Will Work For … Well, Anything.
Okay, it’s time to start trying to put this blog to some kind of real-world use. As you may be aware, I’m currently looking for work. I’m an experienced web and software developer, but I’m open to pretty much anything — yes, I have applied at McDonald’s, Burger King, Lowe’s, KMart, Circle K, etc. As a friend of mine pointed out, I’m overqualified for those positions and probably won’t get a serious look because of that. Searching the various job posting sites is pretty much part of my daily routine, but El Paso has next to nothing to offer.
That said, I’m offering myself out to the wolves here. I have two resumes attached at the bottom of this post, both in Microsoft Word (2007) format and PDF format. The “Long” resume contains more jobs; I recently created the other resume as a quicker (and prettier) alternative, and it only contains my recent software development experience.
My resume is mostly buzzword compatible 
I have experience with Java, C#, ASP.NET, Database Development (mostly MySQL, but a little work with DB2 and MS SQL Server). I’m also quite skilled at HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (including the Prototype.js and Dojo Toolkit JavaScript libraries). I don’t have working experience with Visual Basic of any form, but I can make sense of it and work with it if necessary. I do have some PHP experience as well, though not so much in a professional setting (so it isn’t in my resumes). I’ve been trying to learn it recently, and I can definitely get by with it; however, I admit that I still have to do quite a bit of internet research whenever I’m working with it.
Of course, I’m not limiting myself to just programming work. If you have any kind of position open, or you know someone who might be hiring, please contact me and I’ll look into it. If it’s not in El Paso, then most likely I’ll have to telecommute. And if you are looking for a web or software developer (or pretty much anything — also freelance writing or editing) on a contract basis, I’m willing to oblige; just drop me a line and we can discuss the project and see where we can go.
Resume Downloads:
- Matthew Cory Resume (Long) (MS Word 2007)
- Matthew Cory Resume (Long) (PDF)
- Matthew Cory Resume (MS Word 2007)
- Matthew Cory Resume (PDF)
A Time to Change
I haven’t said anything, because it isn’t really anyone’s business right now, but I’ve been unemployed for almost two months. It still isn’t anyone else’s business, save for me and my wife, but it serves as a good starting point for this post, so there you go. I’ve been sitting around the house for a month and a half trying to think of ways I can make a buck, using the talents I have, and driving myself batshit-insane in the process. (Yes, batshit-insane is the technical term; look for it in the latest DSM.)
In this time, I’ve been doing freelance writing to make some extra cash, but mostly living off of my wife. I’m honestly quite ashamed of that; it’s my fault I’ve been out of work, and not because I just screwed up and got fired. I quit. Or resigned, if you want to paint it up a little. I quit because I didn’t really care for where I felt the company was going, and also because I’m Me, and I Can Handle It. Yes, that fine touch of arrogance that makes one think little can go wrong since they’re the star of the show.
That arrogance is an old friend of mine. Its gotten me into trouble many times.
I don’t say this for some self-effacement effect; I say this to just lay the cards on the table. I fucked up. Plain and simple. Contrary to popular belief (and what some genetic tests may say), I am human. I make mistakes.
Since I resigned, things have happened to put things in a different perspective. I thought I’d be able to support us with the freelance writing until something else came along; I know now that I can’t — at least not in the way I was trying. I thought I’d be able to get a few of my web site ideas off the ground to support us. I know now that I can’t, because it takes money to make money, even if that’s just to support you until you start making it on your own.
Shortly after I quit, my wife and I found out she’s pregnant. On one hand, this is absolutely wonderful news. We’ve both wanted children for a long time, and started trying shortly before I quit. On the other hand, I can’t support us right now; how the hell can I feed another mouth?
A little over a week ago, I received horrible news. I’m not going to discuss it, but it too has put things into an entirely different perspective. It’s one of those life-changers, and its one everyone will go through at some point. But its something that I need to deal with, and I can’t just sit around and play house-husband anymore.
Even though I can’t do a damned thing about it, I also can’t lean on my wife any more than I already am. She’s pregnant and supporting us; she doesn’t need the added stress. Hell, she doesn’t need the added stress of just supporting us, let alone if I were to try and pawn my problems off on her.
So I need to get a job. I need a paycheck, and I need to get out of the house. I need to take the load off of my wife’s shoulders — some of it, at least — and carry as much of it as I can myself. That way, maybe I can lean on her — ever so slightly — with this new problem and any others that come around.
I’ve been lying to myself for the past couple of years. I thought I could handle a job and a home life and a fledgling writing career. And maybe I could if I wanted it more; maybe that’s the problem, that I just don’t want it bad enough to put in the extra time it takes. But whether or not that’s true, I simply can’t do it. Not right now at least. And I can’t handle trying to make money by doing my own thing; it is simply too much stress, and it’ll just drive me crazy.
