from layoff to job in 19 days w/ sr. engineer michael eaton

full transcript

auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.

All righty. Michael, I have to ask. I ask everybody that's starting out. Are we a coffee drinker or are we a tea drinker? Tea. Really? No, we're tea. It's actually further up on my desk. I just can't reach it. Do you have a favorite drink? So most times it's just plain green tea, but sometimes it's jasmine. And then sometimes in the afternoon, I'll go with like a peppermint tea. Awesome. Are we getting off the caffeine? Do we not like the taste of coffee? I'm always curious. No, I never acquired the taste for coffee. And honestly, the, the, the more I saw my friends just become total coffee freaks and have to buy all the stuff.

And I thought it can turn into, it can turn into something for sure. Right. Right. And, and I, you know, I see people go out and they, every day they have to have it and I don't have to have it. I like the taste of it. So every morning I'll, I'll brew a cup. And I've done, I've done loose leaf. I've done bags. I've done all of it. Sure. But it's just a, you know, I love it. I sit at my desk and I have a warmer, so it stays warm for hours. I love it. I love it. That's great. That's great. Well, good morning y'all.

Uh, happy Tuesday. Um, excited, uh, for this episode. Um, you know, I think one of the things that I'm trying to get better at, yeah, Pepsi, um, uh, the, the, the great Pat Clark out of Raleigh, I asked him that question. He went straight to Pepsi and it's been kind of an inside joke now in the torque community. Um, but, uh, so you know for just let you all know kind of how I'm positioning guidance counselor two point oh is is you know we are I I do a lot of social listening right and I I I'm chronically online I you know see what people post see what people talk about and I merely slide through dms and so obviously michael made a post about his job search how quick it went and I was like all right We got to talk to this guy.

I've known Michael for a long time, but excited for this conversation to talk about his job search. It's funny. I asked him backstage. I was like, hey, so what happened? He was like, oh, it was luck. I was like, yeah, well, we can't say that. I do think a little luck comes in to the job search, so we're going to talk about it. But again, please say, hey, we'd love to hear from you. Again, kind of what I tell people is this is a virtual networking session. right? Show up, you listen to a great speaker, just like a meetup. Um, and you comment in the comments, network with other people in the comments.

Um, you know, kind of what we're doing at torque and kind of our whole mission is really kind of opening up. Um, you know, I'm a big football guy. Um, we're opening up the playbook. We're like, Hey, We're going to open up our network. You can network with everybody. I've been doing this show for five years now. It was every day for like four years. Now I'm pulling it back to two times a week to get a little bit more specific on guests. But if you've networked off the back of me in this show for five years and you messaged every single guest, You know, every single person in the chat, you have a pretty expansive network at this point, which is my whole goal.

So, again, please say, hey, we'd love to hear from you. We do get some people tuning in. Again, Daniel, it's good to see you. Ricardo, Chris, it's great to see you, my guy. I still owe you a DM. Jordan, it's great to see you. Kelly, Alan, it's great to see you. And David, it's good to see you as well. Chris, we got some people trickling in, which is great. Want to get some housekeeping things real quick before I kick it off to Mike. First and foremost, I want to give a shout out to AppRite. I am a part of their Heroes program. Great crew, great DevRel team.

And so go check them out. Also, too, listen, we got a lot going on in the Torque community. So if you want to get an idea before joining the Discord, go check it out, Torque.community. If you want to jump in our Discord, it's pretty simple. It's Torque.dev backslash Discord. We'd love to have you. And if you want to be updated when I go live with great guests like Michael, Shoot me a text. This is actually my number. It's like my second number, I guess you could say. Just text live to it. I'll loop you in. And I shoot out invites every single morning. I go live with guests.

What else? We got some more people. Angelo, it's good to see you. Richie, it's good to see you. Leanna, it's great to see you as well. You've been in. Elliot, it's wonderful to see y'all. All right, we got the crew today. Michael, let's give the people what they want, man. A little bit about you. Who are you? What do you do? and uh we'll dive into your very abbreviated job search all right um yeah so I've been a dev for thirty years this is my thirtieth year um honestly would love to retire but that's not gonna happen for thirty years yeah yeah yeah so I've been mostly in the microsoft world mostly doing that I was independent for fourteen of the thirty years so I had my own thing okay um in twenty fourteen, decided I was tired of that life and went back to work for the man.

