Looking Out To Sea

So, what’s up? Em, it was my birthday two weeks ago. Went to ESI (a Leith restaurant owned by an Englishman, Scotsman and Irishman) and had a good time there with Helen. The service was quite slow but the food was good and there was no faulting the company.

I also organised a sort of test-the-waters meeting of Edinburgh Haskell users. Four of us met in the pub on a Sunday afternoon, and I received two more emails from other people who would have come if I had given more notice. The time didn’t go particularly easily — one of our number was horrendously awkward to talk to — but it was a start. No plans to do anything more with it at the moment.

But out of that (and the advertisements I sent to the Haskell Cafe mailing list) I got a message from Eric Kow, asking if I wanted to help organise a Haskell Hackathon this August to coincide with the ICFP and Haskell Symposium in Edinburgh. So I’ve been thinking about that and coming to realise just how impossible it is to get anything organised while the Festival is on…

Meanwhile I feel that things are going quite well at work, which coincides with the contracting budget being cut to almost-nothing. A good handful of my colleagues are now on redundancy notice. I managed to get the one job for which there was funding, but that only lasts six months. In January or thereabouts I will be looking for something new. I’m not sure what. Helen’s horror stories from work make me think I could at least be a force for good if I tried programming with the NHS. But another part of me thinks the problem is likely to be systemic and no amount of enthusiasm or skill can make up for some problems.

It feels weird to now be looking for jobs — paying attention to the job market, at least — and realising that I have those “two years’ experience” that employers seem so keen on. I had to revise my CV when applying for this position with the extended funding (though strictly speaking it’s exactly what I was doing before) and it’s staggering to think how little experience was expanded to fill those two pages. But now I feel more confident — not only in my own abilities but also in knowing what’s important when applying/interviewing for a new position. I actually have points which are important to me as a developer. They always say you should have something to ask a potential employer in an interview, but knowing what to ask only really comes with that experience.

All this doesn’t get around the fact that applying for jobs is a horrible thing to have to do and I’m not at all looking forward to it.

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