Quitting a job, but not a profession

Posted by Adam Fortuna

January 20, 2007

Everyone dreams of the time when they can quit their job. If you’re lucky this rarely happens, but I can’t imagine the idea never crossing someones mind (or if so, please get me an interview there.). The concerns have been there for me since half the development team left around the beginning of last year, but resurfaced towards the end of the year. Today was my last day of work there, although I’m sure I’ll be seeing most the people again. It’s amazing to work at a place where even with over 100 people in the office I’d feel comfortable grabbing a drink and hanging out with any of them. I ended up giving 7 weeks notice to my supervisor, with plenty of time to pass on anything on to others in the office. We leave on great terms though, and I wish everyone the best.

As for what I’ll do next? That’s quite a mystery at this point actually. I have a lot of goals, and for once, a lot of time. I’d love to read through a handful of books on my shelf, get Coldfusion Certified (more for the experience and learning those CF parts I might not otherwise learn than for a certificate) and build at least one production site from start to finish. Luckily I’m not in a rush to find a job at this point, although I did apply for one that looked interesting. At this point I’m perfectly happy laying back, working on the above items and watching for jobs as they become available. Coldfusion jobs in Orlando aren’t in abundance, but there are great opportunities out there for those who wait.

It might sound sacrilegious, but I’m not ruling out the idea of taking an entry level position in a language other than Coldfusion. As much as I love CF, and honestly believe it to be the best web programming language for a huge amount of tasks; it’s still only the best web programming language of those I’ve been exposed to. At 24 there’s a lot I don’t know; and “traveling the programming world” is a trip I’d love to take. I’ll continue to look for CF jobs, but I’m still open to other web programming opportunities at this point.

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Comments

Comment by Shan on January 20, 2007 @ 3:19 am

I ended up quitting my last job. I didn’t leave on good terms, but they got what they deserved. They were lying to me, lying to the clients, screwed me over on the annual raise & bonus, and then “forgot” to pay me a bonus promised me for a ton of overtime I put in. There were two of us developers at the time, and the other had already put in his two-week notice. They pissed me off enough that on his second to last day, I gave them one-day notice so we both left on the same day.

This was the third time their entire development team had left. That should give you some idea of how bad it actually was there.

Comment by Abhijit Nadgouda on January 20, 2007 @ 3:26 am

I have experienced something like this earlier, however currently pretty far from it. I did relax and enjoy the seemingly powerful state of postponing decisions

It really gives you an opportunity to free yourself from the daily routine and look at the bigger picture. Enjoy this time, and all the best for your ventures!

Comment by Pete on January 20, 2007 @ 8:58 pm

Knowing when to leave can be a hard thing and figuring out what the next good opportunity is can be just as difficult. I’ve been doing web development since ‘95 (when Perl was cool) and while a lot of people out there share your fondness for Cold Fusion, it’s not the only language around or even the predominant one. You might consider keeping an open mind or even taking some time to train on something new (like Ruby, maybe) while you prepare for your next step. CF may be your favorite, but it might limit your future options too.

Good luck with whatever comes next!

Pete
http://nerdguru.net

Comment by Shan on January 20, 2007 @ 11:19 pm

Don’t forget about Flex 2! Now’s a great time to hop on board that bandwagon.

Comment by Adam Fortuna on January 21, 2007 @ 1:20 am

@Shan
Flex 2 sounds like a lot of fun! In the little amount of time I’ve messed around with it it was amazingly intuitive. Going through the Flex2 book is one thing on my list of things to do that will probably hype me up for it.

Also, when companies have their development teams leave like that it’s when they get the option to make the big changes or make the same mistakes. 3 times is pretty unbelievable though.

@Abhijit
That does sound like exactly what I’d like to do with this time period. Thanks!

@Pete
Very true, the more you specialize the more of a corner you’re in later. Getting to an intermediate point where I can build up a basic rails site, even using mostly plugins and generators, would be a good step. Earlier when I was investigating rails most the sites I was wanting to make were just not good starting points for learning a new language. With rails 1.2 out it now seems as good as time as any to give it a second look.

Comment by Kyle Korleski on January 24, 2007 @ 8:50 am

Well, quitting a job is important. But I feel that it is important to consider that switching jobs too often is dangerous to your professional life.