Yeah. Yeah. So so since since fourteen, I've been I've been working for the man at various places and And just a little foreshadowing, every job I've had since then has all been from my network. There hasn't been a time where I've just gone out somewhere and said, I'm going to apply. So we'll talk about that a little bit. But I live in Columbus, Ohio. We moved here about six years ago. Yeah. Got my wife and I have been married for twenty eight years. Just had our anniversary a couple of months ago. Two adult kids still living at home because it's a rough world out there.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. It's an expensive world out there. Yeah. Yeah. It was interesting. I was literally just listening to a podcast, uh, kind of like a, just a business general business podcast. And, and, and, and I mean, this is a whole nother conversation, but that it's now become very normal for kids to like live at home right now. Cause it's just so expensive. Um, uh, so that could probably launch pad for a whole nother conversation, but yeah. um I love that man I love that all right so uh I got you on because obviously your last job search um was from layoff to job nineteen days right I had lawrence locke carter on the show uh a few months ago talking about how his job search lasted eighty nine days um he never cold applied You know, we talked about backstage.

You never cold applied. Just kind of set the lay of the land, man. Kind of like what I what I ask you backstage. Give me just kind of general overview of the job search to kind of set the tone. And I'll pick. So. So a couple of things. So I want to. I kind of knew the layoff was coming. Right. Like like. like within a day. Right. So I had a little bit of a heads up. Not super long though. No, no, no. So I worked for a consulting company and I finished up my last gig at the end of May. So on June two, which was a Monday, I rolled onto the bench and I was on the bench.

What ended up being two, two weeks. And yeah, the not the first thursday that I was on a bench the second thursday we had a bench meeting and it was kind of dire right there was there was nothing coming up for my skills um which I want to talk about too because I yeah there were things so what what I did when I was on the bench and then what I did um kind of continued on um and so I'm friends with the the kind of the head of um, recruiting in Ohio. And so I was talking to him and he was like, he didn't say it, but he was like saying it.

He was like, you know, you wouldn't hurt to look, wouldn't hurt to start looking. Right. Yeah. And so, uh, The next day, um, I had another call them. It wasn't to lay me off. Right. I had another call with him saying, dude, I'll do whatever. Like, don't, don't just put me in the box of like this thing I'm willing to do whatever. Um, but at that point it was too late. Like he, he knew. Uh, so five o'clock that night, I'm driving to dinner with my family and my boss called me. Uh, and it was just a very quick, I hate doing these calls, but this is it.

Um, So it was just kind of like, oh, okay. I'm not getting upset or anything. Just trying to take it all in of, okay, how long do I have benefits? And how long, when's my last paycheck? All the things that I care about as a father and a husband of like, okay, I got to make sure I'm taking care of everybody. I immediately, as soon as I hung up with him, I immediately... as I'm answering questions for my wife, she was driving is I'm answering questions. I'm on LinkedIn turned on the green banner. Like it was just an immediate, that was, I needed to do something.

Yeah. Um, and so, so that was the kind of my, my first thing I did is I turned on the green banner. Um, and then I took the weekend off. Like, I just like, there's no reason to, to get too stressed about it. Um, now I will say that, uh, I was in for the once I knew I was laid off, I thought for sure because I've been reading the horror stories on LinkedIn. Right. Yeah. People taking taking months and months and months, some taking over a year. Right. And and I'm in my fifties. And so there's all sorts of things are like, oh, you know, like, yikes.

Like what? Yeah. So just kind of scary. The whole thing was kind of scary. But yeah. Uh, but even that first night, even Friday, when I turned on the green banner, I got one solid lead and it was literally by just turning on the green banner. Yeah. Someone, so someone had seen me, uh, speak at tech bash last year. Yep. And, and he was, and we, I remember when I met him, right, he came up, we talked a little bit at Tech Bash. And he said, Hey, man, I think you'd do great here. Like, yeah, let me let me do an intro with HR and, you know, a recruiter.

