fingers crossed

I promised in my last post (Priorities and Life Goals II – The Current Situation) that I’d post soon about drafting a plan given the current concerns and situation. So I’ve already started working on some of these points, and the rest will hopefully fall into place sooner rather than later. 🙂

The main concerns for me right now are Money, Job change, Taekwondo, Secretaire, Rental issues and generic concerns about managing day to day life (like most people). Let’s take them one at a time here (in no particular order of importance) –

Taekwondo – There’s nothing earth shattering that needs to be done. I have already enrolled in the classes, paid the money. Now I just need to make sure I get up in time to make the 6 AM class. I checked with the trainer today and he said I could bring Minion along in case DH was out of the city, and we’ll see how that goes. So just some mental fortitude needed, the stamina etc should improve gradually on its own.

Job Change – I thought about my interests, ideal working life etc, and the ideal job for me right now would be –

Does not require relocation. (Non negotiable)
Pays decent money. (values for decent can vary depending on how good the remaining 3 factors are)
Lets me work on something interesting using Python or C++ (nice to have, but I need a job, not my calling)
Doesn’t have a totally crazy schedule (factors would be work hours, work loads, commute, team) (Very important, probably wouldn’t be able to manage a lot of craziness here for long)
Gives me a chance to learn one or more of these – Ruby, Javascript, Node.js, Android App development or iOS App development, either as part of job, or by having other people/teams working on these for me to bug 😛 (Bonus. I talked to one of my ex colleague that with no experience in mobile dev, how to I get to a stage where I can get a role doing that. He suggested I learn as many of these as possible, focusing on getting very comfortable with them one at a time. So if I have possible mentors at work, it’ll be a big bonus.)

Now I know you’ll say that I’m greedy and want everything! I say that if I don’t know the ideal thing, how’ll I decide where to try? I think these factors are more or less in their order of importance… I’ve already uploaded my resume a few places and got a few initial calls.. I have all twenty fingers (including toes :P) crossed hoping that something suitable turns up…

Rental Issues – In the meantime the builder contacted us with the welcome news that our new (smaller) flat might be ready by September. So that means if it takes another month or two to get the customization & wood work etc done, we might be able to move in by December… Sure the society won’t have many families living there initially, and it’ll not have convenient options for grocery shopping, an existing maid network (living in India, affordable household help is probably the biggest support for a family) etc available right away… But I think it’ll be worth it. Plus financially it should reduce some burden since we’d just have to manage the EMI rather than also fork out the rent (which has gotten insane!) every 1st. So I just need to hold out for a few more months (hopefully) 🙂

So the plan that seems to be sketching itself out is to concentrate on preparing for interviews and aiming for a good job in the short term. The rental issue will take care of itself in its own time. Taekwondo doesn’t need too much effort from me.

When it comes to Secretaire, I think it can fulfil multiple duties.

I’ll have something interesting to work on as a side project even if the daily work is not that interesting.
I’ll get to create something useful for myself (and hopefully for others).
I can use it to learn a few of those technologies/skills I was talking about earlier. I’m thinking I should concentrate on Javascript and Ruby…
Stretch Goal – If things go unexpectedly well, I might consider making it public (thereby creating a tiny, additional revenue stream)

But I think I need to make it clear to myself that for now this has the lowest priority. I’m only allowed to work on it if my brain’s not taking any other information in while preparing for technical interviews. And I’m not allowed to work on it for more than 2 hrs a day in any case (I know I’ll start finding excuses otherwise). I also need to remember that ramping up at the new job will need to have the biggest priority initially. Basically, I love you secretaire, but you will have to be happy with whatever time and energy I’m able to spare for now. 🙂

I’m in an enviable position as regards my current job in that my employer (it’s a small company, not primarily working in software) knows I’m looking for something new and doesn’t mind so long as I don’t neglect my current responsibilities (which aren’t that time consuming)

Yay for understanding employers!