I quit my day job recently. Well, I went on a short maternity leave and just never went back. This article is not to serve as a ‘how-to’ and certainly doesn’t serve as advice. I’m writing this for me. I’ve burned the bridge, but still need closure. I believe by writing it down, I’ll maybe get the demons of doubt out of the back of my head.
So, this article is for me. However, you’re more than welcome to read along.
Reasons Why I Quit (in no particular order)
Eddie
Eddie came along in June, 2012. My first newborn child in 14 years! Now, we have two teenagers and a toddler in the house – and, it’s awesome. With my wife making considerably more money than me, the decision wasn’t too tough for me to become the ‘house husband’ after she returned to work.
When my first two boys were young, it was a tough time. We were living in a townhouse that we’d just purchased – with a considerable mortgage. I was commuting to the big city (nearly an hour’s drive) for not much more than minimum wage. Luckily, this was back in the mid to late 1990’s and fuel was still in the $.50 to $.70 cents per litre range. In fact, I remember the outrage when the gas price rose to 76 cents per litre!
I, like most fathers, feel I really missed out on those early years. By the time I got home at night, I was dead tired. We had dinner, watched a bit of television then the kids were in bed. I was gone in the morning before they were up. With Eddie, I get a second chance to experience that important time of life. I also get a second chance to improve on my abilities as a role model.
Times They Are A-Changing
This once again borders on the theme of job dissatisfaction but, in the information age, the world is changing fast and drastic. Traditional business recognises this but is too large, slow and tied up in red tape to do anything about it. Therefore, traditional employment is working extremely hard to make it in a world that has already passed by.
I can now work from home as a travel consultant with greater online resources than any bricks and mortar travel agency could ever dream of even five to ten years ago.
I can do what I’m doing right at this moment. Creating websites and doing on-line business is something that just wasn’t possible such a short time ago. I can make more money on eBay after a few hours work than I could make in a whole day’s work in the 1990’s.
A lot of people have a hard time getting a grasp on the possibilities but someone who is even remotely creative (like me) can set up several lines of semi-passive income with the use of a simple laptop computer.
44 And Not Getting Any Younger
Time is a merciless bitch! When you try to get a grasp on how much of your time has passed and how much you have left, your brain can spin at a rate that will make you go insane. I was born in 1968. At the time, World War II had been over for about 23 years. At the time, WWII seemed like a dot in the rearview mirror – ancient history. I’ve now been alive nearly twice that span.
I lost friends somewhat early in life and it seemed like we’d known each other forever. Now, I’ve doubled and even tripled some of their lifetimes. It passes. Time just keeps marching. While you’re sleeping, working, partying, in the grips of passion, time just keeps marching on.
The point? In my mind’s eye, I am at the point in life where I can picture the end. I can see my wrinkly skinned ass slowly moving down the hallway at the retirement home. I can see myself pissing my pants because I forgot why I was slowly moving down that hallway.
There’s so much living to do before that time. When you get into the ‘working for the weekend’ lifestyle, you’re blowing five days providing someone else slave labour in order to blow two days celebrating your slavery. I don’t want to be that way. I want every day to be simply awesome.
And, what if I don’t make it to the days of being wrinkly assed? I’ve had plenty of near misses in my life. Many times, my life could have been easily ended by:
- Rolling in a school bus down Canada’s busiest highway.
- Rolling in the passenger seat of sports car and landing in a soy field (that was over 20 years ago and the smell of fresh soy still haunts me).
- Fracturing my spine after going head first into the boards while playing ice hockey.
- Nearly falling 40 feet to the rocks below with just a small clumb of grass to bring back my balance.
- Stuck beneath a boat while white water rafting.
- Etc, etc, etc…
All those experiences, though potentially life-threatening, were exhilerating. However, they could have ended it for me. Something could happen in the next year, month, week or even today that could end it all. You just never know. It’s overused but, ‘Live everyday like it’s your last’.
Incredible Job Dissatisfaction
I’m 44 and had been working in the automotive industry for the past seven years at the dealership level. While inflation rose at a rapid rate over those seven years, my pay stayed exactly the same while my bonuses steadily declined. Over the past five years, I have made less money each year and up to $8,000 less than five years ago. This is a job with no pension and shrinking health benefits.
Sure, money isn’t everything. However, with money coming in, you can often overlook the working conditions. With less and less money, the downfalls of your profession certainly shine through.
When I started, things were great. It was a family owned franchise of a Japanese based automobile company. Sure, the owner was a nut job, but it was exciting and profitable. I have no real love for the business – but, I had friends there and it was a thrill every day.
Then, just a year in, the nut job sold the business to a conglomerate from the big city. Suddenly, we were the smallest dealership in a large group of big city giants. We were a real estate investment. I had left the corporate environment in early 2005 after the company I worked for in the big city outsourced the whole department. I had no desire to return to that level of anonymity and human slavery.
It’s been a steady downhill slide since. The corporation is closely tied to one of the ‘Big Three’ automakers. They brought in the Big Three mentality to our Japanese environment. They also brought big city marketing (intrusive, insensitive) to a small town, resulting in a loss of trust from many long time customers.
