OT 21: DFD Giveth and DFD Taketh Away

[ChrisoftheNorth]

What I actually want to do is some kind of proofreading or testing, but it seems like no one wants to pay for that and would rather present half-assed shit full of errors to customers. I find glaring errors in almost all published materials. I would be embarrassed to have my name on most things.

Hell, the new WPATH standards of care for trans folks that has been developed over 10 years by multiple committees full of smart people still has typos in the current published version.

Damn, you'd be 5/7 at that. In a past life, I had a freelance proofreader/editor on "staff" who would proof read/edit "up to 5 articles of 2k words or less" per week for a monthly fee. She did a great job and was really fast, probably got it done in less than 10 hours a week. That was 12 years ago and it seems like nobody cares about that sort of quality anymore. I'm amazed by how often I find errors in major works, and I'm nowhere near as detail oriented as you are.

I'd like to think that work still exists, just hard to find. Any advertising agency likely has freelance proofreaders could be worth asking around locally?

[Desertbreh]

What is you new job about? what does it ential?

Cliffs on old job? I know they gave you a break how did it go? did they return to same after break? How did they take your departure?

Hooo boy, getting into it. This might get long, but here goes...

Old job is/was working in software for car dealerships. It's a predictive marketing platform at it's core, and I worked as a product manager leading strategy/roadmap type activity for a version of the product that car companies use. I worked with engineering teams in India, Poland, and the US and ended up getting way more in the weeds than I wanted to. Which lead to typical burn-out that set-in after Thanksgiving. I've done a lot of soul searching over the last 6 months, and came to the conclusion that I'm the type of person that needs to care about what I do (for better or worse) and working with car dealers has managed to drop my already low opinion of them even further. Combine that with burn-out, and well...something needed to change.

New place is a defense contractor that developed autonomous vehicles for the military. With all the buzz around autonomous vehicles, they decided to capitalize on it by going after Series A funding as a startup to take that tech and adapt it to commercial applications. Off-road logging vehicles, yard vehicles (like shipping), shuttles, and busses. The company was valued at $1B in it's series A and has been profitable since its inception 20 years ago. It continues to be profitable, using the series A funding to grow rather than cut into profits. That's where I come in.

It's an engineering organization that's used to developing for military contracts. Develop XYZ thing that does ABC. They're extremely good at that, but to go after commercial business, they recognize that they need to shift the mindset of the dev organization to be more product-oriented. They need people who are familiar with that activity to lead that transformation, and the challenge they're faced with is they're essentially both a hardware AND software dev business. They need product people who know how both are developed, and how they intersect, which is immensely difficult to find as most stick with one or the other.

Welp, I've done both, and so they came after me hard. I'm going to be leading their ADAS (so not fully autonomous) product for on-road use, the first of which will be public transit (big busses). They already have pilot agreements with the 2 largest bus manufacturers in the country (covering 80% of the market), AND they're set up for integration on the assembly line. That's all the engineering stuff. But how that system works for the driver, how it's packaged, sold, and maintained, and how they make sure it meets customer needs is what I'll be working on. I've spent my career doing this type of work, but I'm excited about the prospect of working for a small company for a change in major growth mode where I can really make an impact. Like a typical I'm also motivated by the potential societal impact of this tech as I think it could make a really big difference for public transit. I also really align with their approach toward autonomous roll-out (ADAS on road, fully autonomous only off-road until the tech develops further), and the company itself is facing it's growth excitement exactly as I would. The offices are nothing fancy. Workforce growth is entirely need-driven, and most investment is going into the product itself.

They offered me a nice equity stake and a really great salary plus full remote and travel (or apt) covered. The benefits are phenomenal, with a lot of holidays, and 20 days vacation. Overall, it feels great.

So when I told my boss at my current company, I got a call from our Cheif Product Officer within an hour. He offered a promotion, matched pay, etc, etc for me to stay, but ultimately I think this is something that I really need to see through. They respect that, and offered an open door to my return if things don't work out. I really want out of the auto industry, and especially retail (working with ) and this is going to be my best path out. We'll see how it all goes, but I'm optimistic for the new adventure.

WOW. Mucho Congrats!

