# Life Update
Hello!
If you've been around a while, you may have noticed I missed my usual New Year's Resolution post this year. It's been over a year since my last post. You may be wondering what I've been up to since then, and the answer is quite simple.
I've been unemployed.
I've also been having the time of my life. Haha. I told myself I wouldn't post another update until I got a new job, and that time has finally come.
This week I'll be starting my new career as an electrician. I'll be starting my apprenticeship with my local chapter of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (opens new window), an electricians' union. It's a four-year program that leads to becoming a journeyman, where I can really begin my career. To start out, I'll probably be digging holes and sweating my ass off for shit pay, but I'll have a steady income, benefits, a pension, and hopefully an AI-proof line of work.
Who knows, it may even whip me into shape.
# Unemployment
I got laid off from my nice remote job last June, with budget reasons cited. It really blindsided me.
I spent the next six months applying to jobs as my full-time job. I applied to 679 jobs in six months before I stopped caring and keeping track. The job market was insanely competitive since remote jobs opened up the pool of candidates to the entire country, and sometimes even beyond. On top of that, I wasn't the only one getting laid off.
I found a startup that I felt really strongly about. I really wanted this job to work out since I liked the culture, the product, and the vision. The application itself required answering three challenging questions, including implementing an obscure algorithm, which I enjoyed.
My first-round interview with HR and the CEO went very well. I felt very positive walking out of it (I was sitting in my chair). I immediately heard back that they wanted to move me on to the technical interview.
Here was the challenge: I consider myself a full-stack developer, and this position was specifically for front-end development, which I'm comfortable with and enjoy working on. However, the main framework they were using was Angular, which I barely had any experience with.
Nevertheless, I studied my ass off before the interview. I learned what made Angular unique and how to utilize its strengths.
The interview went great. I really enjoyed talking with the two engineers, my potential coworkers, and I felt I did very well and that my studying had paid off.
I immediately heard back that I would not be moving forward.
This really killed my hope of finding another software job. I decided I needed a backup plan.
# 2026
The prospect of never finding another software job had been looming in the back of my mind, slowly growing more pressing with each passing day. I considered other possible career paths, accepting that I may have to start over from square one.
Up until this point, I had been coasting on my savings (thank god for my prudence). In January, I decided I needed a part-time job, at least, to help stretch the remainder of my savings.
I considered various nightlife opportunities since I'm a nocturnal creature. Bartending typically required working your way up through the restaurant industry, starting as a barback, which quickly dissuaded me from that idea.
Evaluating my finances, I tried to find work that would meet a certain threshold I required to maintain my standard of living. I didn't require much, to be honest.
Eventually, my research led me down the path of electrical work. Lucky for me, there was an electrical union very close to me. They offered two semesters, one in the fall and one in the spring. I honestly started preparing my application in December, hopeful that I could make it into the spring semester.
It's been almost nine months, but it finally paid off.
# Lyft
In the meantime, I started delivering for DoorDash. Something flexible that let me work nights while I slept during the day and worked during the evenings.
I actually quite enjoyed it. I got to drive around at night, listening to my music and audiobooks. I felt like Santa dropping off presents at people's doorsteps.
I did not like, however, getting in and out of the car; turning the car on and off; going up and down stairs. And the DoorDash app sucked. I literally had it crash while I was trying to take a picture of the food as I was handing it to a customer.
Uber Eats was a better app, but a lot of the things I didn't like about delivering food remained.
I decided to try driving people around.
Wanting to make a good impression, I bought lights for my car: a green sign for Uber, a pink one for Lyft, and RGB lights for the interior. They are a hit.
Uber was alright, but I had to accept the rides I was offered lest I get kicked off the app. Sometimes this would take me far away from home, and I would have to make long drives to get back.
I personally use Lyft, so I decided to try Lyft instead. It ended up being much nicer and offered way better tools for executing your market strategy.
I loved driving people around. From the rowdy college girls going home from downtown to the sleepy early-morning airport passengers, every night was always an adventure.
I would curate playlists for passengers, mostly based on the time of day. Initially, I had a monolithic playlist of music I would approve for the general public. It required calibration, of course, but it was largely successful and I received many compliments on my music.
Spotify had a nice Mix feature, which, when enabled, would seamlessly blend songs into one another. It worked pretty well, with some transitions working better than others. It was fun. I would listen carefully to these transitions, usually while passengers rode along in silence.
Eventually, while I was working on a playlist, I realized something. With Mix enabled, there was a button between each song.
I clicked on it and, holy shit, my mind was blown.
Is this what DJs do?
# DJing
So I became a DJ!
After some hasty research, I went out and bought a controller: a Pioneer DDJ-FLX4 (opens new window).
The rest is history ðŸ«