Day 55: The Experiment Ends

54 days ago I decided to set myself a goal to work on during my period of unemployment and social isolation: I would publish a blog post every day, and spend at least 30 minutes on each. I’m proud to say that I was able to achieve that goal!

Tomorrow I start my new job at NVIDIA, so I don’t anticipate having the copious amounts of time on my hands as I have had these past few months. I will still blog occasionally, but only when I have something to write about, and time to write it.

What have I learned by doing this experiment? Well, to start off with, I learned that it’s very difficult to let go of something without polishing it to death. That is my normal mental state when I write, and as a result I end up not publishing a post if it doesn’t feel perfect. But setting the one-edit rule helped a lot. At first I would examine every single character to make sure I didn’t have any mistakes, or could have used different words for better clarity, or… the reasons go on and on. But after doing that for a few days, and realizing that the world didn’t collapse around me, it got much easier.

Another thing that made it easier is realizing how few people actually read these posts. I have tools that generate daily stats for number of visitors, and how many times any given post was read, and believe me, they were pretty low. The one exception was the post about finally getting a new job: that got over 300 views! I find that encouraging: that people were truly happy for me, and interested in how I was doing.

One other thing I learned is that writing any particular piece gets easier once you start. Most days I didn’t have a clear idea about what I would write, and would procrastinate until I either had to start something or break my streak. I’d start by writing whatever I could think of on the topic, and it was usually crap. But after a bit it would start to flow, and I’d end up deleting the first few paragraphs whose focus meandered aimlessly, and post the rest.

I’ll close this with a caterpillar update: Lazarus is still in his/her chrysalis, but so far 9 of the new brood have emerged as adult butterflies! Unfortunately, one of the 9 had deformed wings and couldn’t fly.

I took this picture this morning of one of the enclosures: you can see butterfly #9 up at the top getting ready to leave, several pupas attached to the stick assembly I made (and one pupa attached to the enclosure itself in the top right), and two caterpillars crawling on the cup of parsley, with their little poops dotting the paper towel flooring. It’s a butterfly production line!

Day 44: Employed Once More!

After 3 1/2 months of unemployment, during which I submitted countless job applications, became a regular on LinkedIn, learned the routines of the Texas Unemployment Benefits system, and sat through numerous interviews, I’m excited to report that I have a new job!

In a couple of weeks I will be starting at Nvidia as a Senior Python Developer, working on the tools for their GPU cloud. I’ve met the other people on my team during the video interview process, and they all seem like a bright bunch, so I can’t wait to start working with them!

It’s been difficult these last few months. It started with the pandemic and subsequent lockdown, which has affected everyone. Then came the layoff, with DataRobot letting 25% of its workforce go, including yours truly. It really wasn’t much consolation that I was only 1 of the 40 million or so in the US who lost their job in those few weeks – it still hurt.

Still, I have had it better than most. My wife still had her job, which was super-important financially. We also had some savings, so we weren’t living paycheck-to-paycheck like so many Americans have to. And it did give me some free time to work on my photoviewer software, and practice my newly-discovered sport of disc golf. It also gave me the chance to perfect my sourdough bread technique (yeah, I know – how cliché!). But there is only so much to do when largely confined to the house.

Which is why I started this daily writing exercise. Not just to fill the time, but to get down some of the thoughts that have been in my head for a while, and polish my rusty writing skills. And while it’s been difficult to always find something to write about, I have noticed that writing itself is feeling more fluid.

I will continue this daily project until I start the job on July 20. After that, I will continue to write, but just not on a daily basis. Going through this exercise has helped me enjoy writing more, and improved my ability to let a piece out into the wild without first obsessing with endless editing. That is probably the best thing I’ve gotten out of it.