I was super happy ... then I got a job offer (And it all went to shit)...
This is a weird title and a statement, right? How can somebody get depressed by getting a job offer? Isn't that just insane?Yes, in a way I agree but then again, I don't. This post will be a self-reflection of my current life situation and my thought process.
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My Current Situation
I graduated from University (I studied Ethical Hacking) in May and when that happened I decided to give away most of my stuff, keeping just few clothes, Ukulele, some books, some electronics and some fitness equipment. Very little compared to what most people own. I bought few sleeping items like a sleeping mat, quilt and a tarp, packed my life into one 60L rucksack with plenty of space to spare and started my homeless travel lifestyle. My only guidance was my heart. I just went where destiny would take me.
A fair question to ask would be:
Why?
I was searching for some answers. And to be honest, mainly I was searching for great people to connect with and someone to love. That's very cheesy but it's also one of the core reasons why I do many things. I try new things to meet new people, I go to events to meet new people, I travel to meet new people. Though the problem is sometimes my anxiety stops me completely from even engaging with them, or I fail to connect with them on a deeper level. Though maybe my expectations are too high in that regard. Maybe it's very rare to connect very quickly with someone. I'd be curious to hear your experience with that.
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Fast-forward few months and not finding many answers combined with unexpected hurdles like losing people I care about from my life as well as government syphoning my savings away every single month, I am where I am now.
I have no income stream, no job, no savings and not much money left for food (and another government payment due soon). On top of that I have no clear directions in life right now. I am not sure what exactly I want to do. Or at least I am not sure about the specifics and how to achieve that.
I am in a limbo with no clear direction.
Despite all that and however gloomy I described it I was actually content, and recently even happy as I finally met a person or two with whom I had a mutual connection, proper intellectual debates, etc.
And I missed this for a while in my life, especially after finishing Uni, and with that leaving everything and everyone behind.
Here comes the dilemma
As the title suggests I got a job offer. Luckily, at the point of writing I got just one though there are still some other doors open for Android Development.
I got an offer to be a penetration tester (a fancy name for a hacker) at a company some consider to be an Evil Corporation. (This to me is hilarious as it reminds me a lot of Mr. Robot, the TV Series I just finished watching so I wrote a small post about that, too Hacker S Perspective On Mr Robot 1984 Of Our World. )
This job is in a different city and country where I don't know anyone. That for me is not a big issue. I don't really know many people where I am right now either. It's just a bit painful to leave behind a newly established connections and not having the potential to grow them stronger. Then I also discovered some amazing opportunities in my current city to explore one of my passions, which is movement and such great opportunities are not present in that other place.
Though all that can be considered to be just minor issues.
The biggest dilemma comes from not knowing what I really want to do.
There are two pills that are presented to me right now which could help me survive next few months, and to get some experience and some money for investing - Mobile Development or Penetration Testing.
Penetration Testing
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What actually is penetration testing? In short, you are testing the security of something. It's basically trying to break into a system, network, app, etc. just as a hacker would do. You think like a hacker and you perform various things a hacker might do to see if what you are testing is resistent towards that. It's a real life test of security.
Well, not quite but it comes quite close.
So why would I want to do this?
It can be fun and mentally challenging at times. There can be enjoyment drawn from this. And I would also say my mind was made for problems like this and it's really good at it. I'm good at seeing the bigger picture, understanding how things work and thinking differently to try something unusual. And from my perspective this is very important for a hacker. I also studied this.
Tough it's not all glamor and sparkles. There are some boring parts as well.
Then there's the fact you are surrounded by negativity. You always see flaws in stuff. At the end of the day, your job is to break someone else's invention. And at least in UK, the industry makes people extremely cynical. On top of that, it's kind of expected of you that you devote your life to this and don't do anything else. They want you to be a full-on geek. For me that is a big problem. I don't want to do one thing all day. I like to have my balance, learn new things and experience life.
Android Development
I love mobile technology. And I love designing and creating something that might change someone's life, even if just on a small scale. Making and creating stuff is also a primal urge of all humans and with development you are satisfying that urge. And this is a big contrast to pen testing. Instead of breaking things, you make them.
But my experience and education in this are lacking. Therefore it's kind of hard to get the right opportunity for me. And when I get one, it would be probably painful and full of struggling trying to figure things out at the beginning. That is not a bad thing if you know you truly want to do something for big chunk of your life.