And let's get that ball rolling. Like, cool, let's do it. Um, but you know, again, the, the, the reposts happened, um, and people were engaging with the post kind of throughout the weekend and then into the next week. And I started to get other, other pings, right. From other, not just there, but you know, I'd get texts or I would get, um, you know, I'm on discord on a couple of places. And so people would reach out to me there. One other thing I will say that that day, um, um, see if I can keep do this without choking up a little bit here. So that afternoon, um, I had earlier in that day, before I was laid off, I texted one of my mentors and I said, I think I'm getting laid off today.

Right. And, uh, so then I, when it happened and I take the, I emailed, right. I emailed him and, and no sooner did I send that email that he called me. Yeah. Right. And this is he's he's just amazing. So he called me and he said, how are you feeling? And I said, well, I feel like crap. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I said, we used to know. So, you know, how are you doing? Right. And I said, well, it kind of sucks to to not be good enough. Right. And he's like, hold on. Stop. And he said a few other words, right? He said, stop.

They didn't say that. They didn't say that. Correct. Stop. He said, you need to tell yourself the right story. Yeah. He said, do not let yourself get into that. And it was probably five minutes of that. Right. Of him just telling me to get my act together and not feel sorry for myself and. Yeah. And that kind of stuff. So that was that was pretty awesome. Right. So that's awesome. Got to set the tone for the rest of what happened. But so probably by mid the following week, I had. what I considered probably five, like really solid leads. And I've got a whiteboard behind, rolling whiteboard behind me.

And I started, I'd write on them who the company was, who the referral came from, who the recruiter was, right? What phase I was in, what I, you know, like if we had talked about salary, kind of what I had asked for just so I didn't forget. Cause that's always embarrassing. And then, so I just, I kept that going. Um, but the, uh, other thing I kept doing every day, this was a, something I committed to like that, that Monday is again, part of it, not feeling sorry for myself, but look, I know there, I know I have a gap. I know I have a gap in, I'm not a front end guy.

I'm not a react guy. Sure. So I, while I was on the bench in those, those previous two weeks, I had been working on a new personal website. Then it got serious because I was like, okay, I need this thing. The Friday I got laid off, I'd published it, resume, all the things out there in one place, all my speaking, all my podcasts I'd been on. I continued to work on that. In fact, I called my friend Corey House, who's a Yeah. He's the react guy. Right. Yeah. Hey, man, can we get a call? Can you review some of my code? Sure. And so he did that.

But that gave me something to think about other than, you know, hey, I'm out of I'm out of work. Right. Sure. Sure. And so I was doing that, but I was also every day writing recommendations for people I had worked with on LinkedIn. Interesting. Right. As a way to kind of. I don't know. Give back? I had just wrapped up a project. And so I wrote recommendations for the entire team I had worked with. They deserved it. And I thought, you know, it's not a bad thing to, again, it's humility, right? Think less of yourself and more about others, that kind of thing. So I tried to do that every day.

Um, but I would just, I just kept having the calls, right. I'd have the recruiter calls, um, and, and just kind of follow each, each one. And I had one recruiter call where it was like, this sounds really cool. Now, when he first pinged me on LinkedIn and a message, I said, I don't think I'm your guy just based on the description. It felt like a really big role, like bigger than I would want. I would want. Sure. Almost like an executive role. And it's like, I don't I don't know. So I said, hey, I'm happy to talk, though. Yeah, let's let's let's talk. And we talked and it sounded really cool.

And then he ghosted me. So, you know, that happens. Yes. But I did just to just to kind of go back to. The idea of that network. One of the recruiters that reached out to me, I had worked with her at a job. Well, probably almost twenty years ago. Right. Wow. And and and we worked at the same company and she's like, you know, I've always kept track of the alumni. And she's like, you were there when it was good. So she's like, there's a certain level of trust I have in you because you were there when it was kind of the good times. So she had a lead for me that was solid.

But I had probably the two leads that bubbled up to the top of my list were from people that I had worked with in the last five, six years. And did you reach out to those people or they reached out to you? No, they reached out to me. They reached out to me. One of them was a text saying, hey, my company has an opening for a tech lead. And then another one was from a friend of mine. And he said, so he was on my team when I worked at Quicken Loans back in the day. And so he's always said, I would work with or for you again in a heartbeat.

