2013 In Review: Work

A lot happened to me at work in 2013. The company I worked for (6 employees) was sold to a bigger one (~150 employees) and I got fired.

I jumped from joy thanks to getting fired, since it made me eligible for unemployment benefit, and since I didn't get on with a strong personality running the 6-person company and his unprofessional behaviour, which included among other things alcohol use during working hours, until I complained about it, after which I got very cold treatment.

I had already sent applications for new jobs, and went to a job interview in January. However, I didn't go 'all in' with job search since many jobs look like they could be just as silly (job ads that look for a 'coder' to work for a never-heard-of company, rife with grammar errors, asking for 10 years of experience in technologies which have existed only 5 years are unfortunately quite common. When reading these job ads, my first idea is "if you can't write a grammatical job ad, why should I trust that you pay salaries in time and treat employees professionally?") and frankly the time on unemployment benefit after getting kicked out from Nokia's subcontracting chain was the best time of my life for 5 years.

After getting fired, my masterplan was to spend 6 months implementing an economically unpromising piece of software, hoping to earn a living from it in daydream, unicorns-and-rose-petals scenario. However, the mid-sized company firing me hired me back after 2 weeks. Maybe I made a mistake accepting this "boring and safe" options but I have a mortgage to pay - after I have a net debt free house (which is not ten years away if I refrain from foreign travel and car) I have much more margin to make financial risks.

Now I have accidentally ended up in the best job I've ever had. The purpose of the job is still frivolous ("the best minds of our generation are figuring out how to make users click on ads") but I have more freedom and responsibility than ever before, my salary is paid in time and people around me behave professionally. Many of my coworkers are quite sharp and unlike five years ago in the mid-sized subcontractor, are able to talk about topics more abstract than cars or sports.