What really made me laugh about the corporation was a retreat they held for us managers in the fall of 2012. The theme was, of course, about change. On one side, they wanted the employees to be free thinkers and to have the empowerment to come up with innovative ideas on their own. On the other side, they encouraged us to fire anyone that wasn’t buying into the changes we, as management, were supposed to administer. It just fortified the saying, ‘You’re free to do what you want, as long as it’s what we tell you to do’.
Over the past year, inequalities among employees and personal agendas by senior management has brought a disasterous morale to the place. All new hires have connections to a specific religion. Departments have been reduced to ‘Sales’ and ‘Sales Support’.
The physical environment was brutal. For starters, a poorly designed building sent most brake dust and chemical residue constantly into my workspace. My area was an indoor office / retail space. There was a constant issue with wind blowing paperwork and displays as well as drastic temperature extremes. Of course, there were rodents (the mice were cute but there shit all over everything was not) and flooding issues to top it off.
Depression
Not clinically diagnosed, but the symptoms of depression were really starting to show up in 2012. The thought of dragging myself down the road to sit in an unhealthy environment for eight hours was seriously bringing me down. Near the end of the year, even thoughts of ending it all popped up from time to time. That part never advanced very far – I would quickly realize there was too much to live for.
There were definitely physical symptoms. Over the past few years, I would go literally weeks with a headache. My right eye would get all blood shot and hurt like hell by the end of the day. On many days, my body just ached. I was often like I was hungover even though I hadn’t drank alcohol for quite some time. I even went to the doctor – something I never, ever do. I was sure I was dying of something, a brain cloud perhaps (any Joe Versus the Volcano
Death Bed Analogy
“And dying in your bed many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance, to come back here as young men and tell our enemies that they may take our lives but they will never take our freedom!”
My favourite part of the movie Braveheart is when William Wallace (Mel Gibson) gives the speech to his men on the battle field. Sure, I’m not fighting for my freedom with a chance of getting killed on the battlefield. However, everyday, all of us are fighting to live the best lives we can possibly live. We can do the safe thing and go to work in a job that brings us nothing but mediocre money that just pays the bills or we can fight for something better.
Regret, just like time, is a merciless bitch. In fact, Time and regret are the lesbian lovers of a life of underachievement. I’m old enough to regret not doing the stuff that I could have done but am now too old to do. I have regrets. By having those regrets, I’m better armed to avoid actions that will cause future regret.
On my death bed, will I be happy that I:
- Watched every episode of Lost? (I did watch every one and can now not remember any of them and most of the characters)
- Played it safe and didn’t climb down to the base of that waterfall?
- Learned to speak Spanish only to not try having a conversation in that language while in Mexico?
- Spent all my savings on a sports car that never got me laid and served the same purpose as a vehicle a quarter the price?
Not likely!
On my death bed, will I be happy that I:
- Swam out to that coral reef to snorkel despite imaginary fears of being eaten by a shark?
- Visited that country that was supposed to be so dangerous?
- Spent hours perfecting a photographic technique that everyone else thought was a waste of time?
- Quit my job and went on to realize a life beyond my present imagination?
- Allowed my children to be who and do what they wanted in life – even if it went against the popular grain?
I sure hope so!
Money Where My Mouth Is
‘If you’re not working toward attaining your dreams, you’re working toward attaining someone elses’
My middle son told me that. At the time, I told him I knew that already and that it was a great bit of wisdom to live by. It also made me feel awful. I was living the second half of that quote. I realized that I wasn’t much of a role model, telling my kids to live life on their terms when I wasn’t living my life by my terms.
I was literally working each day to achieve someone elses goals. While I received no monetary gain or even a pat on the back for what I did, those above me were bragging directly to me about how high the profits were.
It was time for a change. It was time to work everyday to achieve my goals. My dreams.
Where Do I Stand? (What do you do for money, honey?)
I’ve bitched and whined about my old life and vowed to change things. What am I really doing about it? I’ve mentioned that I’m a Travel Consultant. I hang my hat with Expedia Cruise Ship Centers. It’s a great organization with access to such a massive range of travel inventory.
The banner you see on the top of this page for Expedia Cruise Ship Centers leads to my website. Yes, you can win a $5000 cruise for 2 by going to the website and signing up for the newsletter! The drawing is in November, 2013 and is a recurring yearly thing. At that site, it’s a fully functional Expedia search engine. By booking through the site, you could very well be helping me out and earning me a commission.
What else? Including this website, I currently have three self-hosted websites that provide lines of income through advertising. Partly to build backlinks for those sites, I write articles for numerous sites, including HubPages and InfoBarrel.
Also, my inventory of stock photography at Dreamstime is growing slowly. I am currently looking at other options to step up photography as a source of income.
Last, but not least, I buy and sell sports memorabilia (mostly hockey cards) on eBay. It’s a little too much like work but, despite eBay’s constant changes, it can still be profitable.
