I have been out of work for two weeks now. It's the longest "vacation" I've ever had since I graduated from the Art Institute in 2005.
I have been working in the tech field in many different rolls in many different companies. Let me start from the beginning.
After graduation, I was recruited to work at SMS.ac (now Fanbox) doing QA of their social network. I spent countless hours playing with the site looking for bugs while I chatted with our users. I was promoted to several different positions within the company, always waiting for that big payout when the company would go public. I'd be rich once I was completely vested after 1 year. Right before my 1 year anniversary I was suddenly let go (like most of the other employees), all of my "stock" was worthless and I was back out looking for work. I thought with my experience at SMS.ac I could find work anywhere. This was so not the case.
I took the first job I found that would pay me enough to make rent and support my baby. This was a bad decision. I wasn't making much money and had to deal with some pretty unprofessional people with ridiculous expectations. I was doing tech support and sales but they had me cleaning and organizing the stock room. Not exactly what I signed up for, but I'm a team player so I did my part. I was still in the tech field so I figured I'd put in my time. It could help me in the long run. 3 months later I quit. This was the first job I had ever quit before I had something else lined up.
I quickly landed a contract job with a start up game development company, TC Digital. I LOVED IT!! I loved going to work every day, I loved my coworkers, I loved my boss. I was a customer service rep. on the ground floor of the start up. Chris Evans (Blargers) and myself molded the department and the team. We had so much fun and learned even more. During our time as CSRs we were introduced to analytics. We became very proficient with Google Analytics and built some amazing executive dashboards. I was promoted to a designer position and later became the Packaging Production Manager. I was making decent money but more importantly...I Loved My Job. Then, we all got laid off. Another failed start up. They gave up control to their parent company and when the parent company had to make cuts, the closed us down. Back to the job hunt I went.
My old boss at TCD asked me to come to a new company he was working at to talk to them. He didn't know if there was a open position but I should come in anyway. I took him up on the offer and within a week or so I was a project coordinator at Digitaria. I was working with Qualcomm and their several ongoing projects. I was over stressed but loving it. This is what I was waiting for. I changed positions and began working with the SEO team as their Account Manager while I learned search. I was later promoted to be an SEO Strategist. I managed clients like Dreamworks, Comcast, Taylor Guitars, Reef and more. Decent pay, long hours and amazing people. I loved my job. Then some unfortunate events happened. Team leaders left the company, we had no internal support and the team broke down. I was out of a job once again.
I reached out to my ever growing network and landed a design and social marketing job at another start up, SUPERHEAT games. We were developing an online card game for skateboarders. I met some amazing people but it was short lived. The doors closed and I was on the job hunt again!
I put the word out and quickly got hired on by a small web agency. They worked with small size companies building Wordpress sites. Basic, simple, boring sites. For some reason they couldn't seem to get it together. Things always seemed so difficult. Maybe it was the fact that all the work was outsourced and not done in house. I knew this was not going to be a good fit for me.
I started talking to my linkedIn network and got hired on to another agency as an Account Manager. I was once again working with some larger brands and some very intelligent people. I was promised some things and later found out it was all smoke and mirrors. There wasn't going to be all of the big contracts coming in. I was working on maintenance contracts and one small site build. The company wasn't selling what they thought they would be so last in, first out.
Two weeks jobless and looking for the right fit. I refuse to take another J.O.B. I want to build my career in a solid, well established organization. I'll keep you all posted on my progress. I have a feeling this week will be good.
Thanks for reading!
