Living the Dream?

I must admit to being a bit of a hypocrite lately.   My absence from blogging has been the result of having too much going on.  In the past few years, I have moved slowly away from my objective of living small, swayed by the comfort of a growing salary and the obsession of amassing as much investment income as possible.  My house has been neglected, my health and my husband's health have suffered, and I've rationalized it all with the thought that "Of course what you do is hard, that's why they pay you so much money."  The other truth is that I've gotten careless with spending that money because I had more of it than I ever had before.  Luckily, I have come to my senses and have been gifted with an opportunity to jump off the corporate merry-go-round, and get back the the place where I had originally planned to be in my mid-fifties.


Last winter was very difficult for me because I accepted a job in 2016 that required a tremendous amount of work with very little preparation.  As a result, I over-worked myself into a serious enough repetitive stress injury that I had to go on disability.  My employer insisted I go out on Workers Comp, but then the carrier refused to pay so litigation was required.  It was stressful, but I prevailed -- although my employer could have insisted the insurer pay, they declined to assist.


Once back at work, I assembled a respectable book of business and serviced it very effectively.  I still had a lot to learn and there was a lot of stress because the gaps between what our product could provide and what the client needed were often at odds.  Despite the challenges, I created sound alliances and have had good success.  Some serious bombs were dropped that resulted an account or two being at risk -- but I managed to salvage relationships and do what needed to be done.  The problem I faced was that most of what I had to do was much more difficult than it needed to be due to the massive size of what my employer delivers.  In spite of a lot of overtime that is required for a third of the year, there is also the expectation that we won't take time off, we will monitor our emails at night and on weekends, and that we are to bring our laptops home and on vacation.

Having experienced a measure of success and seeing what it entails, and how that will encroach more with time on account of being awarded larger clients, I am tossing it all aside.  It's not a small life, and it's not the life I want to live. So on Monday I gave my notice and soon I will be semi-retired.

A good friend has a need of someone with a sound work-ethic and general business experience to handle the operations end of her growing start-up.  I look forward to getting back into the world of small business, where each day is not a series of triage efforts fraught with tension and anxiety, where I work with people I really know.  I'll be working 24 hours per week and earning a nice wage.  Less per hour than my salary had broken down to in the corporate world.  But then again, my salary wasn't that great given all of the obligatory over-time.  We can get benefits from The Big Guy's company.  I will have time each day to pick up clutter, cook a healthy meal and get some exercise for me and the dog.  While I work more at home, TBG can exercise and relax more when he gets home.  We both win.


I am looking forward to re-dedicating my life to the basics.  With any luck, I'll have more interesting things going on again and have material to post about.  It may take me a few weeks, but I promise, I'm coming back!