Pardon the interruption for a moment for some news from real life.
I lost my job this week.
I’m in the tech industry and have been for decades, and we deal with it from time to time. The big companies like Amazon and Google often lay people off by the thousands. This isn’t my first time being here, but after a good nine years at my most recent job, I honestly thought I’d seen the last of these times. I thought I’d be retiring there. I guess the universe had other plans.
I Could Use Your Help
![Will talk your ear off about Shakespeare for money.](https://www.shakespearegeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/93347822-ecb2-48a7-b329-67d8cce0a09b-300x300.jpeg)
I’ve always lived a double life online, keeping my day job as a principal software engineer separate from my passion project of being a Shakespeare Geek (even though they overlap more than you’d think). But there are things you do when you find yourself looking for a job, and one of those things is to use all your resources. With that in mind:
- I can be found on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/duanemorin/. If you’re in my line of work or know people who are, please feel free to connect. A good network is everything.
- Want to buy a book? My new book, My Own Personal Shakespeare: Macbeth, is a brand new project off to a slow start. On an optimistic note, I do have more time now to work on the second volume in the series. But right now I still need all the help I can get spreading the word about the project’s existence. Please share the link with any actors, students, and educators you know who might have a reason to dig back into Macbeth from a whole new perspective. I hope to establish something here that can grow into a valuable contribution to how people approach Shakespeare.
- Shakespeare Geek Merchandise is always available! With just about 200 unique designs on Amazon, the merch has done okay for me over the years, but it can always be better. I’ve always focused on the “put more Shakespeare into the world” aspect rather than the “make money at all costs” way of doing things. I don’t steal other people’s designs. I aim for quality, not quantity. If you’ve ever considered purchasing from my store, whether for yourself or as gifts for others, these next few weeks/months are when I could really use the help. Buy now, store stuff away from Christmas presents?
What’s Next?
It’s weird being out of work. You feel like there’s a million things to do – update your resume, call your network, set up appointments, search search search online. But also, sometimes you’re incredibly bored because you don’t know what to do with yourself. It’s times like that when I turn to my pet projects, like Shakespeare. Hopefully, you’ll see more content from me over the coming weeks, but hopefully, not too many weeks, if you know what I’m saying.
As a software guy, I’ve also always used Shakespeare as my portfolio for learning new technology. I’m going to have to update my skills in a few key areas, and show that I know what I’m talking about. The obvious way to do that is to make extensions to my work here at ShakespeareGeek.com. Will that bring anything exciting? Who knows. Maybe! Stay tuned!
Thanks to everyone for all the support over the years. It’s easy to put stuff up on the web and just think of the people that will see it as “traffic” but that’s not true here. I know many of you. I’ve had conversations this month with people I first met through ShakespeareGeek over ten years ago. We’re all trying to make life better with Shakespeare. Sometimes that means helping each other out, too. Thanks again. Sorry for the interruption.
I would totally buy some of these, but there are only 3 designs showing up on your Amazon store, and I’m not much of a hoodie fan. Do you think the “Mercutio Drew First,” or the Yorick skull in a hand will be on there soon? Because I would get one of those in a heartbeat.
Anyway, I liked the idea of the My Personal Shakespeare, so I’ll grab one now. Good luck on the job hunt.
Thank you very much for the support, I really appreciate it. Which Amazon store are you looking at? Most of my designs should be available in most of the stores. Because of the way they work, though, I can’t necessarily see them — Amazon will only show you which designs ship to your location. So unless you’re in the primary ship zone for a given store you won’t see all the designs. I spoke to someone in Brazil, for example, and there’s not really a good South America option at all unfortunately.
Interesting. I’m in Canada, so I got the book on the .ca site, though I’ve bought from the US one before. I guess I didn’t realise that items that won’t ship to me wouldn’t show at all. A lot of other websites make me click on each item to check.
So, three of the hoodies will ship here, but sadly, nothing else.
Out of curiosity, here are the direct links to those items you mentioned in the US. I’m curious if you can reach them in Canada or they show something like “Sorry that page is not available.”
Alas, Poor Yorick https://amzn.to/46gORS1
Mercutio Drew First https://amzn.to/4fbnBbS
The pages work, but they show the message, “This item cannot be shipped to your selected delivery location. Please choose a different delivery location.” So, I guess they don’t want to ship out here. Ah, well. Maybe one day.
Oh well, at least we got our answer. I wanted to make sure you the pages at least showed up for you. Typically I link to a more generic “Just find all the related products” kind of page, that way you get the t-shirts and hoodies and everything all in one place. But as you’ve seen, that has the disadvantage of only showing the stuff that’s available to ship and it looks like the products themselves don’t even exist otherwise.
Thanks for helping me debug that. Wish I had more control over it.
I just came across this blog today while searching for Hamlet in Space, haha. After reading that post, I was surprised to see that the blog is still being updated 18 years later. That’s dedication.
Sorry to hear that you lost your job, that really sucks. It’s particularly tough after 9 years at one place. You seem like a really nice guy, and I wish you all the best tor the future.
Welcome, and thank you! If you were actually searching for “Hamlet in Space” you’re definitely a Shakespeare Geek! I still break out my MP3s every now and then. I hope you found what you were looking for. For those that haven’t had the pleasure, enjoy Hamlet as a German Rock Opera:
https://youtu.be/1QoonfMwhFE?si=64E8dumF1goOzV2H