Is Equilibrium Tech’s Rarest Element?

Balance. Without it, we’d all be writhing around the floor like Jordan Belfort on quaaludes. We need some semblance of balance and equilibrium in our lives. If it’s missing, it can lead to problems with many things like lionfish, Red Lobsters, and jellyfish. Allow me to explain…

This article aims to make sense of an industry I know very little about, aside from what I have read in textbooks or learned in courses. An industry I was keen enough to quit a stable, well-paid job to concentrate on trying to break into, and one that after four months of fruitless searching, perhaps it’s time to call quits on. I am, of course, talking about the tech industry.

Now, I want to be clear from the outset that this isn’t a cry for help or a pity post; I have four followers on this page, after all. Screaming into the void will not likely lead to my next job.

I know how privileged and lucky I am to have been born in a part of the world that allowed me to have so many choices and opportunities, both in my education and career.

Instead, see this as my take on what I have gleaned from tech as someone eager to enter the workforce and commenting on what I have noticed so far. I am more than happy to be corrected by those who know better.

Balance in the body

Although I was never too work-orientated as a younger adult, I knew what I didn’t like. I wanted to avoid the rat race in London at all costs. I wanted my work to have some meaning or to be helpful to individuals or society. While at uni, my mentor guided me to explore healthcare, and it resonated perfectly with me.

Not only could I be my own boss and avoid the rush-hour commute, but I would come home feeling good about what I had done that day. Helping others felt great.

As a bodyworker, my training emphasized looking at the body in the context of bones and muscles. Put simply, a pair of muscles pull around a joint to create movement in varying directions. Sometimes, these pairs of muscles have an imbalance; one is weak, and the other has to overcompensate, causing pain and dysfunction.

With 206 bones in the body and around 600 muscles, you can see how complex and intertwined this puzzle could be to solve, which was both challenging and rewarding when achieved.

Although there is no such thing as the anatomically perfectly balanced human body, the closer we could get to that, the better.

Balance in nature

As a young man, I wanted to see the world and my job allowed me to travel and work abroad. I taught English in Spain and Argentina, coached football in the USA, and even sailed boats for the very richest people on the planet.

It was in the Caribbean that I again saw the importance of balance, this time in the marine ecosystem.

In Curacao, my friend was a spear fisher who would come ashore with lionfish, as many as he could find. He explained to me that not only can they be eaten, if an expert chef removes the poisonous spines, but also that they need to be culled as they are an invasive species from the South Pacific and Indian Ocean. Although nobody was sure how they arrived in the Atlantic, the lionfish were creating havoc and putting other local species at risk of extinction.

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

Part of my job when working on yachts was to take people out in the water and do watersports, snorkeling, and make sure they were safe and having fun. The first question guests would ask me, without fail: “You seen any jellyfish?”

Jellyfish blooms were a common sight and another sign that something was wrong with the natural order. Perhaps their predators were over-fished or warming waters because of climate change was the cause. Either way, the only solutions we had were jellyfish nets and plenty of sting cream.

Note: do not pee on a jellyfish sting. The only relief it brings is to the bladder of the person who peed on you.

Balance in society

When I reached my forties, I decided I wanted to put down roots and settle somewhere. Moving around was getting tiresome after twenty years. My body was also showing signs of wear and tear from a career spent lifting huge rugby players’ legs onto my shoulders or giving ten hours of treatment a day. It was becoming painful to treat my clients.

The time I had spent working for the very richest people on the planet, while fun, also left me unfulfilled. I had lost that satisfaction of doing something meaningful.

I felt like I had betrayed some of my values, rightly or wrongly, and I wanted to return to working in the “real world” again, whatever that was.

Having lived in some of the poorest and richest parts of the world, I sensed that there was no need for anybody on the planet to go hungry or lack shelter and have the basic human rights that we all enjoy. I felt vindicated that there were cleverer people than I who agreed that it was possible by taxing the richest their fair share and distrubuting wealth more evenly.

Wealth inequality

The happiest countries in the world were those who seemed to understand this concept and try to create laws that would limit the gap between the richest and poorest in their societies as much as possible, such as in the Nordic countries.

I read about universal income and AI doing all of our work so we humans could spend time on important things like trying to learn the guitar solo to “Little Wing”.

Until that day arrived, however, I thought a better use of my time would be to re-train and connect with my love of writing again. Content Design. UX Writing. Copywriting. Content Creation. The big world of tech and working from my sunny little corner of the Mediterranean. Idyllic, what could go wrong?

Sure, Spotify had just fired 17% of their staff to balance the books. Red Lobster was filing for bankruptcy after being bought by a hedge fund that sold all their land and leased it back to them at a higher rate. Private equity firms were going after media outlets to make a quick profit and put thousands of experienced professionals out of work.

Thousands of seasoned pros were being dumped back into the job market in direct competition with us newcomers, just to improve the bottom line. Just like being priced out of the housing market by outside forces and not being able to get on the property ladder, recent graduates were finding it harder and harder to land their first gig.

But it would be fine by the time I finished my boot camp, right?

Balance in the job search

I finished the courses, bought and read the books, and created an awful first portfolio only to update it to a slightly less awful one after taking yet another course. I opened my LinkedIn account after a hiatus of over a decade and polished my online appearance. I paid consultants to help me understand what the job market required after being away from it for so long.

In short, I went all in. I knew it would be tough. I knew I might even have to move to a bigger city to get my first job. I saved my money and I quit my job.

The job search was tough. Some companies would ghost you, other companies were scams looking for free labor, and some would offer a position only to recant at the last minute. Reading other jobseekers’ tales left me feeling like the house always wins, but there we all were pulling on that one-armed bandit hoping for a jackpot.

After months of unsuccessful applications, I changed tack. I narrowed my focus to a few companies near me and try to create connections there, learn what problems they were facing and try to promote myself as the solution to those problems.

Still no luck. The silence for me was the hardest type of rejection to deal with. When you know your resume is 1 in 100 that is being considered, you know not to take it personally if you never hear from them, especially if you’re competing with seasoned pros for that entry-level job.

Continuously messaging people to network and not getting any repiles severely affected my confidence.

I understand, and this isn’t to criticize them. People are busy trying to survive in tough times and they don’t have newcomers like us at the forefront of their minds. Even so, it takes its toll.

Chatting with mentors and seeing in their faces that they know it’s a lost cause:

“Have you considered moving?”

“If this was a few years ago, but now…”

“Just don’t do it.”

As I saw my savings dip further towards zero, my desperation rose. My mojo was decreasing, and my self-doubt rising. What have I done? Will I ever work again? Will I lose my house, my spouse?!

Taking a step back and allowing some perspective on the issue will help. I won’t give up, it’s not who I am. Meeting passionate people who face daily problems has been a joy.

I want to join a team of designers and developers creating projects for positive impact. Perhaps that chance may come my way, perhaps it never will. At least I can say I gave it a shot, and I picked up some new skills.

At the very least, I have found joy in writing again, even if only four people are reading.

Will things pick up again in tech? Will I be able to land any kind of writing job either remotely or based in Mallorca, Spain? Would I advise anybody else to start?

I don’t know the answers to those questions but restoring balance would greatly improve our chances.