So we went to one other place together. We worked there briefly together. And then this time around, he's like... I forget how he... Probably Discord. He's like, man, I would love it. I would love to work with you again. We've got this opening. It's just a dev role. But I wasn't... When I went into this search, I wasn't being... I forget what I said. I probably said on that green banner post, you know, dev manager, tech lead, because I've been those things. But I also said developer, because most places, if I identify as anything, it's developer. I've been a developer for thirty years. I've written code for thirty years.

So. Like, I love the leadership piece of it. I do. And I'll get back to that at some point. But sure. I also, um, when I was talking to Corey house and one of those, one of those calls, this was right after I got laid off. I was like, dude, why don't, why don't you just become a middle manager? And I'm like, I just had a little cringy, right? I'm like, come on, Corey. Um, but you know, it was, it was kind of that it was, I didn't, the big thing is that I've said to everybody I've talked to over the last several years, my requirement is I want to work with with smart people and cool things.

Sure. I don't care what role I'm in. Um, and so I, you know, sure. A couple of the roles were, were kind of those, those bigger leader leader roles, but I didn't care. What I found interesting though, is when I was talking to the company that I'm now with, when I was talking to both my friend and his boss and his boss's boss, like they were genuinely excited. Um, and, because of the referral my friend had given me, right? They, like every every interaction I had, they were genuinely excited. Which got me excited about the role. And, and then they told me about the the potential of the all the things they were working on, and all the things they wanted to achieve, and all this stuff.

And so that one, I was telling my wife, like there was one point which I thought I was going to have two offers on the table at the same time. And one of them went a different direction, which is fine with me. No harm, no foul. But I was like, this is going to be tough. Because this one, here are the pros here. This one, here are the pros. There weren't many cons with either one of them. But it was just that. you know but so kind of that that whole time I was I was doing that I never I never blind applied so the one one common thing I kept seeing in the linkedin posts from people the kind of the horror stories is I've I've applied five hundred times and interviewed three hundred and and I'm thinking you know hearing people the the stories about submitting a resume and having it insta denied, right?

Because something in the resume wasn't right. That, that to me was going to be six weeks down the road. Right? Like, like, I was really trusting my network. There hasn't been a time since probably even when I was an independent, I would get calls from clients who said, hey, so-and-so referred you, when can you start? So there was a lot of that. So I was just trusting in my network. And while I appreciated every single person who reposted, who gave words of support, the ones who said, hey, I've got something. Let's talk. The ones who texted, hey, I've got something. Let's talk. Those are the ones that, you know, kind of obviously made the made the difference.

But I appreciated every every bit of support that I got. But I was still I was still nervous about the whole thing, even when I got so. Yeah. So I got through I got through. So of the six that I had, probably at the end of week one, I Um, two of them just weren't what I was looking for. They were, they were very, very, very, very, very, very small consulting companies. Sure. And I just, I don't know. There was just something I want to go back into it. I didn't want to go back into it. They sounded cool. The people sounded great. Um, then there was the, the one that I thought was a potential and then kind of got ghosted out of that one.

Um, and it eventually boiled down to these two that that both sounded really really really good yeah and so I got to the the final interview of the one and I look I was stressing like technical interviews stressed me out I would think that anyone who's listening technical no one enjoys tech interviews yeah I mean that that is refreshing coming from somebody who's very senior because I think I think the general notion is like oh michael senior I think but not even michael just anybody senior they don't they don't have emotions they don't stress they they have it easy and it's like no like everybody everybody's on the same playing field of job search it sucks everybody hates it yes like the thing well one so one of the one of my friends who referred me to the the one I didn't get that didn't make an offer uh you know, he was asking me like, Hey, how you feeling?

As I was coming into one of the interviews, I forget which one it was. And I said, I'm nervous. He's like, what, you're nervous. And I said, you know, that little bit of that imposter syndrome is sneaking in, right? And he was, he's only been in the industry for maybe ten years or so. But he's like, Why? Why are you I'm like, well, because number one, with tech interviews, you never know what you're gonna get. Yep. Right. Like if there was a standard of tech interviews, that'd be one thing. But you just never know. Someone may be out to prove something that they're smarter than you.

