Career Post-Mortem, or: How flashing teenager girls can ruin your life
I can tell that logically you understand what you did was wrong, but all the subtext in your writing points to you desperately trying to blame something else (society, drinking, the victims being underage) when the blame really falls squarely on you. Even though you say that you know did wrong, you don't actually sound sorry, and it's very obvious. I would believe, having read that, that you think that you're a victim. You're not. You're the predator of this story. No improvement of any kind will be met through this frame you've constructed. You need to actually accept the facts. Actually.
I've had to deal with this nightmare living in my head for almost 10 years now. I've accepted that it's my fault, and in no way am I trying to place blame on anything else. All the choices I made were wrong. It was wrong of me to drink when I was stressed about work. It was wrong of me to turn to adrenaline tactics to relieve stress too. It was wrong of me to flash teenage girls. It was wrong of me to try to get a software job when I knew I wasn't qualified for it. It was wrong of me to tease my family with a middle class life I realistically knew all along that I couldn't afford. It was wrong of me to not quit from my jobs when I knew I wasn't doing well enough at them. Everything here was my fault and in no way am I avoiding responsibility for any of it. This blog post is an obituary of my software career. It's written from that perspective.
This! It is incredible that no one else so far has commented on this. I read the post and it seems that there is no accountability. What of your victims? The emotional toll of being sexually harassed can follow someone for the rest of their lives.
The thought of that was on my mind for a very long time. But the fact that I have no money coming in and no money planned is starting to take over all my thoughts. I'm in a giant panic and this blog post was written from that perspective.
The linked article is already taken down, but from the perspective of a woman, I will add a few thoughts. I attended a rural university that also shared a town with a state penitentiary. Periodically over my years there, the university would put notes in student mailboxes informing us "The state prison was releasing on parole convict X on [insert date]. X was tried and found guilty of 3 counts rape. X stalks women and was armed during each of the events for which he was convicted. Psychologist have stated that X has near 100% likelihood of reoffending. If you are female do not walk alone. At night, do not walk without campus security or in small groups." The times we got a note like this, some weeks or a few months would pass, X would reoffend, raping some woman who normally did not have the benefit of campus security escorts, and we would get another note in the mailbox telling us that the security recommendation was no longer in effect. The town police were hard men.
Last year in college, a neighbor came to my door freaked out because somebody was peeping on her. Called the local police.
Police officers came to our door told us that peeping toms and flashers had statistical likelihood of escalating their behavior to more and more extreme acts including rape. They already knew the guy based on the neighbor's description. Also said not to fuck around if we saw him again. Any indication of a fixation was a really bad sign.
So should submitter be subject to legal scrutiny, monitoring, and restraint on behavior after that single event? Absolutely. Bad behavior for some, begets worse behavior later. Should submitter be subject to scrutiny, monitoring, and restraint decades after a single offense? Probably not.
We have sexual predator laws for a damn good reason: some people are guaranteed to violently reoffend unless prevented from doing so. Use of those same laws to ensnare teenagers who sext, Romeo & Juliet lovers, and the legitimate one-time offenders, is outside the original law's intent. The issue for the last category of offender is having a legal path to redemption. This piece seems to be missing. Arguable that for a lot of ex-convicts, a path to redemption and unrestrained participation in society is missing.
> So should submitter be subject to legal scrutiny, monitoring, and restraint on behavior after that single event?
Having caught the post while it was still up, a second, identical incident happened four years after the initial occurrence.
Yep. I wasn't very cooperative with treatment after the first incident. I was very defensive. I felt that I needed to protect myself from the unfair world. That mindset prevented me from healing as a person and receiving proper treatment.
It's interesting to look at both of my HN accounts. I can actually see my gradual mental deterioration and then gradual recovery.
Okay, well if there were two incidents I think you were exactly the type of person that needed judicial restraint.
A couple of additional thoughts... 1) I do wish for your career and employment success going forward - society is better if you and your wife are successful in life, and 2) there is something "hinky" about your writing style and the way you describe your sexual & criminal indiscretions and employment difficulties. If you went around flashing 30 year old women, your behavior was still wrong and the type of behavior that indicates possible escalation to even more criminal and violent behavior. Not sure from your post whether or not you realize the age of woman does not matter.
