straight outta my head

Here is an advice, don't read this post, i bet you have better things to do. I'm not kidding.

Let's first start with, i come to San Francisco more than a month ago with the intention of getting myself a decent job. What are the results? Well, VEEEEEEEEEEERY bad, ~95% of companies won't even talk to me (the others say "sorry no"). How does that look from my perspective? I want to work and i don't even get a chance :/, this is sooo not fair. But i have a problem, i know "not fair" doesn't exist. A lot of things affect our life, some we can control others not, there is no place for things ala "not fair" in there. You see, if i weren't looking at the world that way i would just bitch about the world not being fair and got over it. Ignorance can indeed be a (short term) bliss.

Now to be "fair", let's look at my position from employers point of view, why would they spend their money talking to me? I'm not a rock star hacker, i have barely anything to show, they don't know me and i have some weird requests. Add to that to the fact that they probably have lots of people with more to show than i am on a waiting list for a job and the result becomes completely understandable.

The first of my two options is to keep on going, but what consequences does that bring? For start if i want to stay here i'll probably have to find myself an illegal job (that has nothing to do with IT). That will give me more flexibility (like buy a marriage). There is certain risk associated with that, than there is always risk that the officers won't let me back in from the trip Mexico (to renew visa waiver). If any of those should happen i'm out of US (at least until i become a rock star). And all that for what? Best chance is to change one of my most basic personal characteristics (i'm asocial :/) and do something that miserably failed so far. Not very appealing.

The other option is to give up, what consequences does that have? The first one i'll have is a great disappointment, depression like state. That is the immediate price to pay for failing at an important life goal. How strong? No idea. Next thing is my personal downturn, no more cool stuff ala dorkbot, way less decent costumer services in stores... But perhaps the biggest consequence is that i'd have a comfortable job position, trading that for ability to prosper requires LOT of willpower. If you add above mentioned disappointment to that i don't see myself changing the job soon :-/.

What i should really ask myself is how much would my professional life suffer if i give up, to see if it is worth fighting for. Given how much ads for cools jobs i see i'd say plenty (and this is the recession!). Is the Slovenian job market really complete crap? Not really, there is videolectures.net doing some cool python stuff, Marand is or will be doing some as well (but that requires to bend over and digest java) and probably couple of others. All together it is still light years from the Valley tho.

But would really that much change if i found a job here? YES! Let's have a look at me 2 years ago and me 2 months ago. 2 years ago i was on daily basis smoking pot, didn't have slightest an idea where i want to go nor i knew where i'm gonna be that evening. Did i mention i didn't have personal income? 2 months ago i had a scheduled job (which i respected, the schedule not the job), ergo was at certain place ~8 hours a day and knew am gonna be tomorrow too. Also i had above the average monthly income. What has changed? At one point i went nuts and decided that i want to make something out of myself and changed pretty much everything in my life (moved from Koper to Ljubljana, got job, pretty much stopped smoking). A change comparable to what i'm trying to do now in US. Where would i be if i haven't made that change? Realisticaly would have some lousy job, earning at best half of what i do now and "occasionally" smoking a joint, or two (or seven ;)). Assuming that is right, if we draw the line between move to Ljubljana and this, where will i be in year and the half? Rotting at my current job :/.

Another thing about me is that i'm "creature of extremes", for better of worse a lot of things i do is taken to extreme. If we look at some longer time span at those extreme actions mostly they didn't pay off. Will i now embrace that my characteristic and push my "luck" in so many ways?