And and so, you know, but I went into the tech interviews. You don't look as confident as I could be. That is Justin. Yeah. Tech, tech interviews are tough, but I give this two of my conference talks are about tech interviews. One of them is from the perspective of the interviewee, the candidate of things you can do to improve. And then the other one's from the point of view that we should do a joint talk one day. Cause I could same thing too. Yeah. Then the other one's from the point of view of the interviewer of things we as tech tech interviewers can do better.

Yeah. And yeah, So anyway, I think one of the things through the whole process. I think I was feeling some internal stress, but outwardly to my to my family, I was trying to to kind of show some strength and like, hey, I'm going to be OK. You're like dying inside. Well, I don't think it ever got to be that bad. Right. But it's still it's still nerve wracking knowing that, hey, you're the provider and you have to do something. Yeah. You know, I had I had two weeks of benefits. So I got benefits through the end of June and then I got my last paycheck was last week.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. again everyone everyone's been really supportive um so let me let me let me ask you this man I mean so I think a few things I want to call out first is one you didn't panic two you you took some time for yourself right I mean when I interviewed lawrence lawrence was like Hey, I took a week. Now, that was him. But I think there is a type of mindset you have to get into, right? And you took the weekend and then you got after it on Monday. I also want to make a mention that you also were intentional about keeping up of where you're interviewing, who you spoke to, where are the leads.

Because I feel like a lot of times people go through a job search and they just... it's just kind of just like what's in front right now they don't think what what what did you do about I mean listen obviously it was a very abbreviated search but what was like what did you do follow-up wise I think a lot of people struggle with follow-up and and the job search they don't put any importance to it any thoughts on that uh So I sent thank yous to the ones that kind of fell off the list, right? I didn't go to them back, right? So I would, in fact, one of them, the recruiter who I'd worked with years ago, the email I sent to her was very much like, man, I really appreciate this.

This team looks awesome. I just don't think I'm the guy for it. I don't think I'm the person for it. Um, but you know, thank you for thinking of me and that, you know, that kind of stuff. Try to do that with all of them. That's great. I would always let, I would always let the recruiters know, you know, kind of post interview, Hey, let the team know I appreciate their time. And, and especially when the one, when the one finally said, Hey, they went a different direction. I'm like, Hey dude, let them know. I enjoyed myself. Like it was a good process. Um, the interviews were, were a little stressful, but yeah, you know, I enjoyed the process and I let them know that.

And, and so, you know, those were the types of, now the one who ghosted me, I never did follow up and say, Hey, did you forget about me? Cause I was like, at that point I was, I was at the point where, uh, I knew things were coming from other ones. And, and, you know, if a company is going to make you an offer, I can't say, look, I need two more weeks because I need to see how this one's going to work out. Right. Right. And I was also very clear to, to the kind of the two that ended up being at the top of like, look, I, I am interviewing other places.

I think an offer is coming. and and here's how this is going to go yeah um just to just to be respectful of of the whole process right because I yeah I don't know I don't want to surprise anyone or let me I I want to make a note I want to I want to get your thoughts on this I think and I see people in the chat the chat's going off right now for and and so we'll get to those in a second I feel like the job search is almost forced networking like you expand your network so much during the job search. Now, that is a glass half full mentality.

I understand it's hard. I'm not dismissing that it's not hard. But I do think if you can get in the mindset of like, all right, I'm about to put the networking jet engines on over the next few weeks, few months, you really... You touch base with people you haven't talked to, kind of like you said. You make new connections. I feel like it really kind of sets you up almost for your next job searching. The reason why I got the job at Torque is because I interviewed with Dave, my boss, before I went to Gun.io, and then I left Gun, and I immediately texted Dave.

Right. So, I mean, it kind of builds on itself. Well, so I do want to talk about networking just for a second. Please. Yeah, well, that's how you got the job. Yeah, so when I tell people, look, I'd say, and this was network, right? Because because they're the people who reached out to me and said, Hey, we've got something for you. I talked to a lot of my friends who say I have no network. Yep. Right? Like, I just I've never spent time on it. I've never done anything to do to build it. I'm not even on LinkedIn. That was what one of my one of my friends who just got laid off to said.

And Networking is more than just making a connection on LinkedIn. It's more than just one handshake at a conference, right? You have to follow up. You're cultivating a relationship. It's not just, hey, I have this one connection over here that'll help me in five years. Because if they don't know who you are other than, hey, we met at a conference for five minutes, I think it's important that you're cultivating relationships. And a big chunk of my network are friends. We're friends. We've been on the speaker circuit for almost twenty years. We've done all these kinds of things together. I've worked with many of them. They worked with me.