[Valkyrie]

What I actually want to do is some kind of proofreading or testing, but it seems like no one wants to pay for that and would rather present half-assed shit full of errors to customers. I find glaring errors in almost all published materials. I would be embarrassed to have my name on most things.

Hell, the new WPATH standards of care for trans folks that has been developed over 10 years by multiple committees full of smart people still has typos in the current published version.

Damn, you'd be 5/7 at that. In a past life, I had a freelance proofreader/editor on "staff" who would proof read/edit "up to 5 articles of 2k words or less" per week for a monthly fee. She did a great job and was really fast, probably got it done in less than 10 hours a week. That was 12 years ago and it seems like nobody cares about that sort of quality anymore. I'm amazed by how often I find errors in major works, and I'm nowhere near as detail oriented as you are.

I'd like to think that work still exists, just hard to find. Any advertising agency likely has freelance proofreaders could be worth asking around locally?

Things like that definitely still exist but seem to require 10+ years of full-time work plus extensive networking in order to get in the door, at least that's the familiar story whenever I ask people how they got their jobs. It's always a pseudo retirement. Work your ass off first to be allowed the privilege of working less even if it's for less money and no benefits.

[ChrisoftheNorth]

Damn, you'd be 5/7 at that. In a past life, I had a freelance proofreader/editor on "staff" who would proof read/edit "up to 5 articles of 2k words or less" per week for a monthly fee. She did a great job and was really fast, probably got it done in less than 10 hours a week. That was 12 years ago and it seems like nobody cares about that sort of quality anymore. I'm amazed by how often I find errors in major works, and I'm nowhere near as detail oriented as you are.

I'd like to think that work still exists, just hard to find. Any advertising agency likely has freelance proofreaders could be worth asking around locally?

Things like that definitely still exist but seem to require 10+ years of full-time work plus extensive networking in order to get in the door, at least that's the familiar story whenever I ask people how they got their jobs. It's always a pseudo retirement. Work your ass off first to be allowed the privilege of working less even if it's for less money and no benefits.

Are there any non profit groups that you could volunteer your services with to get a start? You mentioned your buddy and the trans folks, maybe something like that could get you some experience to work with. Even just proofing press releases or publications for a non-profit could be a great start. Often, those folks are volunteers as well who have professional jobs in that field they could plug you into. In this case, despite what might be in job postings, experience doesn't matter as much as attention to detail and efficiency. I bet you'd rock with both of those, just need people to experience it.

[Valkyrie]

Things like that definitely still exist but seem to require 10+ years of full-time work plus extensive networking in order to get in the door, at least that's the familiar story whenever I ask people how they got their jobs. It's always a pseudo retirement. Work your ass off first to be allowed the privilege of working less even if it's for less money and no benefits.

Are there any non profit groups that you could volunteer your services with to get a start? You mentioned your buddy and the trans folks, maybe something like that could get you some experience to work with. Even just proofing press releases or publications for a non-profit could be a great start. Often, those folks are volunteers as well who have professional jobs in that field they could plug you into. In this case, despite what might be in job postings, experience doesn't matter as much as attention to detail and efficiency. I bet you'd rock with both of those, just need people to experience it.

Yeah volunteering is the only other way in the door for most things. I have some opportunities in mind for when I can actually handle being a part of society. At some point I'll also be able to count as a token/diversity hire which might help.

Dunno, I still need to first be able to sleep at night and then second put forth a real effort in the pro muzak realm. A "real job" search is pretty far off, just something to think about while I'm not sleeping.

[D Griff]

@Chris, glad to see you're back and also to hear that you were able to take some computer free time. Congrats on the new gig, sounds like an amazing opportunity, I hope it works out for the best!

Where in Maryland would the free.99 apartment be? This sounds like a 5/7 setup for you and Infamous, especially with her working remote. Maryland is pretty similar weather-wise to here and winters are pretty mild with probably over 50% of days being sunny and peaking in the fifties or better. I still cycle outside year round.

I've enjoyed my time in the DC area as well as Baltimore and it is certainly centrally located on the East Coast to check out other nice places like the coast, Appalachian Mountains, and cities like Philly, DC, NYC, and more.

