Alright folks I asked the LLM gods how to keep funemployment fun and it said turn it into a sailing adventure so here we are.
“Job Search → Expedition Log: Instead of tracking applications in a spreadsheet, make it a captain’s log: “Day 12, applied to Shipyard Robotics Ltd., morale steady.”
Let’s have at it. I’m currently below decks on a 36′ sailboat a bit past long island bridge pilings and we just turned on the engine (we were sailing before that, made for a good nap).
I’ve been trying to reach out to Lila Sciences, applying once directly on their website and now through LinkedIn. I reached out to 5 or 6 friends who might know someone on Lila — to really follow through I should go through the listed teams’s LinkedIns and pull out university and company affiliations, and possibly go through the MIT alum directory. I had a friend say they know some students in one of the folks labs so I need to do a bit more research in that direction. I haven’t heard back from my former mentor but it’s a bit of a heavy ask; putting off messaging Church directly but might do so this weekend.
For tomorrow to keep things light, I plan to CAD a “best resume ever” and print it and attach it to color (!) copies of my resume and toss it into the lobby.
Planning an expedition to the robotics block party in a week. Need to make a little robot demo for that. Was going to make PCB but I think that’s not possible in time. So maybe just a breadboard demo. But nowadays feels like just enthusiasm isn’t enough to get a job alas.
Going to look up some MIT career fairs to voyage to also. Generally the response rate online is so low that feels like in-person is the way to go.
I need to fill out the EA bootcamp response form, I was accepted (woo!).
A lot of internal debate about whether to try harder at a previous application — e.g. ask if they want contractor positions. The entrepreneur-ran-a-business me says, I’ve read all these stories of persistence and grit. The friends-in-industry say, that’s weird and could be annoying.
Day 1: I’ll consider it day 1 since it feels like the first day I had to settle down. (eep we’re technically 10 days in). I’m not sure I’d say morale is holding but eh. It’s not at zero so I’ll call that a win. And as they say you only need one job!
Dating: Honestly, it does remind me a bit of the dating app dance. Probably places are getting flooded with more apps than they can possibly review, while from my end the hit rate is so low that I’m tossing out as many as I can. Hard to feel like I should get emotionally invested enough to write a cover letter, but sounds like a cover letter is the bare minimum to be worth looking at. Vicious cycle deal.
Friends: Lot of learnings from friends, like the reasons why you can apply above your station and still get the job if there’s no other applicants and it feels like you’re trainable and able to take on some tasks.
Quests:
- Go sailing twice a week
- Finish a side project a week (ursula, couch, demo from the block party)
- LLM says: livestream this as a “Build-a-Bot Together” night
- Write a paper (clean up my code)
- Learn things: Help a friend with lecture notes, take an algorithms class, and a ML class. (maybe onshape and kicad if i want to have extra fun)
- Write a patent
- Have weekly date nights