I have to wonder if that sense of strangeness is also apparent in your face to face demeanor. The type of strangeness that, in conjunction with a negative criminal background check, would eliminate a candidate for me. I've been threatened with physical violence and followed from time to time. I do not want to associate with people that cause me to seriously consider concealed carry.
> Not sure from your post whether or not you realize the age of woman does not matter.
It does matter. It makes it worse that they were still in formative years.
> I have to wonder if that sense of strangeness is also apparent in your face to face demeanor.
I think what's coming off as "strangeness" in my writing to a lot of people here, is that it seems like I'm treating what I did very casually, like it was just something that happened. But it's just that I'm so panicked over how we literally don't have money for next month's bills, and not sure where that's going to come from, that I really can't spend any energy on anything else. The guilt of what I did has weighed me down a lot and slowed me down, and I can't afford that, so I have to shut out everything else around me and just focus on solving this one gigantic problem right in front of me, of how to avoid my family becoming homeless and starved this summer because of my past actions. That's all I can think of.
>> Not sure from your post whether or not you realize the age of woman does not matter.
>It does matter. It makes it worse that they were still in formative years.
You are not wrong about the comparative "worse". But going around flashing people for your gratification is deviant behavior. Flashing over-18 women is wrong. Flashing underaged young women is even more wrong. This is exactly what I mean about "hinky". Your tone is defensive even as you are entirely correct.
I have a challenge for you. Take that entire blog post, rewriting and summarize it in 100 words or less. Then spend the rest of the blog post on what you can actually do for an employer and why your past won't affect a future employer. Sell yourself. The blog post as is crap if the intent is to sell yourself.
He already said he is a criminal, that he knows those criminal acts are 'bad things', and that he will not do them again, and has help to ensure he won't do them again.
I don't know what more you want. He's already prostrated himself as much as we can require.
Disclaimer:
I would not hire him either. Unfortunately, sexual crimes are the sort that incline you to also other lesser pursuits like sexual harassment, and I can't bring that into my workplace. Additionally, no one in society would ever forgive me for hiring him if he does reoffend.
2012 was only 6 years ago. If it was 15 years ago, it would be a different story.
"I don't know what more you want."
I think rabboRubble was just offering good practical advice: the "prostration" OP offers has at least a hint of insincerity about it, and isn't serving anyone. OP should follow the advice and concentrate on his positive contributions he can make.
Excessive prostration can become a way of saying this is why I failed, and look, you people in the cruel world didn't support me. It's manipulative.
I think taking full responsibility means accepting that you may never work again, and that society may withdraw it's support from you completely. You may even die due to lack of resources (banishment). If you can hold that space without any anger, then you can be readmitted, because the kernel of resentment that started the whole thing has been fully burned up.
Without this step, the life pattern that creates wells of resentment is still active in you, and will recur, possibly disguised but still "hinky" (I like that word :p).
I took it down because I just applied for another job, probably the last one I'll try. And I linked to my portfolio/blog site, but didn't want that to be the way they found out. Either way, I realize it's probably better for me to either remove this HN post, or to put the blog post back up, to avoid having discussion with too little context. So I pushed it and it should be back up now.
You just publicly outed someone who stuck his neck out for you by lying about your performance. People get sued for that. I would toss your resume in the trash just for your lack of discretion. I strongly suggest scrubbing any real names from your post, if not for your sake then for theirs.
Removed that part. Not sure how naming other real names hurts them at all. Everyone else mentioned in this blog post did only good. The only thing they could be faulted for is giving me a chance, and they couldn't have known better at the time, so I really don't see what would be the benefit in changing any real names.
> All the software jobs that I had were opportunities given to me out of compassion and charity. But I wasn't qualified for them. I've always had attention span difficulties. Each of my open source projects were done out of excitement. I had an idea of how to automate something, and I just went for it, and could focus on it for weeks at a time.
What do you mean that you weren't "qualified"? For all of your legal issues, you sound like a brilliant and productive programmer. Have you seen opportunities (e.g. requests from people) to be an online teacher/tutor for programming, perhaps being funded through Patreon?
I'm able to pass interviews very well, but when it comes down to doing senior level programming stuff, I really suck at it. I tried rewriting old.editfight.com the other week in React + Express + TypeScript and it took me 3 days just to get the basic boilerplate working. But I can tell an interviewer what big-O notation means and can write a working fizzbuzz using functional programming techniques in ESNext.