[D Griff]

Are there any non profit groups that you could volunteer your services with to get a start? You mentioned your buddy and the trans folks, maybe something like that could get you some experience to work with. Even just proofing press releases or publications for a non-profit could be a great start. Often, those folks are volunteers as well who have professional jobs in that field they could plug you into. In this case, despite what might be in job postings, experience doesn't matter as much as attention to detail and efficiency. I bet you'd rock with both of those, just need people to experience it.

Yeah volunteering is the only other way in the door for most things. I have some opportunities in mind for when I can actually handle being a part of society. At some point I'll also be able to count as a token/diversity hire which might help.

Dunno, I still need to first be able to sleep at night and then second put forth a real effort in the pro muzak realm. A "real job" search is pretty far off, just something to think about while I'm not sleeping.

Sounds like you're going about this in a smart way, taking one step at a time and working towards bettering your situation however that looks. I think all humans struggle with seeing the bad in things as we age and feeling overwhelmed that there's little we can do to change them. IMO, the most healthy way is to just take tiny steps at a time. Sure, they may not fix every problem, but incremental improvement feels good, keeps you motivated for more, and does help.

I find it that you've had so much success with the music thing so far, seems like that is a legit opportunity for you as you keep working on it.

[D Griff]

Career shit has been interesting here as well. I think I mentioned in the economy thread that my company had layoffs about a week and a half back. It's been an interesting ride here for the past couple of weeks. It turns out the entire sales org at our company is being completely revamped, several people were promoted to new leadership positions, some new roles were created and others eliminated, and overall I think the structure makes way more sense and puts the company in a better position. I also think they chose the new leadership people wisely and mostly kept the best employees, so all-in-all, while I feel for those who lost their jobs, I can't disagree with the execution.

I am also quite because I expanded the territory I will be managing, now overseeing our commercial business for just about everything east of the Mississippi. I will no longer have to deal with Texas which is as I'm not a big fan of going there; and I will get to spend time in New England and other parts of the East Coast north of NC which I prefer. While not technically a promotion, I think I'll have better opportunity/more commission with this role, particularly with the four inside sales reps that will now be covering my territory.



We actually have a big sales summit this week here in CLT - three days at the office with trainings, dinners, collaboration, etc. with those of us left standing

[ChrisoftheNorth]

Career shit has been interesting here as well. I think I mentioned in the economy thread that my company had layoffs about a week and a half back. It's been an interesting ride here for the past couple of weeks. It turns out the entire sales org at our company is being completely revamped, several people were promoted to new leadership positions, some new roles were created and others eliminated, and overall I think the structure makes way more sense and puts the company in a better position. I also think they chose the new leadership people wisely and mostly kept the best employees, so all-in-all, while I feel for those who lost their jobs, I can't disagree with the execution.

I am also quite because I expanded the territory I will be managing, now overseeing our commercial business for just about everything east of the Mississippi. I will no longer have to deal with Texas which is as I'm not a big fan of going there; and I will get to spend time in New England and other parts of the East Coast north of NC which I prefer. While not technically a promotion, I think I'll have better opportunity/more commission with this role, particularly with the four inside sales reps that will now be covering my territory.



We actually have a big sales summit this week here in CLT - three days at the office with trainings, dinners, collaboration, etc. with those of us left standing

A lot of orgs grew like crazy these last few years, many in stupid ways. It's not a bad thing to reorg and align around top performers in a better structure, and can actually end up being way better in the long run. Sounds like 5/7 moves for you dude!

[MexicanYarisTK]

@Chris, glad to see you're back and also to hear that you were able to take some computer free time. Congrats on the new gig, sounds like an amazing opportunity, I hope it works out for the best!

Where in Maryland would the free.99 apartment be? This sounds like a 5/7 setup for you and Infamous, especially with her working remote. Maryland is pretty similar weather-wise to here and winters are pretty mild with probably over 50% of days being sunny and peaking in the fifties or better. I still cycle outside year round.

I've enjoyed my time in the DC area as well as Baltimore and it is certainly centrally located on the East Coast to check out other nice places like the coast, Appalachian Mountains, and cities like Philly, DC, NYC, and more.

Ive heard Charlotte is a little less humid than my neck of the woods though.

Also chris, as long as you avoid Prince Georges County, you should be good, and soon you'll have md crab stickers on your car and making a flag as a personality. Montgomery county is probably the priciest county to live in the state, being part of the DC area.

