horsekeeping
I haven't been posting a lot lately. This doesn't mean I haven't been writing. I have. I just haven't been posting what I've been writing. Some of the longer things are incomplete or otherwise in some stage of editing. Most of the shorter things aren't anything worth posting here, by which I mean they are cover letters.
If you're wondering if I feel insane writing cover letters in the year 2025, I do. I'm old. I've been around. I also know a lot of recruiters and HR people and when they're off the record they tell me what we all already know: most cover letters never get read.
It's hard being underemployed at any age, but especially at my age I think. It feels like a broken promise to people who paid their dues, and I am far from the only middle-aged knowledge worker who feels like like this. Like, I did my time in the minor leagues. I rode the bus, made my mistakes, worked on my craft, and eventually reached the majors. But over the last few years, it's really felt like the very qualities that make me a major leaguer actively work against me.
I worked more or less steadily for 20 years but a few years ago I fell off a cliff, or may as well have. These days I do contract work for consulting companies, NGOs, NFPs, and small businesses. The money has been fine (most of the time) but the opportunities I have won't end up in a full-time job because those don't really exist anymore. No full-time job also means no pension and no benefits on top of what it actually means —— no cheddar, moolah, or skrill.
I've interviewed at places that are not actually hiring people. I've responded to posts for positions that clearly do not exist. My phone and email address get spammed on the regular because the contact information I have on my CVs likely ends up getting sold to unscrupulous actors. This is... just what it's like now.
I'm qualified for everything I apply for but as most people looking for work know, hiring is pretty broken.1 As businesses go all-in on AI (perhaps only to justify its existence?), guys like me look both old and expensive.2 I'm lucky if I even get an automated "thanks for applying but after serious consideration we've decided you suck, lol" email. It's usually just... nothing.
It's been pretty tough on the ego and my sense of self-worth, but the only thing you can do is keep going, so I do.
I'm not destitute. I have some freelance/contract work I'm interested in and excited about and I am always in discussions with folks about picking up more. Still, I would rather one full-time job that pays $X/year over three or four (or ten, or twenty) contracts that pay $2X or even $3X/year. I'm at that age, you know? I want to spend time with my partner, my friends, and my family. I want to pursue hobbies without worrying that I should be building them into side-hustles because one wrong flap of a butterfly's wings somewhere might end up with eggs costing $4 each. I don't want to go to bed thinking about the client who swears he's going to pay me soon. I don't want to wake up thinking about how much pressure my partner is forced to absorb every time I get passed over or underbid. I don't even really want to post this because there's a point at which being honest on the internet comes back to bite your face off.
Some days it all feels so hopeless, though. Like we're all spinning our wheels and bleeding out pints of sanity in order to get a foothold on a mountain that doesn't actually exist while the entire world gets lit on fire by sociopaths and technofascists. Spending time on LinkedIn isn't just infuriating, it's actively depressing. At this point that place is little more than a waist-deep sea of warmed-over takes that weren't interesting 20 years ago actively mutating into a wall of thought leadership posts that aren't within driving distance of relevant, interesting, or useful even before they get to the "buy my course" part.3
🐴🐴🐴 ALL
🐴🐴🐴 OF
🐴🐴🐴 THAT
🐴🐴🐴 SAID
My "keep going" projects have been good for my brain. They bring me joy and some days that's more than enough.
One project is/has been the reboot of Oddball, a sports trivia project a friend and I started in 2019 and put on hiatus in 2023. Writing sports trivia questions that are actually challenging (i.e. not for casuals) has helped my brain release the good chemicals. There's another little thing I'm almost ready to put out into the world, but it's not fully-baked yet. Soon, though.
In the meantime, I'm going to bask in sunbeams and watch all the hoops the universe can throw at me because, as ever, ball is life.
Be good to yourself.
You deserve it.
Footnotes:
1 If for some reason you don't know what I mean, take a look at this and this. Or just like, ask any of your unemployed/underemployed friends.
2 I'm not anti-AI per se but I do think we should be using these technologies properly and responsibly. Like, this stuff doesn't exist so that the dumbest people you know can pretend to write (and read) emails and blog posts.
3 The relentlessly dumb conversation(s) about the em dash made me wonder if we really are in a simulation. How else to explain the months and months of braindead posts about nothing because intellectually lazy people don't know more than four punctuation marks.
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