I haven’t written anything new in well over a month, and that was after a year of nothing new. I’m unable to focus on Shattered, and it still needs a lot of work. I already emailed my publisher to see what they want to do about it — it’s contracted, so I don’t think I can just bail, but I can’t bring myself to do anything else either.
The worst part is that it isn’t very likely I’ll find a job of any kind anytime soon. I spent too much time bouncing around to be an attractive candidate for anything that pays halfway decent. I don’t have a degree. I’ve spent ten years programming computers and websites; there’s no such jobs here in El Paso, and we aren’t willing to relocate. Any other position, and I’m pretty much entry level. Hell, I even got turned down by K-Mart as a sales associate. (Several others if you count the ones who simply didn’t respond.)
But I need to put writing on the back burner for now. I need to put my “killer website startup” attempts back on the shelf for now. I need to be able to put food on the table, gas in the car, and make enough so my wife can pay her copays the insurance leaves her with.
No comments on this one.
I need to get some dishes washed.
–Matt
Freelancing for Sanity
Well, it’s mid-June in El Paso, which means one thing: it’s hot. Plain and simple. I’m sitting in the shade on my lunch break, and it’s just miserable. Sure, I could go back inside where it’s slightly air conditioned, but I’d miss out on my only chance to smoke during the work day.
Anyways…
Yesterday I spent some time looking into finding freelance writing gigs, and it was a lot more difficult than I expected. I did find a couple of sites that seemed reasonable and signed up with both of them; we’ll see what happens.
There’s two reasons I’m trying to get into freelancing, and they’re vaguely related in the “if you squint really hard you’ll see what I mean” kind of way. The first is obvious – I’m terrible at “regular” jobs. You know the kind I mean: get up, get dressed, go to the office, put up with crap all day, come home so you can rest enough to do it all again the next day. I’ve never been any good at that, plain and simple. I always start a new job gung ho, ready to take on the world, and before long something inevitably happens that knocks the wind out of me.
Along with such jobs comes the mental (and physical) energy expenditures. That leaves me bone dry, and most companies – all the ones I’ve worked for anyways – frown upon taking time to rest yourself unless it falls outside of the hours they decide you’re going to work. Makes sense, and I can’t argue with it, but it doesn’t work well for me.
The lack of mental recuperation (and therefore energy) leaves me pretty much useless when it comes to doing the stuff I love. Writing, spending time with my wife, music, anything. The first two are most important to me at this time (not in that order; my wife’s happiness is far more important, but that’s a topic for another time), and those two are the ones that suffer the most.
Aside from addressing the mental drain, there’s a much more practical reason. I’ll be able to (hopefully) support my family by doing something that can only help improve my writing abilities, and that in turn could lead to better (and therefore more profitable – let’s not gild the lily here) artistic pursuits, like novels and stories.
Will I make a fortune with it? Probably not. But it’ll be a foot in the door and it could very well get me out of the computer industry. Right now that’s definitely a major consideration as well.
Anyways, I need to get back to chain smoking for the duration of my lunch hour. Catch you on the flip side.
–Matt
Exploding Head and More on Word Choice
It’s miserably hot. Again. The joy of late spring in the desert, I guess. And while my head wants to explode from the stress of work, I find myself wishing it would hurry up and do so.
Not that it would get me out of work, of course. After I cleaned up the mess, they might let me go home and do the rest of the day via VPN, as long as I promised to come in tomorrow. Without a head, driving would of course be quite difficult, so if I were lucky they’d let me schedule my shift around the publc bus schedule. Probably not.
Aside from that, there’s very little happening in my neck of the woods today, so I figured I’d expand a little on yesterday’s post about word choice. (I’m writing this from my phone, as I always do on my lunch break, so forgive the lack of a link back to the post. It should be simple to locate though, I’m sure.)
A lot of times, as I said yesterday, we don’t think about the exact words we use. We don’t really consider why we say a leaf is green or light green or forest green. It comes to us intuitively, we say the word that just seems to suit the setting and the mood, and get on with our lives.
And, for the most part, that’s how it should be.
Like everything else in this world, conversational or writing skills are prone to overthinking. We can sit there and analyze it till we’re blue in the face, but most often our gut tells us the right choice to use. We can worry about how it sounds and what others may interpret it as, but generally we’re clueless when it comes to predicting other peoples’ impression of our speech or writing.
This is going to mildly contradict what I said yesterday, but, as important as word choice is, don’t fret over it. You’ll either make a good impression or not, but the important thing is that you say what feels right to you. That’s all that matters, and it matters much more than whether or not someone thinks you’re smart or funny or a great communicator. All those things will happen if you’re true to yourself, and none of them matter if you’re not.
