Leap Before You Look - Part 2
[This is part two of a two-part story about how I quit first and got a job second. Here’s part one.]
When I left the story, I’d just volunteered to get fired from my job (without having another job lined up) in exchange for an incentive. I realize at this point I didn’t give any context to what that incentive was. In exchange for quitting and signing a waiver, I got three months of salary as severance along with company-paid medical for three months.
The master plan
Here was the plan.
The company mandated that, once you volunteered, you had to be off their payroll in about two months. That meant I had two months of getting paid and working while I looked for new employment. After that, I’d be out a job, but I’d get paid for another three months. We figured I could certainly find a good job in four months or so. If it stretched beyond that, we had a decent amount of money in savings and investments. Plus, my wife was supposed to return to work around that time after having our baby. (As it happened, I didn’t get the severance check for a full month after I stopped working. Good thing we didn’t need that money to, say, pay the bills!)
The job search and the perfect job
This story isn’t really about how I found another job, so I’ll keep this part short. In the span of a few weeks, I had several phone interviews and some in-person interviews. I was lucky enough that they were kind of clustered around the same time. Of the three in-person interviews, one place flaked out, one place turned me down for lack of experience, and the third offered me the job.
The job I was offered was the one I really was hoping to get. It is exactly what I wanted to do. Moreover, and more importantly, it is work I’m really good at. And it came with a sweet perq - I work from a home office.
Now let me tell you right now that working from home is absolutely, positively, one hundred percent as awesome as you dream about. I am way productive because I don’t have people bugging me all the time. My commute time is five seconds. I get to wear shorts and a t-shirt. Yeah, it’s good.
Funny thing is, that’s not even the best part. I absolutely love my job. I seriously can’t believe it. You know how, every once in a great while, you’ll talk to someone who says they love their job? I never believed them. Never. But I’m here to tell you, it is possible. You can actually love your job. I’ve seen the other side.
Is there a point to this story?
Well, yeah, there is. My point is that you can take a chance and sometimes it will all work out. It won’t always work out like you want. It won’t even work out like you want very often. But every once in a while…
I’m not saying to do what I did and quit before you have a job. I’m saying be courageous. Have faith. Do not be miserable. If you don’t like your situation - change it! You do not want to look back on your life and wonder what might have been “if only.”
April 15th, 2008 at 11:59 am
April 17th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
If you like working at home, you must not have young kids. With a 5-year-old, it’s a lot easier for me to go to the office. Thanks for sharing your story. With so much negative in the world, it’s nice to hear something positive.
May 10th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Congrats on finding such a great position. I just read both posts… I think it took a lot of nerve to do this. It was definitely a calculated risk, but one that turned out very well. I just resigned from my position, although I had another lined up. I was in the same position as you - I didn’t much care for my work, and I was getting in a dangerous place to be. Again, congrats on your new line of work!