It was July 1999. I scheduled a meeting with my boss, in the calculator division of Texas Instruments. When I arrived, he was already there, with a stack of papers and looking through them, barely even noticing me. He had no idea what I wanted to talk about. With shaking hands and shaking voice I told him I was quitting to try my hand at my own business. Why was I so nervous? My job was a dream job. I was required to AT LEAST go to one conference a year on math or cryptology. I was essentially self directed (he was a VP and had so many responsibilities, that I was not even on his radar.) I was responsible for algorithms on the calculators. Both coming up with new ones, and explaining the old ones. (Algorithms are my life, even now.) I was paid very well.
I mentioned Paul Terhorst in a previous post. He was a partner in what is now KPMG Peat Marwick. He became physically ill after he quit. Even though he did the calculations a hundred times and knew he had enough money, he was hunched over the toilet the week after he quit. There’s something about abandoning a dream job that scares the bajeesus out of you.
My new business, which I started in 1997 had been (very) gradually turning profitable, and was making a grand total of $2000/mo (before paying the owner!) when I quit. This was a drastic cut in pay for me. Basically, the business needed 100% of my attention and I had to take the risk to get it to the next level. In a sense, it was a once in a lifetime gamble.
Heather had driven me to work that day, and Quentin had come into the building to “help” me pack up. It was the first and only time Quentin got to see my office (5th floor window seat, which is unusual for an engineer). I can remember Heather driving me home. I was floating on air. It was an exact replica of the “last day at school” feeling. No more responsibilities!!! Well, at least no more responsibilities to other people!
What do I remember about the days that followed? Well, for starters, I LIKED! going grocery shopping and running errands. It sounds corny, but being able to head out and take care of personal business anytime you feel like it, is heady.
I noticed the absence of a very small level of stress, that apparently had been present the entire time I was working. This is the stress of “performing.” In other words, the stress of proving that you deserve the pay you are getting. I did not know about that, until I got out from under it.
Did I watch a lot of TV? Actually, yes. As I recall, I was vegging out big time. And that phase lasted for a couple of years! I also worked, of course, but I did it at nonconventional times, and in nonconventional clothing (ie, pajamas). I did not work as much as I had been on weekends, with my regular job. Getting out from under the structure of conventional employment basically launched me into a very nonproductive time.
The rest of the story? The $2K/mo I was making didn’t really increase much. In fact it stayed level for pretty much a year and a half! But I had an ace in the hole…a big savings account. I essentially supplemented my income with savings. And right when the dot com boom started imploding in 2000, my business started taking off. Weird but true.
These days I don’t watch much TV, and dress fairly normally. If you consider shorts and sandals normal.(grin)
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