[ChrisoftheNorth]

@Chris, glad to see you're back and also to hear that you were able to take some computer free time. Congrats on the new gig, sounds like an amazing opportunity, I hope it works out for the best!

Where in Maryland would the free.99 apartment be? This sounds like a 5/7 setup for you and Infamous, especially with her working remote. Maryland is pretty similar weather-wise to here and winters are pretty mild with probably over 50% of days being sunny and peaking in the fifties or better. I still cycle outside year round.

I've enjoyed my time in the DC area as well as Baltimore and it is certainly centrally located on the East Coast to check out other nice places like the coast, Appalachian Mountains, and cities like Philly, DC, NYC, and more.

Thanks dude! Infamous is really excited about this opportunity, as am I. It could be a really ideal situation for us to explore new areas we've never been to. Glad to hear about the weather, it's similar to what people at my new place have told me. to just see the damned sun.

It would be 5/7 to be close enough to the office to ride my bike in. Office is in the Clarksburg area, and I want something that rural (seems to be similar to where we are now TBH)

Company is open to where, and to them it's just a business case: pay my travel all the time (airfare, hotel, rental car) or just pay for a place and I cover the rest. Infamous is coming out with my for onboarding, and we're going to take some time to get to know the area a bit and see what interests us. Even just Gaithersburg (15 min from the office) is a metropolis compared to where we live, and I don't really want to deal with a huge commute to be closer to DC or wherever. Maryland seems pretty overall from my brief time there and research.

[ChrisoftheNorth]

@Chris, glad to see you're back and also to hear that you were able to take some computer free time. Congrats on the new gig, sounds like an amazing opportunity, I hope it works out for the best!

Where in Maryland would the free.99 apartment be? This sounds like a 5/7 setup for you and Infamous, especially with her working remote. Maryland is pretty similar weather-wise to here and winters are pretty mild with probably over 50% of days being sunny and peaking in the fifties or better. I still cycle outside year round.

I've enjoyed my time in the DC area as well as Baltimore and it is certainly centrally located on the East Coast to check out other nice places like the coast, Appalachian Mountains, and cities like Philly, DC, NYC, and more.

Ive heard Charlotte is a little less humid than my neck of the woods though.

Also chris, as long as you avoid Prince Georges County, you should be good, and soon you'll have md crab stickers on your car and making a flag as a personality. Montgomery county is probably the priciest county to live in the state, being part of the DC area.

Yea, probably going to be close to DC based on the office location, but from my research, it doesn't seem that expensive. Traverse City is far more expensive in every way than this region of Maryland.

[golftdibrad1]

Office is in the Clarksburg area,

that looks to be a non-murdery part of metro dc at least.

[Johnny_P]

Damn, you'd be 5/7 at that. In a past life, I had a freelance proofreader/editor on "staff" who would proof read/edit "up to 5 articles of 2k words or less" per week for a monthly fee. She did a great job and was really fast, probably got it done in less than 10 hours a week. That was 12 years ago and it seems like nobody cares about that sort of quality anymore. I'm amazed by how often I find errors in major works, and I'm nowhere near as detail oriented as you are.

I'd like to think that work still exists, just hard to find. Any advertising agency likely has freelance proofreaders could be worth asking around locally?

Things like that definitely still exist but seem to require 10+ years of full-time work plus extensive networking in order to get in the door, at least that's the familiar story whenever I ask people how they got their jobs. It's always a pseudo retirement. Work your ass off first to be allowed the privilege of working less even if it's for less money and no benefits.

I bet pharmaceutical companies hire people for this type of work. But yeah as far as credentials and work experience go that’s probably the barrier to entry.

[Johnny_P]

Wait Chris are you moving to DC or just a second temp spot?

[ChrisoftheNorth]

Office is in the Clarksburg area,

that looks to be a non-murdery part of metro dc at least.

Yea, it's like an hour+ outside of DC. Pretty suburban.

[ChrisoftheNorth]

Wait Chris are you moving to DC or just a second temp spot?