Final Thoughts
I don't know if or how long I'd want to do this? Maybe after I overcome certain point in both I'd be in the flow most of the time [For flow you need both appropriate skill and challenge] and it would become an immense fun most of the time. With pen testing I believe I might be close to that point. But maybe I just enjoy both of these as side projects, when I do it part-time. Like playing chess, or puzzle. I do it for mental stimulation and to solve a problem. But I don't want to play chess all day. And I also want to take breaks. I don't play chess all the time. But I tend to get back to it.
One of my biggest values is freedom and because of that neither might be a long-term candidate for me. Freedom for me means an ability to do whatever you want, be wherever you want and be with whoever you want (and do whatever you want with them - with mutual consent of course :D ).
I enjoy way too many things and I don't know if I want to pick just one.
So with all that in mind I believe the ideal solution for me is a part-time job, or contract work where I can pick how many hours I work and with who I work and on what I work.
Yep, that'd be perfect.
But I am not ready for that with my hard-skills. I need to get more experience and more knowledge. Maybe then I can branch out and do my own thing. Be my own boss of my time.
What I really want feels so far away and impossible to reach due to various factors so I need to find some middle steps that I can reach.
What will I do?
I will accept the offer (It'll be excruciating if on Monday I receive an offer for Android development from another company :D). I'll give it a go, there's a trail period where I can leave any time for any reason. I was also promised I can focus on mobile and Android and that my working time is flexible with a potential for few days of home office per month. And as another Steemian wrote in a post I Am Not My Job I Am Me --- by @getonthetrain
About the Author;
Hi, I am Joe and I love freedom.
Freedom of all sorts, social, financial, emotional, physical, freedom from your stuff or place.
My biggest passion is to show that it is possible to live life being free, work towards my freedom, and help others obtain their own versions of freedom.
I also love exploration and experimentation (of all senses).
My articles are about all of this (Freedom, exploration, experimentation)
as well as my own transparent and authentic experiences.
I can totally relate to this post. I too am getting job offers to work in sales. I have had a dream job for the last 10 years working in Cancun. 4 hours per day in an all-inclusive, clothing-optional resort selling timeshare. Great pay, lots of free vacations and time off and free alcohol while at work. Sounds great right?
I have been offered similar jobs recently in Brazil, Fiji, Australia, Bali and Turks and Caicos but am reluctant to take the jobs for some inexplicable reason. I'm just enjoying my freedom at the moment. Perhaps I will eventually but for now I'm leaving room for something new to emerge. Follow your gut on this one and you may be surprised what appears on your horizon.
I agree with @luzcypher. Go with the gut on this one. Gut doesn't lie.
Clothing-optional :D. So everyone was walking around nude jsut the way we should be? That's awesome :).
Yes, that does sound great. You still get plenty of time to do whatever you want, you don't have t worry about your bills and could even afford to invest in yourself and your other passions.
I think my gut tells me to take it but not sign-up for the long-term. So not taking relocation package, etc. with which I'd have to sign up for at least year and a half. If I don't do that, I can earn some money for food, save up, invest a bit. Heck, I could even quit within 3 months without any problems.
So I can take it as an interhsip. I can try it out, see if and how much I enjoy it and in the meantime be in a city where there is lots of Crypto-Anarchst events where I can learn more about that, and maybe be exposed to some opportunities doing that.
What city is the offer in?
I'm reluctant to say in case someone finds this :D.
I will send you a message on Discord.
That's ok. I was just curious. We can chat on discord if you like.
Not sure if it's too late to offer my two cents, or if you even asked for it, but may I? Disclaimer, I know very little about you. But...I think you should stay where you're at and mobile develop, at least for a little while. Here's why:
You'll get another job. You're smart. You're brave. You've got a degree. This job isn't where you wanted to end up, at least not right this second. It's not like you have a family to provide for and your children won't have a bed to lie in if you go without for a few months. You said yourself you could figure out a way to make it work. So...why not? Give it a go! You won't regret doing it, but you COULD regret NOT doing it.
Again, just my first impression.
The job is the "safe" choice. Not taking it might be a risk. But trust yourself. If it doesn't work out, or if you "fail," who cares? We all love you here on steemit.
Thank you @littlescribe for taking your time to try and help me out :). I appreciate it. And different perspective is always good.
Now, I have a feeling I might be just defending the choice I'm most likely making for the sake of not feeling shit about it ... but rationally my soon-to-be choice makes sense. I still have a day or two to completely decide I'd say and I'll go for a run and meditate to get more clarity, but here's my reply to you so far :). Maybe I'll come back tomorrow and change my mind, but right now :
Yes, there's plenty of pen testing jobs. As there's not many people who actually have that skill. Not all of them are made equal though, and lots of them are in UK where I don't think I want to go back to. At least not London. I think I'd be miserable there. Though maybe it'll be the same in this other city. But from my little research it seems better in areas I care about. But only real experience can tell.
