One year after Novell…

“I’m usually big on milestones — anniversaries, birthdays,
holidays, etc. But it wasn’t until I was going to bed last night
that it hit me: It’s been a year since I left Novell and started
working for myself full-time. Here’s how it’s going so far…
(read on if you’re interested, but this is mostly full of personal
stuff so feel free to skip down to some of the more interesting
stuff on technology if you like…)

“My last day with Novell was January 31st, 2010. Pretty much
exactly two years after I started with the company (February 1st,
2008). I put in notice about two weeks before that, but had been
considering quitting long before. I’m not going to go into a lot of
backstory here, but the long and short of it was that after two
years the job was not what I wanted to be doing. Some jobs you can
do whether your heart is in them or not (I worked at a car seat
factory for three and a half years, and I don’t think my heart was
ever in that…), but community management is something that
you need to be all-in for.

“It’s all well and good to say that you should do what you love,
but love doesn’t pay the rent. (In fact, you’ll probably make your
landlord very nervous by asking if you can pay the rent next month
with love. Go ahead and try it. Awkward…)”

Complete
Story