On the Way Home After a Cancelled Contract

The commission was cancelled today. It was for a commercial drone project, and it was dropped with only the initial deposit paid out. The deposit came to just 1/8 of the completed project fee, an absurd figure. Even that amount I could only receive because the contact who introduced me to the work put in a good word on my behalf.

I had a meal with the contact who referred me to the commission. We talked over pork soup. Since I don't drink, I skipped the alcohol and just had the soup and coffee, and I paid for the coffee.

He asked what I planned to do going forward. He was probably testing the waters to see if I had any interest in finding regular employment. I told him not yet.

He launched into a lengthy speech.

"You're not getting any younger, are you? You spent all your savings paying off your debts, and you told me the factory expansion job fell through this year so you're broke."

He wasn't wrong.

"Did you apply for any startup support programs at the beginning of this year?"

He asked whether I had considered applying for startup support or moving into the Ulsan Regional Knowledge Industry Center. His reasoning was that people won't take you seriously unless you have an actual office.

I told him I had been rejected from the startup support program and hadn't really thought about the Knowledge Industry Center.

"You're old enough to know better. I'm saying this because I'm worried about you."

Sitting there paying for my own meal while being lectured wasn't exactly a pleasant feeling. I do worry about my own future. But then I remembered why I had walked away from certain paths in the first place, namely the realization that a lifetime of work wouldn't be enough to buy a home. Still, since he was the one bringing me work, I just listened without saying anything.

The bottom line was that he knew a factory automation company and was asking whether I'd be interested in joining at around 3.2 million won a month(2,255 dollar a month).

But I know what that actually means. Even with that 3.2 million(2,255$), you'd be grinding 60 to 70 hours a week, not the legal 52-hour cap, working overtime with no overtime pay.

Still, if you grind for about ten years, you could probably end up living in an apartment somewhere in the provinces.

The thing about that line of work, though, is this: factory automation runs on aging technology, and the moment you learn it, you get locked into legacy systems and get stuck in an outdated environment out of step with current trends. Changing jobs becomes nearly impossible. Your experience doesn't transfer, and they don't even do version control, let alone use Git.

"I'm thinking of making a game and shooting for a big hit."

That's what I said. He looked at me like he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Dongwoo, I'm not dismissing your abilities. I know you well enough to know you do the work of two or three people, that you have a broad programming knowledge base and read a lot of papers. But you have to live in reality. It's been two years since you said you were going to make a game here in Ulsan. Have you actually released anything?"

"I got scammed on the game development assets I paid for..."

"You need to break that habit of rattling off excuses for everything. Everyone else is out there doing things they'd rather not do."

He was right. I said nothing and just ate the cheesecake sitting in front of me. He said a few more things, then seemed to notice I wasn't in a good mood and shifted the conversation to applications.

"So do you have a game or an application you're actually working on?"

"Yes."

"AI is really capable these days, so couldn't you just use it and bang something out quickly? You delivered that small motion-based game for that event a while back. What about that direction?"

So many thoughts rushed through my head at once: the 100,000 won Steam registration fee, the fact that games using AI art don't sell. But I didn't say any of it. And these days my hobby activities are mostly maintaining my website and building a language compiler.

"I could if I wanted to, but I'm still looking at ideas. Lately I've been working on maintaining my website and building a compiler."

"A compiler? Is that another commission from some professor's startup? And why the website maintenance?"

He probably said that because he remembered the time I had taken a job from a professor's startup, but I told him this was nothing like that. The problem with professor-led startups is that professors can be complete novices outside their own field while still having exceptionally high standards. In terms of expectations relative to budget, they are some of the worst clients to work with. On top of that, they rarely let anyone know they hired a subcontractor. Maybe they think it would tarnish their reputation. Professors are exhausting creatures.

"I keep the website up mainly because if I want to land work overseas, having a site means clients sometimes reach out through it via platforms like Upwork. Since I don't contribute to open source or anything like that, people occasionally contact me after looking at how the site is put together."

"Do overseas clients pay well?"

"Only small jobs come in, around 100 dollars a piece. Through agencies."

"Then why on earth are you doing it?"

By his standards, everything comes down to money. I was about to explain that I maintain the website at my own expense to preserve my sense of self and to keep my TypeScript skills from rusting, but instead I said:

"Because I enjoy building the website. It's also a way to organize my knowledge."

His skepticism was plain to see.

"I want to build a name for myself too, but as you know, in Korea that kind of reputation comes from going to conferences and meetups in Seoul and networking there. Stuck out here in the middle of nowhere, where am I supposed to show what I can do? You know as well as I do that the Korean open source scene is basically nonexistent."

"Then why don't you just go to Seoul instead of staying in Ulsan?"

"Jobs are hard to come by these days."

He tells me I'm always negative. And I know I am. But it's not that I'm not putting in the effort.

