It's back, after having nothing to say about an absolutely boring 2004, an action packed year of 2005 has resulted in this fine piece of literary diarrhea. A lot of which is directly related to work, so enjoy!

The Land of Previous Employment

There was a lot of adventure in the land of employment this year. In January I got fired from an absolutely boring job. To many, getting canned would ensue panic or fear of the future. To me, it was a sigh of relief and a sign for the future. For the previous two and a half years I had been working for this company, which will remain nameless for those of you who don't already know. There was a point when I was interested in what this company did. Interest in ones job, as you may or may not be aware, is very important. Being bored, dragging your ass to work is useless. For the most part, this wasn't the case here, but due to a few people, it turned sour in a matter of a few months. It was unfortunate, but this is life.

They say to keep a rainy day fund, I have a rainy year fund.

Fortunately for myself, I learned a lot. As crappy as it was at this place, the things I have tucked in the back of my mind will be useful in the future. Too bad not every day was a learning experience.

I learned that inefficiency is a viral infection that spreads through out a company from the top down. I learned that no matter how much you pay a Quality Manager, the quality will not go up when the infrastructure is weak and unstable. I learned that when a company has a mission critical database application it should not be programmed using Visual Basic, Microsoft Access and Crystal Reports.

Corporate software development, in the case of this company, moves at the pace of a crippled snail. When thriving upon their “cutting edge” development, their edge was so dull it couldn't cut warm butter. Bug reports, software requests, all bounced got sucked into some void and never returned.

Well, as the gods would show me, that's over. No longer will I have to deal with that.

The land of Unemployment

After getting canned my real fun began. This ex-employer couldn't file a proper document if their life depended on it. It took until early March to get all the proper documents from them just so I could file with our fine government and attempt to get Employment Insurance that I had been paying into for the last two and a half years.

Boy, this turned into a cluster. I applied on line in the middle of February and shortly after I received my confirmation and various instructions on how to continue. I kept going as instructed until one day in May it stopped working. I called them up, and found out that they were missing documents. These same documents that took me forever to get from my previous employer. Now I had to get them again, fortunately this time around they were a little quicker on the draw.

I filed my documents and was told I would have an answer by mid-June. This is getting pretty long winded. June rolls in, I get denied. Basically the entire process has been screwed over by my previous management who, still for the lives of them, cannot interpret circumstances that occurred worth a damn. Anyways, Mid July, I filed my appeal. In August, on the 3rd, I had my hearing for the appeal. It was a strange day, I woke up and thought “some thing good is going to happen today” and as it turns out, the appeal was shit. Three people hardly listening, and asking questions that clearly showed their misinterpretation of the situation.

I went home, bought some lottery tickets and checked my email.

That's when things turned golden.

The Land of Freelance Employment

On that same August 3rd where my appeal would inevitably be rejected, I got a request for an interview. Out of the blue with no effort on my part – it was a perfect match for what I was looking for.

I had an interview on the 5th, a second on the 10th, and I started the 10th.

This job is a replica of what I was doing in my spare time (read: the last 7 months). Working on websites, databases, and learning.

There's one thing that is fun about work and that's learning. Working for a paycheque is alright, but really, if that's all you walk away with are you really walking away with anything? Money runs away, knowledge is forever.

It also helps that I work under the prowess of a teacher and management of whom have yet to show me one inkling of incompetence.

The freelance part of it is what I like best. There's no hard-coded 9 to 5 mentality. It's a “get the work done” mentality which can sometimes mean working until midnight, but really, and I'm sure some can agree, when the mind is running full tilt it's nearly impossible to sleep anyways.

I've learned a lot already in the last 5 months. This experience alone is worth more than what I get paid. I expect to keep on truckin' mainly because insanity and chaos makes for a fun day.

I could literally go on for a fairly long time about the pluses and the minimal minuses about my current job, but I won't.

I'm in good shape now (mentally at least) and I hope to keep it that way over the next year.

Who knows if that will happen. I'm going to Europe, twice. That's a guarantee. It's too bad that freelance employment carries none of that guarantee status. I live on the edge pushing towards... towards something that I'm not really sure of.

The future holds what? I'm not sure. Uncertainty, is certain. The idealism is to keep this job and actually become “full time,” but that is doubtful. Keeping it is less doubtful than losing it, but the “full time” status is what is in the air.

As usual, time will only tell. But, according to my fortune cookie, “You have a passion for perfection” (in bed).

Good luck this year, we're all going to need it.