The Back Button

Ever since the release of Flash 5, I’ve more or less been a Flash/ActionScript developer and I love it. I’m able to do just about anything I need to do in Flash. I sometimes like to joke that ActionScript is my first language and English is my second (I think my blog posts are proof lol). It’s taken me from a poor student existence in the UK, to being a moderately well off software engineer living in San Francisco. I owe everything right now to my Flash skills, but something feels off.

The other week, I was reading a blog post by Doug McCune entitled ‘Flex Changed My Life‘, it made me ponder for a little bit (before I remembered I had stuff to finish). To sum up his post; he quit his job seven months ago to become a Flex floater/contractor/consultant/speaker and life’s great for him, best move ever! I also met Aral Balkan at MAX this year who has much of the same life. And I’m sure I could name others, just look at the Adobe evangelist roster!

It all makes me wonder why I’m not doing the stuff those guys are? Why am I not doing the things I want to do with my skills, why am I just a “gun for hire”? To me, traveling to help people with my skills sounds insanely awesome. Maybe those guys can state otherwise (greener grass and all that), but from my cube it looks adventurous to meet new people who want to engage with you about something you love.

I feel like I have so much I to give the world, but here I am working day in, day out on the same project. But don’t get me wrong, working on the same project for months at a time is fine with me, at my previous employment projects were in and out of the door before you could blink.

I am hoping that my starting the SF Flash Platform user group may help with my burning desire to express myself more outside of my everyday work but will it be enough? I just don’t know. It just might make me busier.

Could I become freelance Flash consultant? Sure. But I have too much at stake right now. My rent has just spiked and my wife is unable to work because of her H4 visa status, plus we have no family in the US. But that’s all OK because my job/salary is stable and life is very comfortable at the moment with no worries. Maybe I’m just being too much of a wimp, but if I were a wimp, I don’t think I’d be where I am today at the age I’m at. I don’t know.

So, do I need to move up the ladder? Is being the “gun for hire” just too boring for me now? I do love being creative and coming up with new ideas and solutions, but most of the time, they are all out of my solo reach. So would leading a team be the thing for me? I certainly don’t want to become an Outlook user though.

I do know one thing for certain, I’m slowly becoming tired of being an engineer even though I love it. It’s all very puzzling. But at least I’m able to almost express it in words.