programmer for hire

About a year and a half ago I put some serious thought into taking on a side job in my spare time. I went so far as to check for approval from my "day job" for me to have a second job. I have long since decided a better use of my time would be to go back to school, so my investigation was short-lived.

Before I decided against doing something on the side, though, I signed up on a web site designed to hook up freelance programmers with potential contracts. I thought that I might be able to find something that would take a few hours on a weekend and maybe make some money in the process.

I never shut down the emailing service from the website, so I get a few emails a week about projects looking for a proposal. The emails are automatically sent to me based on a filter I set up when I signed up. All the emails are pretty much the same, so I don't even read them any more. They are immediately redirected to a separate folder in my email program.

As I was checking my email last night I decided to look through the folder to see what I was missing out on when an email that didn't look like the rest stuck out to me. It said something to the effect of, "Request for Proposal," and was dated July 8. Apparently someone looked through the site, noticed my resume, and thought that I was well suited for this project. The project would have even satisfied my requirement of being able to work on it on off hours.

I have to say I am a little proud because my resume has never impressed for any job other than standard technical support and junior developer roles. It is way past the time for me to submit a proposal, and I wouldn't have anyway, but it is nice to know I could have for at least one job.