"Dongwoo, aren't you ever going to get married? Even if you read papers and know a lot, can you honestly say you know more than the people in Seoul? You know as well as I do that the major companies taking public-sector contracts hire KAIST graduates, and firms like XXX only look at credentials when they recruit. You're living in a fantasy. All this tech-enthusiast obsession with the latest technology isn't making you any money. Even if you wanted to make something like Lineage, that takes enormous capital. Do you have that kind of money?"

I had nothing to say.

"No, I don't."

"That's exactly why I'm telling you to get a job, save up a lump sum, and then do it."

I was about to say I was afraid that once I started taking someone else's paycheck I'd just settle into it, but I said nothing.

The truth is, ever since AI became widespread and especially from the latter half of last year, work has nearly dried up. The odd jobs I've scraped together came from connections I built up the year before. Even those have been cut back a lot by AI automation lately. In practice I should be going after overseas work, but the overseas inquiries that actually come in are mostly scam spam. (I actually sent in a resume once and was caught off guard when it turned out to be a scam.)

"You're not from any company people have heard of, and you have no certifications. What did you say when I told you to get your engineer's license? You said programming doesn't have a single right answer and you hate the rigid thinking that exam-style problems force on you. Because you didn't get it, you're at a disadvantage every time you try to land a contract."

That's because in Korea, having an engineer's license typically gets you a premium on your rate. But looking at licensing exams that still test the J2EE model, memorizing those outdated frameworks just isn't my style. I have my pride too, but then again, if they didn't want to work with me they wouldn't keep calling, so they must know well enough that my success rate is high.

"I've given up on marriage. My looks aren't great, and I'm short."

"Come on, get some money together, buy a car, and things change. When a man gets his life together socially, women notice."

With that he handed me a business card and kept going, asking if I'd be willing to come in for an interview. He said my skills would be recognized, and that in Ulsan I'd have a competitive edge since there's nobody else who can work with WPF. He was flattering me, but underneath it he was probably trying to slot me into that company while I felt pleased with myself. Whenever I let my guard down and take the bait, things always end badly. Most companies in Ulsan use WinForms, so being able to work with WPF does give me some edge, but when someone builds you up like that it's usually to lower your guard.

Part of the reason I was looking to go in a different direction in the first place is that starting with WINUI3, Microsoft's moves have felt too uncertain, and I couldn't see any way forward relying solely on Windows applications, so I learned TypeScript. Electron supports Linux and macOS too, after all.

I honestly don't know whether I should get a job. Maintaining my website doesn't pay. But even without paying, it's what keeps me sane. No matter how much knowledge I accumulate, people won't acknowledge it unless I write it down somewhere. On top of that, the nature of freelance work means a lot of it falls under NDA, which makes it hard to get credit for my experience.

But am I just running away?

Am I escaping even while knowing that a lifetime of work won't buy me a house? But I am earning money as a freelancer. In fact, paying off my debts was possible precisely because I was freelancing. A salary alone would have made it hard, but the higher ceiling meant I could take on high-value commissions. The problem is that those commissions have been drying up. Yes, it's a gambler's mindset, but if I had been at one of the companies I could have joined, it might have taken even longer to pay off the debt. The floor is infinitely low, but the ceiling is higher than it would be as an employee. And if I factor in the cost of living in Seoul, things might have been even bleaker than they are now.

The cheesecake was good. I have no idea what the future holds. I wish the future could be as sweet as that cheesecake, but talking with him left me feeling low.

Reality is so painful that I turn to coding. Programming doesn't hurt. Just reading papers, trying things out, watching them work, that whole process is less exhausting than real life. Why is life this hard?

Dating like everyone else, getting a job like everyone else, I can't do any of it, and I wonder whether I'm just rotting away. Actually, I'm not rotting. If anything, I feel like I'm alive right now. It's just that my current circumstances are a little poor.

Even this poverty was something I could have overcome; I'm simply behind because I got scammed.

Being poor is bearable. Growing older makes me anxious, but since I've more or less given up on marriage, that part is manageable. What's harder to endure is looking ahead and seeing no future. That's also why I left the construction site. In South Korea, if you weren't born in Seoul and didn't come up through a prestigious university, the paths to success basically narrow down to becoming a YouTuber or running some kind of scam. As regional areas shrink and die, whatever opportunities for success remain keep narrowing. Looking at that future, the appeal of programming, that I can put something directly onto the market myself, is the only asymmetric advantage I can hold onto.

I just have a lot on my mind. People often say that if you're good at programming you can do anything, but the programming field is vast and complex, and nobody can do everything. A full-stack engineer can handle both backend and frontend, but doing either of those with real depth, that is, with genuine expertise, requires focusing exclusively on that area, and the nature of freelance work makes it hard to develop that kind of deep specialization.

But even if I took a job in this field, specifically in factory automation, it would be hard to picture a future there. Starting with the overtime, self-development becomes difficult and keeping up with technology trends is nearly impossible. You'd develop expertise, sure, but whether that expertise translates into income or whether it can transfer to other markets is a separate question entirely. From where I stand, that kind of transfer is simply not possible in this sector.

So I'm torn. I want to keep programming. But the circumstances just don't cooperate. My skills aren't particularly exceptional either. It's a hard problem.