Sixty Days to Six Figures: Day 20

Plowing Through the Trough of Disillusionment

So we’re one-third of the way through our goal. I haven’t been filling out as many job applications that I should have, and my efforts to increase my consultancy are proving more challenging than I anticipated. I am, however, determined to keep increasing my output and leveraging what I can to keep moving forward and making small improvements.

LinkedIn and the Job Search

I still haven’t figured out what to do with LinkedIn. The job search is good enough, and the skill insights which rank me among the other applications is useful, I think. It’s helping me target a bit better, and figure out which skills I’ll need to focus on in the future. There’s still a incongruity between what’s on my profile, and the kind of jobs I’m looking for. I guess that reflects a similar disconnect between what I want and what I need.

My hope was to find just one good job a day, write a quick cover letter during the application process and wait for callbacks. To this point I’ve applied to about six, and nothing back yet. Obviously, this is going to be harder than simply attaching a bachelors’ degree to my name. One thing that was a bit of a surprise to me is that LI’s Fast Apply feature doesn’t allow you to do anything other than attach a resume, which is not ideal from an application standpoint. So it looks like I’ll have to go through the additional step of creating a new PDF for each application. Ideally, I’d be updating my resume for each type of job that I want anyways, one for CTO/management jobs, one for programming and development, and another for data scientist jobs. It seems overwhelming, but all I have to do is take baby steps. One percent in the right direction each day.

What I have not figured out yet, though, is how to use my wall to engage people. I still haven’t posted anything since my graduation announcement, as I’m not sure what direction to take. Choice paralysis, perhaps? I think I’m being overly cautious and worried about Boss taking some action, but that paranoia perhaps. I could share linkbait, posts from others, or I could try my hand at writing long-form content weekly. We shall see.

Day job: Zombie, LLC

Boss sent me a message yesterday. “I’ve got bad news, call me.” He didn’t pick up. I got another message about increasing our seats under management by x. I had some urgent help tickets to deal with, so I didn’t try calling or messaging him back, and he didn’t even try to respond back to me. I can’t wait for this morning’s lead off meeting.

I really should be frank with Boss, but I’m not sure what I should expect out of it. The company is too small for him to furlough anyone on the team, he’d be dead in the water. Our clients are dropping like flies, leads are sparse and competition in the area is dense. I’ve tried to start focusing on business process automation, but my ideas haven’t been received well.

I don’t even know if being able to continue my employment should be perceived as a good thing or a bad one. Obviously getting a salary for the amount of work that I actually do is great, but part of me thinks that having it is a crutch and is holding me back. Boss has told me that we’re in no danger of going under, but there’s an upside if we do: unemployment, for one, plus the possibility of going independent with our larger clients. There’s a lot to unpack for the latter case there and I’ll save that for when the time comes.

Consultancy

A call with a third customer didn’t go quite the way I had hoped. No commitment. They can’t pay me until they can scale, and they can’t scale until they have some improved automation. Instead of developing a Django app, it looks like we’ll be rolling out a hundred dollar WordPress plugin. Que sera.

I told another client about the old saying usually seen in mechanic’s garages: “you can have it done fast, cheap, or good. Pick two.” I told them that we are moving in the cheap and good area right now, and that if they wanted to move faster we’d have to bring in some help. It looks like we may be moving in that direction with one of our projects. I’ve got enough experience to manage several WordPress sites and help with some configuration stuff, but I don’t know anywhere near enough about SEO and theming a site that they’re going to need to move quickly. So I recommended that we engage a marketing firm to help with strategic vision and a laundry list of related to-do items that they came up with. I’m actually looking forward to it, since it will benefit the client and if the vendor is good we may be able to establish a good relationship moving forward.


So we’re one third of the way there, and it seems like no result yet. That’s fine, as I know that it may be a while before we see results. I’m still reading Atomic Habits, and I know that these steps I’m taking will be come habits, and the results will compound. Right now I’m focused on refining my environment to make success inevitable. The results will come.

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