Even if I were qualified, I don't think anyone would like to take online tutoring from a sex offender, and I doubt even more that people would like to fund a felon and sex offender via Patreon. But I really do appreciate the idea.
Hahahaha it takes everyone this much time to set it up. That’s just the state of JS these days.
It takes everybody several days to get the boilerplate working. The people who do it in an hour are using some cookie-cutter like yeoman and have a bunch of tooling/config in their project they don't understand.
Yes, I have to concur with this. I think of myself has relatively experienced, but it takes me generally a day to get new boilerplate working. This includes time to read documentation and get things set up and to get a start in understanding how things differ from what I usually use.
The amount of software you've produced and published using a variety of stacks -- Objective C, Cocoa, Swift, JS, Node, Clojure -- and APIs is really impressive. Most people haven't even tinkered with that many things, nevermind publish stuff out for the public to use. That last part is an extremely high hurdle, especially since it requires UI/UX skills and user empathy.
Hell, even your portfolio website is far-above par for any software engineer. Not just in content, but the well-considered layout and visual design.
I don't want to downplay your situation, you indeed have an uphill climb. But you do have skills and actual experience that put you in higher probability at success with software publishing, compared to most software engineers who were to find themselves forced to find employment without the ability to network or get recommendations. Hopefully you can find success again in iOS publishing. I think many if not most iOS developers would be envious of the variety in just your iOS portfolio.
And yet you have a number of useful and interesting projects on Github.
That stack takes quite a lot of twiddling configuration files and piecing together disparate libraries and unrelated tools, at least on the frontend, and especially so if JavaScript UI frameworks aren't your area of expertise. 3 days is not that surprising.
How about starting a SAAS lifestyle business? There are a number of threads on this site of the "tell us your one-man SAAS success story" variety. Might want to look to them for inspiration.
Thanks will look into it.
Check Indie Hackers for inspiration.
What about lowering your sights and doing independent consulting, perhaps for small or local businesses, or tech work for an organization that values forgiveness as part of its mission (e.g. a church or similar nonprofit)?
The last time I tried to post on /r/forhire, some very vigilant commenters made a point of it to alert everyone else about my past, so they would know not to hire me. The moderators said too bad, it's their right, and really I agree with that judgment. But it means I have no way of getting new clients.
>But it means I have no way of getting new clients.
Dude... we have the most powerful tool invented: Internet.
If you are good, and you say you are and I have no reasons to doubt it, you'll get a job.
I might get downvoted... but that is the truth.
Try canvassing the real world and plugging yourself on reddit without identifying your IRL self in your ad.
That seems very unethical, doesn't it? Hiding information that would make a client definitely not choose you, so that they would choose you?
No, I don't think it is unethical. You'll disclose your identity one on one.
Or do business using the wife's last name, for instance, so a Google search doesn't sink you. I think OP's making a mistake by trying to go into consulting with a hopelessly tarnished "brand."
[Archived] https://pastebin.com/CtLFcc97
>and once again gave into that old stress relief of flashing
Can you change your legal name?
In terms of solving harassment issues, it wouldn't help. My address and new name will still pop up on the registry.
In terms of getting a job, yes, I could get a name change, but I feel like that would be unethical. If a company wouldn't want to hire me knowing my past, then hiding it from them so they would hire me seems really wrong.
So, disclose it when asked a relevant question, but get a name change anyway. It might be the media directly tied to you that companies are avoiding as much as your past: inevitably, your name will be attached to the company publicly (most likely) and they may not want that kind of 2-step search connection.
I get the ethical concern about hiding something that would be a deal breaker, so don't do that. But also don't create an unnecessary PR issue for a potential employer.
one does what one must. it's wrong-headed for companies to not hire based on an offense that is immaterial to them.
inb4 "too bad so sad, stop flashing teenagers you pervert, you did this to yourself it's your own fault" - thanks, heard this a million times in my mind, let alone from other people, but thanks anyway.
>If you do something wrong publicly in the internet age, it is remembered forever, as I'm sure Brock Turner knows better than I do
Also, like... don't side yourself with a rapist, man. "Me and Brock Turner, totally the same!" is not a good way to market yourself.
Have you thought about moving to the EU. Good tech jobs and sane laws https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten Also, English works in most countries