It may seem like I’m putting too much emphasis on words if the choice is made “for you” by your intution/your gut/the fates/whatever. It’s still important to know what words are right for a given situation, or else your gut won’t have anything to work with. That’s why its rare to find a great author who isn’t an avid reader, or a great speaker who doesn’t listen to the world around him or her. They soak in the outside world and hand it back to you, their audience, through the lense of their own experiences, of the world they’ve seen and interpreted.
Okay, lunch time is drawing to a close and I need to focus on my nicotine intake before I go the next four hours without a smoke. Leave a comment – I want to hear your thoughts. Do I make sense, or does it sound like I’m just blowing smoke?
Catch you on the flip side.
–Matt
Exhausting Weekend Over in Time for the Work Week
Whew… Finally have a few minutes to breathe. Been a busy weekend, but we’re finally moved. Well, mostly moved, I should say — there’s still some odds and ends at the old house, but everything important is here. Which means my laptop, the internet connection, and the bed. Oh, yeah, and the wife and the cat and dog. I guess they count too
The new house is definitely different. No garage, which means I don’t get my morning coffee/cigarette/laptop combination. And it also means that Chloe is going to be spending more time as an outside dog. I have mixed feelings about that. I mean, it’s great she gets to be outside and get some fresh air, but it’s El Paso. Even in the shade around this time of year, we’re talking 95+ degrees. Of course, the other option would be to make her a completely “inside” dog, but you know how dogs can get when they’re left to their own devices. The minute you walk out that door, they have all their friends over, drinking your booze, ordering dirty movies…
The place is smaller than where we were too, but that’s not that big of a deal — just took a little creative decorating (hey, who the hell else has their own dresser in their office?) and we got it all taken care of.
Other than that, just been worrying about work lately. There’s a project that needs to get done this week — and it’s a group effort, not just me — and if it doesn’t happen, then it appears I’ll have much more spare time to work on my next novel. Can’t say I’m terribly crazy about the idea, but at the same time I can’t really go into details about it. Suffice to say it’s one of those situations where it just ain’t fair, but there ain’t a damned thing you can really do but cross your fingers. (I’ve been trying that, but it makes it a bitch to type, which is a rather large job requirement for a software developer.)
Let’s see… Novel stuff… Ok, no recent news regarding Like Glass, but the publisher’s a little busy at the moment. The told me they’ll be able to focus on the book later this year, maybe start talking contracts next year. A little disappointing, but what can you do? Besides, I’ve got plenty else on my plate at the moment and not having to worry about the novel is a bit of a nice break. I’m also still throwing around ideas for book #3, minor sketches and a scene or two, but nothing that’s really catching my eye. Maybe the change of scenery will help with it.
Anyways, I’m exhausted and I need to shave and shower and all that happy crap. Catch you on the flip side…
–Matt
Another Day In Paradise
Okay, got up way too early this morning for a Monday, but it’s all good: one of the downsides of trying to work with someone in the UK is the ~7 hour time difference, but over the years I’ve become more of a morning person than I used to be. Coffee is my friend, and it’s a friend I cherish deeply.
Nothing really to report on the publishing deal yet, except for the fact I’ve discovered how different mailing addresses are in the US vs. those in the UK. The publisher wants a hard copy of Like Glass, and the other day I tried to start an order from Amazon to get an idea of how much it cost. Fifteen minutes later, I think I might have gotten it to accept their address, but I’m a little leary of sending it out. For roughly $50 total (w/ S&H), I’d really rather not take a chance on it coming back and having to send it again.
Also, I’m wanting to discuss the options we might have available for working on Shattered and Broken Peaces together — those are the other two books in the Like Glass series. We’ll see what happens with that. Not really getting my hopes up, but hey: stranger things have happened, right? At least Shattered is technically finished. It’s a mess at the moment, but mainly because I haven’t had any need to work on it (and I’ve had more pressing issues to deal with, like “real” life). If there were interest in it, I could probably have it polished up to a pleasant shine in a couple of months. Broken Peaces, now… that would take a little time. But hey, even if we signed the contract today, Like Glass wouldn’t come out for another couple of years, then Shattered would have to make it’s rounds, probably a year or so after Like Glass, and then we’d have to worry about where the final book in the trilogy is.
Aside from that though, things are trucking along. Work’s getting … interesting, to say the least, and quite hectic as project deadlines loom.
The missus and I are moving — did I mention that? Nothing major, just moving across town. Cheaper rent, and I’ll be a little closer to my old stomping grounds. Longer drive to and from work, but you can’t have everything, can you? Gonna get that taken care of this weekend — thankfully we’ve got some movers lined up, and that’ll make things a lot nicer.
Other than that, just another day in paradise. Need to start getting ready to get back into the grind, so I’ll catch you on the flip side.
–Matt
Networked Blogs (on Facebook)