And I think one thing that kind of hit me is that it was refreshing to have people I've worked with before say, I want to work with you again. And I think that was really cool. And like I said, even the one guy who I met last year at Tech Bash was like, I think you'd be great here. It'd be great to work with you. I saw you talk and all this kind of stuff. But networking is just more than that. And to me, there's more to it than social media. I like to make real connections. Yeah, talk about that. I'm obviously giving a talk at DevUp about content and community, so it may steal some stuff from what you're about to say.

Yeah, no. Look, social media, I was on Twitter right after Twitter started. So, the early days where there was the fail whale. And and they were that's how I met a lot of my what are now who are now like really good friends is we kind of all connected on on Twitter. And it was funny because Twitter in the days of the fail whale, when when it would go down multiple times per day, a bunch of us spun up an IRC server and we would hang out there where the chats could be different, a little more, a little more intimate, a little more detailed. And then we'd go to conferences and it'd be like.

Hey, are you, and you know, Twitter handles, are you so-and-so, you know, that kind of thing. Um, and so that was just, that was fantastic. Um, But I think that social networking is good to a point, but try to extend out and make some of those connections a little more solid. I mean, jump on a call with someone. It works, dude. I mean, it's a snowball effect. I mean, we got some people in the Torque Discord who are actively trying to do one-on-ones, and that stuff snowballs. Let me ask you, so out of the six leads that you got, Mm-hmm. out of the six, how many were from your network?

All but one. All but one. Let me ask. That was, that was that recruiter who just reached out saying, Hey, I think you'd be good in this, this. And then that's the one who ghosted in the end. What now? I know there are going to be people who, um, uh, I know there are people are going to be like, all right, well, easy for you to say you've been on the conference circuit. Right. Cause I think that's the other thing. Right. I think like, Oh, that's great. Michael, you speak, you've been on Twitter since the OG. I don't have that. What would you, what would you tell them?

Yeah. And so trust me. So I want to say a couple of things here. One with as quickly as this happened, right. Nineteen days from, from layoff to the, that verbal offer. Um, There's a little bit of guilt. I know it's weird. And my wife, if she were here, would be saying, you shouldn't feel guilty. Right. But I feel a little guilty because it didn't take me that long. And, and then, you know, she did, she did say, well, you have a solid network. Don't feel guilty, dude. I mean, that's, that is, that is the benefit of you putting in the work. So, right. So, but yeah, the, the network has been a, has been a build of, of almost twenty years now.

And, and it's, it's that. What I would tell people is if you're not already going to meetups and meeting people, do that. Go meet the speakers. Go meet the people. Go do that. But whenever I, I go to an event with someone who isn't That's not what they do. I introduce them to everybody I know. Like, you got to meet him. You got to meet him. And I introduce them to everyone I know. And I'll pull them into discords. And, you know, we're... where my friends are so they can get to know them. And, and, but it's that it's, it's, you have to do something.

You have to, even if your network is smaller, you have to do something. Even if your network is smaller, do things, do things to be, to be visible, right? Post, do things, start a blog, do whatever you can do. I tell people, share what you know, share what you know. So then people are coming to you trying to they want to be connected to you because of the expertise you're showing online. Right. Do those types of things. That's the way you can build your network for sure. You know, I'm old school. I like that. I like the. So Mike's a super connector. I think everybody can be a super connector.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the big thing. Yeah. Well, you know, I think one other thing that my wife has pointed out, which is not only do I have a solid network, right, but I think I have a good reputation in the community. Yeah. And I think that even if people haven't worked with me before, I think that knowing that I have a good reputation in the community helps. And so the software community is big. It's huge. It depends on kind of where you're located. But like here in Columbus, Ohio, the software dev community is huge, and there's lots of people to get to know and talk to and do things to get your name out there.

