Prove Life Wrong: Rooms, Realms, and the Work That Follows You

November 18, 2025

When a Recruiter Forgets You’re Human

I want to start this Prove Life Wrong entry with something I originally shared on LinkedIn — because not everyone lives on that platform, and frankly, this story is too familiar for too many of us in tech.

It’s a bit lengthy, but I think worth a read.

Over the past month, I had an experience with a recruiter that I think many people in tech will relate to.

On October 8th, a recruiter reached out to me about a role they said I was a great candidate for. I responded the same day and confirmed I was very interested. We spoke the next morning, had a solid conversation, and he even looped in his supervisor because they felt I was an excellent fit and wanted to move quickly.

And then… nothing.

A full week went by.

Eventually he reached out again to arrange a call with the three of us. An email thread started, I responded immediately with wide-open availability… and again, a week of silence.

Finally, another call was scheduled. That call went well — they sounded excited to get me in front of the client. I was told they wanted to move fast.

Then a week and a half passed. Again, no updates until I reached out. The response I finally got on October 27th was:

“After consideration the client has requested alternative candidates to interview.”

Not the end of the world — that’s how the process goes sometimes. But the lack of communication made the whole thing far more frustrating than it needed to be.

And today, November 13th…

I received the exact same message from that same recruiter about the exact same job, as if none of the previous conversations ever happened. Word for word identical to the message from October 8th.

I responded to said recruiter, and I pointed this out, because honestly, it felt like a slap in the face. Not because I didn’t get the job — that happens — but because of how little care or record-keeping went into the process. After being strung along for weeks, it was pretty clear this wasn’t a relationship worth continuing with that recruiter or their firm. I included that I felt they had <sarcasm>great record keeping</sarcasm> and shared a screenshot of both of his messages to me showing me the exact same thing.

Here’s the part that matters:

Sometimes “rejection” has nothing to do with your abilities.
Sometimes it’s simply a reflection of how little effort someone else puts into doing their job with integrity.

I didn’t lose an opportunity — they lost a candidate who showed up, communicated, and cared.

To anyone out there navigating the job market: being ghosted or dragged around does not define your value. The right teams — the ones worth working with — won’t make you chase them or beg for updates. They’ll respect your time as much as their own.

Keep going. Keep showing up.

And when life (or hiring) tries to knock you down…
Prove Life Wrong.

The new job that actually DID move foward

While that first recruiter was busy losing my trust, someone else stepped in and actually moved.

Within a day of submitting my application for this new role, I got a direct call. No endless email chains, no vague promises — just, “Hey, let’s talk.” They scheduled an interview for the very next day. Two days after that, I had an offer in hand.

That alone was a reminder: it’s not always you. Sometimes you’re just talking to the wrong people.

This new job is going to help me and my family breathe a bit easier while I keep building everything that lives under Other Worlds Than These — my music brand, my tabletop role-playing game brands, and now my new gaming brand. All of that together is something I call The Weave, and if you’re curious, you can read more about it here: https://owtt.net/weave/.

My goal is to keep growing The Weave outside of normal work hours, the way I wish I’d done a long time ago. I’m going to Prove Life Wrong, take all of its setbacks, and build a solid business around my philosophies and passions.

In the meantime, this new job gets 100% of me during my scheduled work time — because that’s what I agreed to. But after that? That’s my time. That’s music time. Story time. Worldbuilding time.

That’s what true work–life balance looks like for me: a day job that pays the bills, and a night shift dedicated to the worlds I’m creating.

Making Room in the Room

For the longest time — right up until the end of 2019 — my world was physically split between two spaces.

One room was for the “day job.”
The other room was my studio — my main machine, my DAW, my instruments, my video editing tools, my image editing, and basically every bit of creative output and OWTT business you can imagine. When I was in that studio, it was all music, worlds, and work that was truly mine.

Then my dad moved in with us so I could care for him.

To make that happen, I collapsed those two worlds into one physical room. The studio stayed the studio: my main machine still handles music creation, video editing, image work, daily OWTT business, and personal management. But the old “day job nook” on the other side of the room had to adapt. It stopped being the corporate corner and, over time, transformed into something new: a separate streaming machine and game box setup.

When I was between traditional day jobs, that worked beautifully. The main rig was for creating and running the business; the other side of the room was where I streamed, tested things, played games, and experimented. Same room, different zones, different energy.

Now that I’m heading back into a (temporary) day job, that former “day job nook” is stepping back into its old role — but with a twist. I’m not giving up the streaming and game box setup; I’m layering the work machine into it. That’s where the KVM comes in.

The KVM lives on that side of the room — the old day job nook / streaming corner. One switch lets me flip that setup between the work machine and the streaming/game box. The main creative machine stays dedicated to what it’s always been: music, video, images, OWTT, and personal management. The KVM side becomes the chameleon: work during the day, streams and games when I choose.

And that matters, because now I can do this:

Finish my workday on the “nook” side.
Hit the KVM and literally switch the context of that station.
Leave the room, go spend time with my wife and family, have dinner, watch something, reset.
Then, when I come back later, I’m not returning to “the office.” I’m stepping into a creative space that I control.

Same four walls. Same room. But it’s no longer just an office with some music gear stuffed in a corner.

It’s the OWTT Sanctum now — one side powered by the main creative machine that runs The Weave, and the other side ready to flip between “day job mode” and “broadcasting from the realms” mode whenever I decide.

My Go-To: Microsoft Planner for Everything

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it in a previous Prove Life Wrong post, but one of the quiet heroes behind everything I juggle is Microsoft Planner.

I use it heavily. As in: if it’s not in Planner, there’s a good chance it doesn’t exist.

