Twitter + Me == Hour suckage

In case any of the few people who read my site wish to follow me on twitter go for it.  My twitter url is http://twitter.com/noskillz not sure how long I will keep doing it.  It is not like I have enough distractions to keep me from doing meaningful work :).  

And I am out...

Most people that know me, know that my last day at Microsoft was this past Friday (9/5/08).  Why?  Well there are many reasons some I might write about others I probably won't :).  Anyways, I am going back to my past employer TransGroup where I will once again be joining the development team to kick ass, take names and try not to hose their live systems.  Will I still be doing security, hell yea, shit I might even get more done.  Working at Microsoft was an interesting experience and I met some cool people.  I didn't learn much sadly though.  Was it a wasted opportunity? Probably. Could I have done better?  Yea.  Could I have done worse?  Yea. 

I will miss a few things though:

• The coffee machines (best work coffee I have had yet)
• Bluehat 
• Access to all of MS's software 
• Some of the people I worked with (but then again I will probably keep in touch with them)

Things I won't miss:

• The slowness & process
• The crappy paycheck and monetary rewards
• The political environment
• The slowness (did I already mention that?? :P)

Many might wonder why I didn't go be a developer at Microsoft.  Could I have cut it there?  From what I saw the answer would be "of course :)".  However, since I was brought in at a low level I would have stayed there even if I switched to being a developer, now I maybe be a little slow in the head but I am not that idiotic.  I don't want to go through years of being under-paid to maybe some year make up for it (and that would be doubtful).  Plus, the way software was created isn't how I want to work.  I finally came to the conclusion that the only way for me to write software the way I want is to go my own way.  While I work on that, I plan on keeping a paycheck though, so, you know, I can like pay my bills :P.  Who knows maybe I can do both and make lots of money, only time will tell.  I like the environment at TransGroup but I also know that my true dream is to run my own business and work for myself and my clients.  

On that note, I am off to go work on some projects (more about that later).

But what would I have to offer?

This weekend I said to a guy I know that he should start moonlighting.  Why?  Because he complains about not having money and/or he says he could never beat the amount of money I make.  Of course I think that is utter bullshit, but, I recognize this as more of a self-defeating attitude.  But I was musing on the excuse given which is the title of this post "but what would I have to offer," that has more ramifications than I expect most people to realize.  The simplest one is this, if you have no idea how people on a free market would use your services, why would an employer hire you?  Anyone can be a grunt, so what sets you apart?  My guess is that these same people also have a hard time getting a job or always feel they couldn't get a specific job.  Because really even if we are a wage-slave we are just internal consultants to all of the other employees.  We need to provide some type of value that few people can deliver.  Sure, that takes a little bit to figure out (shit I am still figuring it out) but it is something to keep in mind.