mad (I’ve not had any callbacks or emailbacks yet). That is really why I haven’t blogged, and why I haven’t worked on any of the django websites, which really need to just get finished at this point. I’ll tackle those this weekend and try to at least get 3crowns out of the door.

So, my passions. Funny (not in a ha-ha sense) story: Last summer, I googled around for some of my old high school chums. I’m sort of in touch with a few — one (who I’ve known since 6th grade) directly and 3 indirectly. I had found that my friend Gordana is doing some cool and major stuff in the world of Art. I thought she’d be in the UN or in politics or something while we were in school, but I guess I’d just taken for granted how great she did in Art class. Well, we exchanged a couple of emails and we got to talking about being passionate about what you do. I never responded to her, because I hadn’t figured out exactly what that is. So a four-month late reply is about to go out to her. Told you it wasn’t funny.

It turns out that I am, apparently, one of those people-people. I said it, it’s now out there: I’m a “people person.” Once the shivers are gone when I say that, the truth begins to sink in. I joined gentoo and I became its evangelist not by technical achievements (there’s no bit of programming that I can point to and say: “there, see that piece of genius? I did that.”), but rather by softer means: I had some great ideas (cascading profiles and g-cpan come to mind). I didn’t have the technical oompf to actually code those things up. However, when I found the right people who could, I knew I’d found them (that’s an indirect shout out to Mike).

And I realised that that’s what I’d been doing at Gentoo. I did it well enough, though I certainly stumbled quite a bit along the way. I’d been building teams. That’s been my modus operandi: find a weakness, apply a band-aid, find specialist surgeons to fix it and strengthen it and build upon it. I’m not trying to toot my own horn, here, please understand that. I’m just airing my thoughts of the last few months. And then, there’s the fact that my blood runs with devrel. That is to say, even though I’m not formally really a part of DevRel any more, I still do devrel type things (lately it’s been talking developers out of leaving the project). That’s just my nature, I can’t help it. I’m not alone in that, mind you — it takes that kind of person to be in devrel (which is a shout out to Bryan and to Ferris — wasn’t there some pop star named Bryan Ferris back in the day, by the way? Have I stumbled upon a conspiracy?).

And, of course, there were the linux world expos (though not really with the more recent ones) where I took the reins at interacting with booth visitors and attracting people to the booth. Some might remember me dragging some Malaysian television crew to the Gentoo booth to cover us.

So what does this all mean? All that stuff made me deliriously happy. Well, not all of it is happy (the leaving of devs, for example, sucks mostly), but it’s all what I do. That’s just who I am. That’s what I need to be doing. I don’t know if there are any corporate titles that cover that sort of thing (and pay well) or not. I don’t know what those titles are, either.

So with this present job search, after the initial round of keyword searching, I decided to try and hone in on some of the industries I’d like to be working in. I don’t think I want to work in the linux industry (such as it is), because Gentoo fulfills that need more than amply. But when I think about the kinds of products and services that excite me, then we start to see a picture forming.

Airlines, for example, I feel very strongly about. I love to fly. I love being on airplanes. I love everything about the flying experience, and on non-American carriers, I love the food. Airline food is probably my most favourite type of food. Too bad you can’t really go out for that sort of thing. Or, heaven help you, order it in. Anyway, yeah, I love the boarding, the pushback, the taxiing, the sitting on the ground during delays, the line up, the take-off (I LOVE the take-off), the cruising, the drinks, the food (did I mention the food?), the movies and music, talking with fellow passengers and the cabin crew when they have some down time, the slowing down, the landing and touchdown (I LOVE the landing and touchdown, and pulling to the gate. I’m not so thrilled about the steps following that. This, after 32 and a half years of flying continually (my first airplane ride was at 6 months old). A relaxing time for me is watching the airplanes taking-off and landing. I love watching the approaches. A couple of years ago, there was an internet feed of KSFO airport and I used to have that as my background, er, music while doing Gentoo things. I didn’t understand most of it, but it relaxed me to listen to the air traffic controllers interact with departing and approaching flights. I hate seeing people off (I love seeing them come in), but I think that’s a tinge of jealousy that I’m not the one boarding the aircraft.

Needless to say, one of my categories for search is now Airlines/Aviation. Whether or not I can score a position there that is mutually suitable remains to be seen. And yes, I’m picky. I’d rather work for the cool airlines like Jet Blue and Southwest (if we’re talking American carriers). Those have a people focus to the way go about things. They have a courtesy and general respect for their clientele, which is lacking in most of the other domestic carriers.

I’m not sure yet, which other products/services I feel strongly about, but I’ll start noting them down as they occur to me. I know they are there, I just need to tap into my brain to get at them.