Last first article after being laid off

Last first article after being laid off

So, it happened to me, too.

How does it feel? Amazing

It was bound to happen. The work I was been paying to do drifted from my interests. My life also got very complicated, for a multitude of reasons.

I can describe the feeling of being laid off as taking off a leash — I feel free now to do as I please, when I please, to pursuit my interests at the whim of my desires.

(Note: not that I didn’t feel free before; I have always done as I please; however, I do have cherish and respect promises, responsibilities, and expectations.)

Roaming the streets at 10am, just wandering around if you like, is a magical realization of what is possible.

To have your personal interests first in line, not the company’s…

No more shenanigans from my manager, boss or colleagues. No more breakfast during, before or after standup meetings; no nonsense meetings anymore, either. #win

Time is human’s most valuable asset. Use it or lose it.

Better to use it to improve the world by making people happy, and making you happier in return, than to inflate some bank account.

And what about the money?

I am excessively grateful for having had been offered the opportunity to join my former company in such an amazing position; company’s values were great, as well as work environment and peers.

Under the mentorship of my manager, I was set up for success from the beginning. I was able to grow from a junior position (actually mid-level) to a senior level engineering and junior manager in a couple of years.

At the beginning I had no work history in the US, and so, I do appreciate them for believing in me in that the story laid in my CV was truthful and that I could do what I said in my CV.

Having such a position helped me not to suffer much directly from inflation since I enjoyed yearly appropriate salary hikes, good healthcare insurance, 401k, legal, almost 30 days PTO… The pay was not astronomical, 6 figures on the very low range.

I never complained. I was happy.

The day I was laid of, I had woken up with the idea of asking my manager for a raise: ends were not meeting with much grace.

I also felt that I wasn’t been paying sufficiently enough so I could offload my life’s shenanigans to a 3rd party; which would have helped.

Life turned into overwhelming mode and something had to be adjusted.

Rather than overworking myself with life+work responsibilities, I decided to deal with my life and time first, and let the work for other’s bank account fall into it’s right place. Which it did, and I got laid off. Haha.

I got a 6 week severance package. I was quite happy at the moment (since I didn’t know anything about this, I thought I would be thrown out in the cold; however, I felt and was prepared for it), until realizing engineers at Google get 6 months (some random YouTube video). Haha. My manager also then confessed he got a yearly bonus and I never got any.

Also, as in China, I truly believe all the salaries a company pays should be available for at least all employees to see and compare. The secrecy — and even the contractual obligation not to talk about it — gives company's an unfair advantage over employees.

Yeah, but how do you plan to pay rent?

The money is indeed an issue that can’t be ignored, AT ALL. I am cognizant of the fact. I have some savings so I hope I will be able to manage it without tumultuous changes.

Desperation mode has not ever helped anyone. And plans are useless but planning is everything as Eisenhower once said.

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless but planning is indispensable.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

We’ll see where I end up, that is basically why I wrote this initial article. I’m looking forward to read it a year from now.

What are my plans?

I was just recently laid off, so I’m still savoring the peaceful anxiousness of freedom. It’s like being hungry, but you are not sure which food to eat first.

For this, meditation is key, I’ve come to believe.

I find it is key to know ourselves and be sure of what we truly want. See more clearly the path we want to walk.

It seems as if there are many choices… but that’s a topic for another moment.

Things I could explore:

AI

2023 has been an amazing year in terms of AI. So that it’s perhaps one of the things I might look more into (so many different paths, I know).

I have a bunch of ideas that I could explore. I’ll be writing about them as I actually walk the walk.

Phone-2-phone + no-internet payment wallet (with Cardano)

I’m also toying with the idea of entering the cryptocurrency developer area, by building a phone-2-phone no-internet payment wallet with Cardano, using Hydra. Something like HydraNow.

Cardano is a top 10 cryptocurrency, for those who might not know. It extends Bitcoin’s UTxO to make an extended UTxO, or eUTxO. To my surprise, Cardano is not the only one doing this.

eUTXO stands for extended unspent transaction output and is used by several other notable blockchains such as Cardano, Komodo and Nervos Network. By comparison, the Ethereum network uses the Account model as the framework for recording transactions on the blockchain.

Research

I studied physics in college, so I have the researcher vein running though me.

I am currently working on a very interesting research project aimed at measuring the speed of planet Earth through the “Ether”. Here’s the paper in my opinion has some very interesting results.

I can most likely be interested in pursuing other domains of knowledge stemming from computers, math, physics, biology (neurology in particular), robotics.

I also read yesterday an article on being an ‘independent researcher’. Sounds good, but I am not clear how can I pay bills while being an independent researcher.

Algo Trading

You can check my older articles on algo trading. I never found a solid strategy other than buy-and-hold, however it’s fun to try. Interesting to study also.

Doing arbitrage might sound old, but there might be opportunities still our there.

Taken from Investopedia:

What Is Arbitrage?

Arbitrage is the simultaneous purchase and sale of the same or similar asset in different markets in order to profit from tiny differences in the asset’s listed price. It exploits short-lived variations in the price of identical or similar financial instruments in different markets or in different forms.

Articles

I have a very long list of unwritten topics I’d like to explore with the aid of my fried ChatGPT and make them into articles. I have also some of those in my Research Gate.

Probably a book with my research findings.

Keep eyes open

This could also have been a sub-header for “What are my plans?” section.

It you take this next idea seriously, you’ll noticing it more and more around you: reality throws many different pitches. If you see a pitch, it most likely means you can hit it and make a home-run.

Reality throws many different pitches. If you see a pitch, it most likely means you can hit it and make a home-run.

However, if you don’t hit the ball, or even if you miss the home-run, or even if you strike-out, you can ALWAYS learn from the experience — not only that you can, but that I think that you definitely should.

I always try to think what can I do different or better next time?

It’s unavoidable to have a next turn at the bat in the game of life (maybe it doesn’t seem like the same game, or the bat feels now like a horse or whatever, maybe not even under the same rules).

The only reason you wouldn’t be able to stand and continue walking is if you’re dead. And if I am writing this, by definition we are alive.