Tag: reflection

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How I Survived My First Tech Layoff

If you’re one of the many recently laid off tech workers (like me), this post is for you. There are no magical answers or solutions included, but perhaps some inspiration to be found.

I remember the first tech bubble bursting – the original dot com bubble burst just under a year into my first tech job – I did partner training and support for backend e-commerce software. When the bubble burst, it was a huge blow for me, and with so much available talent on the market, finding a new job felt impossible.

Being young, and living in a country where education is free (Denmark), I went back to school and studied media production. I ended up combining both worlds, when I got involved with a young media company. At the time, barely anyone had heard of istockphoto.

My work there in turn led me to visit Seattle, where I met a local coworker, fell in love and ended up staying. I later shifted into the gaming industry, combining my passion for games with my tech roots with media production training.

Your background and journey will be different but my point is this: now is a good time to be open to new opportunities and directions – especially if you’re young and not yet responsible for children and mortgage payments.

It doesn’t have to be a change to a completely new career. For me, it came out to be more about naturally expanding my skill set to overlap with a different industry, or a new discipline within the same industry – that would open new doors.

Where ever the journey takes you, good luck and I’ll see you out there.

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2022 Was a Rebound Year

It’s good to look forward to what’s coming next, set goals and get excited for the future. I am not even being sarcastic, despite not being a proponent of actual resolutions. But first, let me take a moment to reflect on the year that has passed. 2022 was the year when the world tried spinning back up in earnest, and in large parts failed to do so. This applies to me personally, as well as in general. As the pandemic lessened its grip, there was a lot of jumping the gun to get “back to normal”.

We are not there. At least, I hope 2022 is not representative of the new normal. It doesn’t feel like it. More transitional, like a rebound year, if you ask me.

Losses

I lost 3 old friends over the span of a quarter in 2022. We weren’t all that close anymore, but we used to be, and their passing hit me harder than expected. These guys were all around my own age and died of natural causes. Cherish your friends, even those you don’t see very often. Send them a note.

I changed jobs 3 times in 2022, which is at least twice too many. Even as a longtime contract worker, it’s too much stress to go through. It doesn’t help that I was fooled by a consulting company. Their lure was to build a gaming industry arm of the business, but it was a ploy to get a business plan made. Within a week after I delivered, they decided it was too expensive after all, canceled the project, and let me go.

Those events required a hard rebound, mentally. I am not looking for pity, however. We all have bad situations happen, but how we react to them determine whether they can be turned into a win.

Wins

One of the biggest wins of the year for me, was that it only took a week to land a new job after the fiasco with the consulting company. At the time of writing, I’m working as producer on Age of Empires 4, shepherding the Xbox port of the game. It’s a great gig, and an honor to be associated with such a respected franchise. That said, I would really like to make this my last contract gig. Being employed a maximum of 18 months at a time is not ideal.

Another big win was launching Above the Fold out of Early Access on Steam after almost 4 years in development. It happened with less fanfare than planned, in large part due to coinciding with the events previously mentioned, but it felt great to officially finish the game and “set it free”. There is an update in the works, but no launch date on that.

Completing a project always leaves a gap, followed by increasing experimentation and eventually, new projects come out of it. This renewal is well underway already and will continue to set the tone for the first part of the new year. In fact, I’ve already started working out prototypes for a new game.

So, as I look forward to the year ahead, I look for building out fresh ideas and inspiring relationships; a welcome challenge. I want 2023 to be a year of strength and creation.

Want to join me?

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Impressing 12-Year Old Me

Any time I do something big or important, I think of myself as 12 years old, and I ask what the younger me would think of what I am doing now. If the kid would be impressed, it was the right decision.

The reason I do this, is because I still carry many of the same dreams and am fascinated by the same things my younger self was into. And at 12, I still had a bit of the innocent naïveté of a child, without the awkwardness of being a teenager but with a well developed sense for right and wrong. I suspect others probably can relate to this as well.

So, it’s really a technique to try and stay true to my core, not be afraid of lofty dreams, and to keep seeking adventure. I think returning to that kid also acts as a way to avoid getting too jaded or caught up in life’s endless list of complications.

At 12, I was really into gaming. Especially roleplaying games and video games. I was also into organizing stuff back then, taking charge. Fast forward 35 years, and I am a producer in the gaming industry. Kid-me, from a decidedly blue collar family in tiny Denmark, would have his little mind blown. That’s a clear win, and the most direct tie back to my childhood. Most of the time, it’s much more subtle.

A common one I use, is “would kid-me trust this person?” It’s a pretty good bullshit-meter, because my default position was always not to trust adult strangers. And in continuation of my thoughts on donating work to other people’s projects, I absolutely use this technique as a measure, before making any sort of commitment. If kid-me disapproves, it’s an automatic pass.

In essence it helps me to be less constricted by outside expectations, and instead focus inward on what matters to Rasmus.

It doesn’t work for everything, of course. Specifically, it doesn’t work for things kids just don’t care about. Like choosing an accountant or cleaning your room. Kid-me never approves of those things, so I make sure to get him a small reward whenever it gets done anyway. Which current me is thankful for.