For Other Worlds Than These, I have a big board that holds:

Music creation tasks
Promotion plans
Income tracking and admin
Website updates, email campaigns, “don’t forget to renew that thing,” and all the random “this, that, and all the things” that keep the whole operation moving

Then there’s a board dedicated to TTRPG adventure development and writing — outlines, encounters, worldbuilding tasks, layout ideas, and “future module” ideas that would vanish from my brain if they didn’t have a tile somewhere.

I’ve got another board just for Maestoso Gaming — content ideas, recording sessions, editing queues, upload schedules, thumbnail tasks, site tweaks, and follow-up items for comments and community engagement.

On top of that, there’s a Household board for everyday life stuff: appointments, repairs, errands, financial to-dos — all the non-glamorous pieces of life that still need to happen.

And then, of course, there’s a board for the Super Secret Development Project — the one that sits off to the side, quietly gathering ideas, specs, experiments, and “when I have time…” tasks.

To keep all of this from living only in my head, I even use Alexa as a capture tool. If I think of something while I’m in the kitchen or away from the desk, I’ll just say, “Remind me to add X to Planner.” Later, I sit down, go through those reminders, and drop them into the right board. It’s very “plans within plans within plans” — but it means future-me doesn’t have to rely on memory alone.

Yesterday was new employee orientation for the new temporary day job. Today, one of the first things I did for that role was create a separate Planner board just for work. Different buckets, different labels, but the same brain behind it. I’ve really come to appreciate how simple Planner is compared to something like Microsoft Project. Project has its place, but for the way I work now, I don’t need a full-blown Gantt-chart monster. I need flexible buckets, checklists, due dates, and the ability to drag things from “someday” to “doing” to “done.”

If you’re trying to wrangle a ridiculous number of tasks, projects, and responsibilities, and you don’t have a system yet, I genuinely recommend giving Microsoft Planner a look:
https://planner.cloud.microsoft/

Maybe one day I’ll do a walkthrough video of how I use it for OWTT. The board is huge, with a lot of buckets — maybe too many buckets — but there is a system to the chaos, and it works for me. It’s one more way I Prove Life Wrong: by refusing to let everything stay tangled in my head, and instead giving each task a place to live so the work that matters actually gets done.

Rooms, Realms, and the Work That Follows You

I guess the whole point of this post is just to update you on what’s been happening since the last time I Proved Life Wrong — except this time, I didn’t break any more ribs. They still hurt, sure, but not like before. And this week, I’m a little more at peace with life in general.

The rooms have changed again. The “day job nook” is back in play. The OWTT Sanctum has been reshaped. There’s a new job in the mix, a refreshed Planner board, a KVM flipping contexts, and a body that’s still healing but stubbornly moving forward. On the surface it’s cables and furniture and schedules, but underneath it’s all about making sure there’s still space for the realms I care about: the music, the TTRPG worlds, the gaming brand, the writing, the whole Weave.

Life, of course, hasn’t stopped trying to knock me off the rails. The financial stress, the health stuff, the constant need to adapt — it’s all still there. And then there’s that recruiter. Honestly, I had to say something about him. I still want to slap him… and if I ever meet him, I probably won’t, but he’s definitely getting a very stern look. That whole mess was a reminder that sometimes the thing that derails you isn’t “life” in some abstract sense — it’s actual people not doing their jobs with basic respect.

But here’s the important part: that story didn’t get the final word. While one recruiter was busy copy-pasting the same message and forgetting we’d even talked, another team moved quickly, followed through, and opened a real door. While my ribs were healing, I was quietly rearranging the room and tightening the systems so that when the next opportunity came, I’d be ready for it — and so the work that matters to me could still follow me into whatever came next.

That’s what Rooms, Realms, and the Work That Follows You really means for me:

The room keeps changing, but I keep reshaping it.
The realms — OWTT, the music, the games, the stories — are still here, still growing, even when life hits pause on me for a while.
And the work that follows me is the work that refuses to die, no matter how many times life, recruiters, injuries, or circumstances try to push it out of the picture.

I’m still here. The realms are still here. The work is still following me.

Prove Life Wrong

So here’s where all of this lands for me.

A recruiter who can’t be bothered to keep notes on a conversation doesn’t get to define my value. A rejection email — or worse, silence — doesn’t get to decide whether I keep going. My ribs hurting don’t get to decide whether I stay down. Life has been swinging hard this year, and it’s still taking its shots, but I’m still here rearranging rooms, resetting systems, and carving out space for the work that actually matters to me.

Right now that looks like this: a new job that did move, a room that’s pulling double (or triple) duty, a KVM switch that flips me from “day job” to “broadcasting from the realms,” and a Planner setup full of buckets and tasks that keep The Weave moving forward one small step at a time. It’s not perfect. It’s not effortless. But it’s forward.

If there’s a takeaway in all of this, it’s this:

You’re allowed to set boundaries.
You’re allowed to redesign the room.
You’re allowed to walk away from people and systems that don’t respect your time or your effort.
And you’re absolutely allowed to keep building the thing that follows you, even when life insists you can’t.

Life will keep trying to crowd you out of your own story.

Rearrange the room. Guard your realms.
And when life tries to knock you off the rails…

Prove Life Wrong.

If you’d like to help me Prove Life Wrong, you can show your support by checking out the official merchandise — T-shirts, mugs, and more — available here:

Previous posts in this series...

Prove Life Wrong: When the Work You’re Meant to Make Finally Calls Your Name

December 1, 2025 No Comments

Step into The Weave Many have said that The Dark Tower series is Stephen King’s magnum opus — the work