I can not believe the changes in my life this past month. I still can't believe it's been a little more than a month since I quit my day job.
I'm sitting in a stylish little flat in Limassol, Cyprus watching a cruise ship move slowly into port. It's 5:00 AM. Last weekend my team won the Startup New Jersey competition. Before that, I spent two weeks working in one of the richest neighborhoods in the country. I made a fool of myself on the dance floor Sunday night and I didn't care. In a couple of weeks, I'm swinging through London, Paris and Amsterdam where I'm going to hang with some cyber-friends. Then...?
Thirty-odd days ago, I was living in a cubicle in corporate America as a code monkey: fixing other people's bugs, guessing what this ticket was referring to, and laughing along with my fellow co-worker's gallows humor. It really was one of those positions you read about and can't quite believe true; the protagonist has a well-paying, easy, corporate job, a comfortable life with good friends, and yet is miserable. But true it was.
New management came in about two years ago and, as new management is wont to do, implemented many changes. I was going to continue going along for the ride (easy corporate job, comfortable life, yada yada yada) but then my manager announced he was quitting after 18 years with the company. Not to greener pastures, just leaving. That was the wake-up call I needed. While I liked my co-workers and being in the office, if things were bad enough for him to leave, it was bad enough for me as well.
Serendipity is a real thing. Just as I started to get my resume together, update my LinkedIn profile, and started networking, a colleague that I haven't talked to in years got a hold of me; he just happened to need my expertise on a contract he was working on and wanted to know if I was available. And here I am.
The sun is coming up. Time for a walk on the beach.
I'm sitting in a stylish little flat in Limassol, Cyprus watching a cruise ship move slowly into port. It's 5:00 AM. Last weekend my team won the Startup New Jersey competition. Before that, I spent two weeks working in one of the richest neighborhoods in the country. I made a fool of myself on the dance floor Sunday night and I didn't care. In a couple of weeks, I'm swinging through London, Paris and Amsterdam where I'm going to hang with some cyber-friends. Then...?
Thirty-odd days ago, I was living in a cubicle in corporate America as a code monkey: fixing other people's bugs, guessing what this ticket was referring to, and laughing along with my fellow co-worker's gallows humor. It really was one of those positions you read about and can't quite believe true; the protagonist has a well-paying, easy, corporate job, a comfortable life with good friends, and yet is miserable. But true it was.
New management came in about two years ago and, as new management is wont to do, implemented many changes. I was going to continue going along for the ride (easy corporate job, comfortable life, yada yada yada) but then my manager announced he was quitting after 18 years with the company. Not to greener pastures, just leaving. That was the wake-up call I needed. While I liked my co-workers and being in the office, if things were bad enough for him to leave, it was bad enough for me as well.
Serendipity is a real thing. Just as I started to get my resume together, update my LinkedIn profile, and started networking, a colleague that I haven't talked to in years got a hold of me; he just happened to need my expertise on a contract he was working on and wanted to know if I was available. And here I am.
The sun is coming up. Time for a walk on the beach.
No comments:
Post a Comment