I just sent an email to someone about a possible job, and you know what? I feel bad about my a lot of the time, but describing myself to a potential employer in the realms of programming, web, and general multimedia computer work is actually great. My resumé is ridiculous. The variety of things I've done — mostly pretty well — over the last decade is ABSURD. Sometimes I feel bad because it's hard to narrow down the field to what's relevant while also giving a sense of the breadth of my experience.
Did you know I managed apartments for 3 years, and increased revenue 30% YOY each year by focusing on resident experience, improving work orders, renovating old units, and overall just treating people right? Did you know I was hired as a designer at a silkscreen, trophy, and engraving shop, and then was the de facto manager for six months while the owners dealt with health issues but still screamed at me every time they came into the shop? Did you know I've done UI and UX work for a very cool, unannounced game project? Did you know I've done research and design work for world-famous authors Mark Z. Danielewksi and Coleman Barks? Did you even know that I once re-cut and did major audio cleanup on a documentary? Do you know that I managed a small university's student Mac lab? Do you know I've designed, laid out, proofread, and helped plot out other people's books? Do you know that I sang on a song that was featured in episode 100 of Welcome to Night Vale? Do you know how many fucking projects in every available medium I've had a hand in???
This is just a fraction of the things I can list that might sound impressive to somebody.
And this is one reason I can get so down on myself; despite doing so many things, and despite becoming invaluable any place I've ever worked, it's just... never enough. I've never been comfortable. I've mostly lived at or around the poverty line my whole adult life. When I've made more hourly money in recent years, I thought I could spend more time on those other sundry projects, but it's turned out that I still couldn't get enough work in a year to make enough money to break even. It's been really easy in recent months to turn all of these accomplishments against myself negatively; I've asked myself repeatedly what any of it is worth if I can still reach a point where I can't pay my bills. What good is it to be extremely useful to literally any creative venture or business I've ever worked with, if I can never feel secure? And I accept plenty of responsibility for prioritizing doing interesting things over taking secure work at a few different points. But... man, I'm so tired.
But it was nice to send a stranger an email and basically be like, "Hey! I can do all this stuff! I'm just ridiculously useful." Especially when I have been struggling to reach usefulness lately. I can do it. I've done so many things, and I'll do a thousand more things before I let our vampiric capitalist hellscape convince me I'm not worth keeping around.