And I know that's hard for some people. I do. And I understand I'm coming from a place that a lot of people aren't. So but but be active on places, show your expertize, share what you know, don't just take right. Just don't be a consumer, you know, create stuff and share it and and those types of things. I think that's really important. Yeah. What what what are some other pieces of advice, man? Anything else that. maybe we haven't covered or anything that popped into your brain. Oh, I want to ask, of course I asked that question, but I want to ask another question. But first you mentioned about being in discords, being, being in online communities.

Can you, can you talk about the importance of that? Yeah, look, if I have a question, if I'm stuck on something, uh, so for example, I said, I, you know, I, I texted Corey and said, Hey, I'm working on this thing. Can you, can you give me some feedback? We jumped on a call for an hour. That was fantastic. But there might be times where I need I need other things. So I'm in I'm in one discord. I'm in his dev chatter, which is which is a lot of a lot of folks is pretty active. But that's a good place for technical questions. So if I get stuck on something, I'm not just relying on my my knowledge.

I can reach out to others. I'll share links in there with people. But I think it's important to. to just be somewhere, to have some community. Again, if you're not comfortable going out and going to meetups or you can't or there's none around because they've all died, which they are, but find somewhere. Find somewhere where there's a group of people. And like, for example, Dev Chatter, the one I'm in, there's gaming chats. There's people are in there chatting about everything. Yeah, I mean, we got a book club in Torque. I don't even read. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Right. But yeah. So I think any kind of community you can be a part of is good.

Yeah. But I think being old school, I prefer the face to face. Sure. And I think you do need to face. I think I think it I think it is a muscle. Right. So prime example, I'm about to go on a little bit of a run here. Torque team is going to be at Laracon in the following week. I'm speaking to Deb up in St. Louis in the following week. I'm in Raleigh speaking out of bed. There's a relatively large actual tech meetup happening in Nashville Thursday night. I'm going to go. Why? Do I need to go? No. But I also know that I have not been out of my house that much networking in the last five weeks.

It is a muscle. And I was listening to a podcast the other day. It was actually a marketing podcast. and they were talking about the power of community and business and networking and all that and they even said it's a muscle it's just like running a marathon or going to the gym if you sit at home it is harder to get started than if you're consistently putting yourself in somewhat uncomfortable type of settings whether that be a one-on-one with a stranger or going to an in-person meetup so Right. And I don't I had a guy reach out to me who was part of our local community.

He was coming to my meetup that I have here in Columbus. And, you know, he was saying how he just is really looking for some kind of mentorship and the number of people he's had who have just ghosted. And I'm like, well, you know, but that's so if he asks, hey, you want to go do lunch? Yes, absolutely. Let's go have lunch. Let's talk. Let's, you know, figure out, you know, kind of how I can help. I think that's important to, to not just, not just keep talking to the same people that, you know, to extend out and be, and look, I'm an, I'm an introvert, which means people wear me out.

Like social interactions wear me out. But, but I'll still do them. I'll still do those things. And, you know, I've got two events. I've got Cincy Deliver and I've got DevUp coming up and then Tech Bash later this year. Oh, I see a DevUp. There you go. Yeah. so but you know it's it is it's important to just get out and yes and again I know it's I know it's tough and I was I was at I know we're kind of getting to time but yeah I did join a um One of my friends, Sean Whitesell, had pinged me and said, hey, so-and-so is speaking at the Tulsa.net user group, which is all online, right?

It's just, so I joined. Oh, it was Fritz giving a talk. It was Jeff Fritz giving a talk. So I joined and Fritz gave his talk. And then he does a really good job, which is hard to do, of networking after the event virtually. And it was great. Like at one point, Carl Franklin joined and we're just talking and, I mean, I think Scott Hunter was there. Like there were some, there were some big names in a Tottenham world there. Um, but it was just kind of cool to hang out and, and, um, going to be part of that I love it yeah just being a part man I think it goes a long way it goes a long way all right so this is great uh again for everybody who's commenting this is great I want to go and do my rapid fire here um kind of going through questions real quick jordan yes I would have it this is kind of an older question I would our statement I would I would absolutely have one the average that I've seen in the job search is six to nine months right now Um, so I would absolutely have a savings for that.