I agree. But I am not planning on staying there forever. I think year and a half is my max. But that proably goes for whatever I'd do and wherever I'd end up. But I have an option to quit anytime within first three months. So I am not taking that as a "Oh, YES, A CORPORATION GAVE ME A JOB, WHAT A LUCKY GUY I am", more as the opposite, as can be evident form my title :D. So I am not really planning on building my corporate career and sucking up to people. THat'd make me disgusted with myself and feeling like I completely left my values behind. That's just not gonna happen. It can't happen.
And one of the reasons why I'm pissed with corporate jobs is the fact that they support government and how much money goes to government from "my work" . I think that really pisses me off.
3 ) That's what I actualyl don't know. I might hate development. I never really done it for a long sustainable period of times. It's more like some side projects, or ocasional contracts where I coded something but it wasn't that long and even that sometimes pissed me off and I had to take a break. And that I'd say still wasn't the real deal and full "cycle" of development. So it might be actually worse :D. Honestly, I don't know. So I just have to try both in a real setting I'd say.
4)Yup, I have some people who haven't replied yet and one that seemed interested and they seemed interesting. Though that brings other complications, too (like two hour commute once or twice a week, lack of in person guidance, etc.) and as they didn't reply yet, the answer could be no. And I can still look for some other opportunities.
I can quit in first three months any time. But I am honestly completely out of money. So even those three months would actually help me. Plus it'd give me a chance to see if I want to do that part, if I wanna take that pill. Cause if I take a Dev job I'm signing up for more.
5 ) Yea, probably. Though it's not a romantic interest. And maybe there's a way to keep that going anyway as I might be coming back here once a month or whatever. It's not that far by train.
Again, thank you :). I'll think about this more as I said and maybe I'll come back with more or different answer.
But what I wrote above are my justifications and logical reasons why I shuld go for it.
And part of my gut also tells me I should do pen-testing rater than development, or at least give it a second chance outside of UK.
@joewantsfreedom
Can you tell me about your skillset? Or if you want to know about what we've available for you, send a message to me at [email protected] on google hangouts?
we need a security expert.
And we can offer a lot of freedom!
Here's a very bare concept of our project, we've got a lot more information coming soon: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1690250.0
Just curious, have you done some penetration testing on Steem/Steemit?
Hey @abit , I didn't though that's a good idea.
However, I didn't see any contact details for disclosing security problems, and if I am not mistaken (???) Steemit is owned by some company. And if that's the case and they do not disclose email address for security then I don;t know how they'd react to someone testing their site.
I'd have to re-read the ToC to see if there's a mention of that cause some companies say stuff like "We do not want anyone to misuse the system and if you do we will take legal action". (Which is just stupid, cause obviously hacker would look at it and say, OH, I wanted to steal their information, but fuck, now I can't ...) And in that case I might get into trouble by disclosing their security problems to them.
Fair concerns..
Steemit is open source: https://github.com/steemit/steemit.com , most of its data is stored on the "Steem" blockchain (also open source: https://github.com/steemit/steem), although there could be a user-account related private database behind the site itself. IMHO you would be welcomed if you have interest to do the test, since it would benefit the whole platform, however perhaps you want to contact the company (Steemit, Inc) first to get a permission or somewhat similar. There is a public email address [email protected], also you can send direct message to @ned and/or @sneak on https://steemit.chat/ , and feel free to contact me by replying to this comment if above methods don't work for you (I'm not always on steemit.chat but occasionally check replies on this website).
Ok, I think I'll do it during Christmas as maybe 'll have more time.
Thanks. I'm gonna contact them now via email so they have time to reply.
I'll let you know once they reply.
I think you should go for the android development and follow what you heart tell you. Don't waste your valuable time for something you consider only like a job.
the problem is I don't know which one I consider just a job. Maybe it'd be the same for both ... Maybe I should not have any fulltime job ... it might not be for me :D.
I think it is quite a challenge to develop a deep connection with a person right away. There's definitely a correlation between time spent and (especially) experiences gone through together, whether it's working together or going on adventures or anything in between. But it's definitely a valuable thing once you have it!
Good luck on your journey and I hope you end up in the right place for you.
Thanks, the experience point is a really good one. That actually didn't even occur to me. But I completely agree and I think that's something I should focus on - to create more experiences with people I like. I used to do that, then I stopped for some reason.
Thank you for a great reminder :).
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same things happen to me
Yea? Nice :). So how did you end up coping with it?
Do you want to describe the situation for me? And what you did, and if you'd end up doing something differently and why?