2nd temp spot. New job is fully remote, but there will be some frequent travel to the HQ in Maryland. Michigan is incessantly gray for 6 months of the year, and and I have been discussing options to escape for a while. Maryland seems like it could be a great option to try, plus company is willing to pick up some or all of the tab in exchange for covering travel all the time. I hate flying and all the wasted time around it. TC is an 11 hr drive from the HQ, and doing that a few times a year is more interesting to me than dealing with 6-8 hrs of travel all the time (TC has few direct flights anywhere other than Chicago or Detroit, so door to door is usually a 6-8 hr thing)

[Johnny_P]

Wait Chris are you moving to DC or just a second temp spot?

2nd temp spot. New job is fully remote, but there will be some frequent travel to the HQ in Maryland. Michigan is incessantly gray for 6 months of the year, and and I have been discussing options to escape for a while. Maryland seems like it could be a great option to try, plus company is willing to pick up some or all of the tab in exchange for covering travel all the time. I hate flying and all the wasted time around it. TC is an 11 hr drive from the HQ, and doing that a few times a year is more interesting to me than dealing with 6-8 hrs of travel all the time (TC has few direct flights anywhere other than Chicago or Detroit, so door to door is usually a 6-8 hr thing)

Oh sweet!
Yeah that sounds pretty ideal. It’s a bit less gray in the mid Atlantic during the winter. Less snow more rain.

[ChrisoftheNorth]

2nd temp spot. New job is fully remote, but there will be some frequent travel to the HQ in Maryland. Michigan is incessantly gray for 6 months of the year, and and I have been discussing options to escape for a while. Maryland seems like it could be a great option to try, plus company is willing to pick up some or all of the tab in exchange for covering travel all the time. I hate flying and all the wasted time around it. TC is an 11 hr drive from the HQ, and doing that a few times a year is more interesting to me than dealing with 6-8 hrs of travel all the time (TC has few direct flights anywhere other than Chicago or Detroit, so door to door is usually a 6-8 hr thing)

Oh sweet!
Yeah that sounds pretty ideal. It’s a bit less gray in the mid Atlantic during the winter. Less snow more rain.

The last time I saw the sun was when I flew to Maryland for the in person interview on 1/6. It's been gray at home since Thanksgiving, and has not let up. ANYTHING is better than this. I'm fine with it until January, then it starts to get old fast. The sun won't come out until May at the earliest, 4 more months is

I love where we live, but it's not without its shortcomings. That's why I love the idea of not moving, just living in other areas when it's the worst here. Big benefit of having a cheap AF mortgage, shutting this place down for winter is ZFG.

[Johnny_P]

that looks to be a non-murdery part of metro dc at least.

Yea, it's like an hour+ outside of DC. Pretty suburban.

MD gets pretty redneck trumpy outside the cities. So just school shootings instead of convenience store robberies.

[ChrisoftheNorth]

Yea, it's like an hour+ outside of DC. Pretty suburban.

MD gets pretty redneck trumpy outside the cities. So just school shootings instead of convenience store robberies.

I'll feel right at home then.

Again, just want to see the sun sometimes and be close to things to see and do. Since this isn't a permanent residence, I'm a bit about the people.

[Johnny_P]

MD gets pretty redneck trumpy outside the cities. So just school shootings instead of convenience store robberies.

I'll feel right at home then.

Again, just want to see the sun sometimes and be close to things to see and do. Since this isn't a permanent residence, I'm a bit about the people.

Yep. I mean weather wise it should be a nice relief. People gonna be people anywhere. It’s less dense out there than DC proper so there’s that too. I think it sounds like a great move!

[MexicanYarisTK]

Ive heard Charlotte is a little less humid than my neck of the woods though.

Also chris, as long as you avoid Prince Georges County, you should be good, and soon you'll have md crab stickers on your car and making a flag as a personality. Montgomery county is probably the priciest county to live in the state, being part of the DC area.

Yea, probably going to be close to DC based on the office location, but from my research, it doesn't seem that expensive. Traverse City is far more expensive in every way than this region of Maryland.

Why doesn't that surprise me.

[CaleDeRoo]

Dude gray skies for long periods of time get me all spun out as well. Glad you're gonna have an option like the mid Atlantic to get away if you need to

[MexicanYarisTK]

Office is in the Clarksburg area,

that looks to be a non-murdery part of metro dc at least.

He's in the good dc metro maryland county (aka Montgomery co, or moco for short), or should I say Murland, pretty much at the starting point of rural md heading north. The other county (PG aka Prince Georges) is cheaper for a reason. That part is a mess.