Um, and then there was some chatter around technical interviewing. Um, again, message Michael, if you have any questions on that, um, Yeah. Biggest David comes in here. My biggest fault hangups. I don't reconnect with the recruiter. Yeah. I mean, listen, I, I know I've talked about this. I will continue to talk about this agency. Recruiters are very busy. They are not compensated. This is why I love torque and Ronstadt and investing in communities because I most recruiters almost all recruiters are just compensated to place the person that's an immediate fit for the job they don't think about how they're taking care of a candidate down the road always follow up with people like what I tell people is I I call it the bcc trick it's a very clever name I came up with it if there's like ten recruiters that you've talked to that you like have actually somewhat enjoyed talking to I would send a quick bio and a status of your job search every month to them bcc all of them and just say hey reminder still looking here's what I want because I will tell you this as good of a recruiter as I think I was I still missed people I still miss people so consistently follow up for sure um all right michael you ready for rapid fire sure all right what is the one tech tool or app you can't live without right now Vim.

Vim. Vim. What? Okay, great. Love it. It's a nerd text editor. I know. I've seen it on Twitter. I don't know what it is. Y'all talk about it. That's great. Vim. Sounds great. I don't know what it is. There seems to be a lot of controversy with that one. First, okay, let me ask you this. What is the very first job you ever got paid to do? I heard you ask someone else this a week or so ago. Probably... Probably Paperboy, delivering newspapers. Nice. Back in the eighties sometime. Really showing your age there. Really showing your age there. Yeah, probably, probably eleven or twelve. Did you ride a bike in the dome?

Walked, walked in through them. Great way to get steps in. Great way to get steps in. Let me ask you this. If you could have your way in terms of – I've talked to people. I was even talking to my wife the other day. I was like, man, I kind of wish Ronstadt had an office in town. I could go in a few days a week, get out of the house, just change the scenery. Some people love fully remote. Some people want more on-site. If you could have your ideal scenario, what would it be? I have been remote almost my entire thirty year career. My first gig, I worked out of my dorm and dialed up and did what I needed to do.

That's crazy. So there's never been a time where I haven't been remote to some degree. I love remote. I'll go in if there's a reason to go in. Same. And we're going to do something productive. I don't want to go in and sit there and be on Zoom calls. or have everyone have their headphones on listening to music. That seems like a waste to me. Yep, agreed, agreed. Next question. Do you have a career mistake you're oddly grateful for? Yeah, well, this is my third career choice. This is not what I left school thinking I was gonna do. won't get into too much details but but there was I I had a I I was going to school during the day to do one thing and I I was a late bloomer I got my first computer at um so like and so I would get up in the morning learn how to do stuff on this computer right and then go to school all day do all that stuff come back do the same thing and I actually started working in this other field I was still doing the computer stuff and then I got then I got a kind of a part-time gig doing doing development yep and then it was like I like this one better yeah so and that that was I don't know yeah I love that I love that um uh next question this kind of maybe goes to what you originally hinted at if you weren't in tech and the money was the same, what career would you try?

Um, something creative. So, so I love woodworking. I don't do, I don't do nearly enough because there's a lot of woodworkers starting to pop out in this interview podcast writing. Okay. I'd find a way. I'd find a way to just write fiction. Um, Probably not. I don't have that. I just don't have that. But I would find a way just to write just I love that. I love that. All right. Last question. The show is called guidance counselor to point out because we had guidance counselors in middle school, high school and college. But now as adults, we don't really have any buddy to turn to and ask for general career advice.

What would be your biggest piece of career advice to young Michael? Uh, uh, a piece of advice that I got the hard way from, uh, a boss, that's probably four or five years into my career. Yeah. And he said, reputation is everything. Um, and in fact, he said, if people think you're a jerk, he didn't say jerk. If people think you're a jerk, then you're a jerk. Yeah. Crazy. Right. Your reputation, your reputation is, is everything you have. And that, that was probably in ninety eight. I got that piece of advice I've never forgotten right yeah my dad kind of basically said the same thing to me so I totally agree all right well y'all thank you so much it's a great one it's the only one we're doing this week tomorrow I'm off for the day it's my daughter's fifth birthday we had my son's one year birthday this a lot of birthdays and then it's my brother's birthday two days ago so a lot of birthdays so I'm taking off tomorrow to be with her um so go connect with michael michael stay on so I can say bye to you backstage but y'all have a great one um no lives next week because the tort team is going to be in denver for laracon so we'll see you in two weeks y'all be going peace