My Life and Karate, Day Ten

My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense - enjoy!

I was 19 and had just moved to Austin, and things looked rosy until the dot-com bubble popped. Then the little startup I was working for started to have some funding issues, and I started to get nervous, so I bailed. I didn't have a new job lined up, but hey, I was 19 and invincible.

I found an ad in the paper offering a job for $60k a year after the training period. Sounded too good to be true, but I sent them my resume, got an interview, and went downtown to the fancy office building to meet with the recruiter. It was a real office, with a real recruiter. But the catch was the training wasn't free - it cost $2500 or so for a four-week certification class, money I definitely didn't have. But I talked it over with my mom, and the contract they offered looked pretty solid - offer of employment contingent upon finishing the class - and Mom offered to pay for it.

The company was called Linuxgruven, and they were taking everyone for a ride. They didn't have income beyond what prospective employees would pay for the class, and after a week of class, the owners took off for a tropical island with everyone's money (and paychecks) and there was no more class for me. I had the basic one-week cert (a little card that proclaimed that I could install Linux without setting anything on fire) and nothing else - no job, no prospects, and no way to pay my long-suffering mother back except to forward her the letter from the MO Attorney General who wanted to sue the pants off those people.

I don't bitch much about this one because eventually I got a good job at Dell and I sure whipped out that overpriced certification when I interviewed. But it was definitely a learning experience. In writing circles there's a concept called Yog's Law - money flows towards the writer. If it doesn't (if an agent or a publisher is charging up-front fees) there's a good chance the outfit you're talking to is a scam. In this case, the money wasn't flowing towards the employee, and guess what, it was a scam! (Just requiring a certification isn't a sign of a scam, of course, but I'd be very leery of the ones that want you to pay them to certify you first.)

There are a lot of people out there who would like to take your money without giving you much or anything back in return. Keeping a firm eye on where the money is actually flowing, vs. where you were promised it would flow, is a good rule of thumb. And practicing saying "No," asking questions, and being comfortable walking away are all critical skills to have when things start to look iffy. I lost some of Mom's money on this deal, but much worse things can happen if you aren't keeping an eye on your own well-being.

Ten days in, and I'm wandering pretty far afield of my topics. This is going to get interesting! But I'll keep getting weirder until all of you have donated $5 to our fundraiser!