Back to it: disappointments and new opportunities

Hey, You.

It's @shayne. Been a while, I know.

Well, I wanted to start back up again here at Steemit because, well -- you see: I got "let go" from my job and I suddenly find myself unemployed and with a bit of extra time on my hands.

Getting fired

Up until last Tuesday, I was working at a small web advertising agency.

They employed around a dozen to a little over a dozen people at any given time. A mix of designers, account managers, and developers. I was a backend developer.

Last Tuesday they terminated my employment with them, citing not my ability to write good code, but my speed and the notion that I simply wasn't growing in the same direction as the company. Which is probably fair, but sucks reeeeeeeeeeeeealy bad because I have a new baby daughter and had just entered a new career field in an attempt to better provide for my family.

Maybe, at the very least, I'd made some friends there? Well, it seems not, because I haven't heard anything form anyone since the canning.

So I basically feel like a big fat failure right now. You know, I've never, ever been good at working. For some reason it just doesn't really click with me. That is, unless it's my own thing that I'm doing for my own reasons, in which case I will go obsessively nuts over the work.

I'm not sure how my money situation is going to work out... because I wasn't even making enough working at THAT job - now that I don't have ANY job, it's hard to stay hopeful, especially with a baby who doesn't know any different and needs me to come through.

I'll be debasing myself and going to the unemployment office tomorrow to see what programs I can get on until I can find another suitable form of income. Really, I've been paying into the system ever since I started working at 14 and I've never taken out of it, so I don't feel bad about taking back what I invested. It's just the actual process of going to the office and filling out the forms that I"m dreading.

I hate subjecting myself to authority for judgement. Call me immature, but I just don't like doing it, even if I will ultimately get something out of it.

Game development

A benefit of having all of this new free time is I have the opportunity to get back into game development and attempt other creative projects to see if any will stick.

My partner and I are finally getting super serious (for real) about the sequel to our hit mobile game, Blobfish Evolution.

This game did really well. In fact, it's been played by over a million people, and as I get older I realize how much of an accomplishment that is. Most people never ever make something that a large amount of people enjoy - something that's their own, brought about by their own imagination and ingenuity.

And it was more or less a financial success, too. What I'm hoping is that we'll be able to build at least something close to a similar following and be able to make some money to keep my ass out of the poorhouse.

Who knows, maybe if this goes really well, I might end up being a success after all. (not holding my breath).

Here's a quick glimpse at the first level of the game:

The baby

My daughter is 7 weeks old.

She's doing so well and is a great light of joy in my life.

I love kids. I love babies and little kids. I love having kids of my own, consequences be damned (after all: that's how humanity got going in the first place - we didn't have any assurance that things would be OK, but we just went ahead and had kids anyway).

I can't ask for more in that regard. And my wife is happy with our baby, too.

Feedback?

Yeah, I guess this is it for the day.

Even though I have more time than I might have had before to do other things, it doesn't mean that I actually have a lot of spare time.

When you're someone like me who likes earning his own way through life, being unemployed is actually a full-time job search job. It sucks, but it's just the way things are.

Let me know if you have any comments or questions.

I don't know, guys - I'm just trying to stay sane in an insane world. Help a brother out!

@shayne