Why I Quit

At the end of last year, I resigned from a 25 year career as an engineering professional.  There were many reasons why.  These are the reasons that are probably ubiquitous to every corporate slave.  I offer this to all those who are contemplating rising out of your cubicles and heading to the garden.

Too Much Debt:
In order to have a seat at the company table, I had to invest in it.  In order to do that, I had to be in debt.  All my life’s savings were tied up within company.  Both my sets of my grandparents had gotten through the Great Depression by avoiding debt before and after the cycle.  They lived off the land and weathered it out.  After land prices deflated to pennies, they culled their livestock and bought up land.  They lived long, happy lives.  Being in debt went against my grain to the core.  Inflation and housing price collapse was eating away at my equity.  A few years of 15% inflation would wipe my equity out.

Three month update:  Inflation, especially food inflation, is totally out of control with TPTB in denial of it all.  Anybody who shops for their own groceries knows this.  Maybe TPTB need to do their own shopping – no, ya can’t eat an ipad.

Timing:
My daughter is 11 years old.  Last year I travelled 32 weeks, 18 weeks the year before and 27 weeks the year before that.  She was growing up without me.  From when she was about 18 months old to 30 months old, I was on a project that required 16 hours a day/7 days a week.  I totally missed out on those years – 1^st words, 1^st steps….  I have heard it said that the 1^st 7 years of a girl’s life is for the mother, the 2^nd 7 years is for the father and the next 7 years are all for her.  I wanted to be around for those years.

Three month update:  Well, my daughter is glad to have me around.  We hang out a lot.  A week after I quit she asked, “So, when are you going to be gone for work again?”  I replied, “Well, I quit that job so I wouldn’t have to be gone again.”  I saw her eyes light up and the tension go out of her shoulders then she said, “Great!”  That was worth every penny of lost compensation…

Peak Complexity:
To survive, corporations are hiring more and more lawyers.  The lawyers are demanding more and more paperwork.  That paperwork is taking time away from managing the actual work.  As a result, projects are becoming more hazardous and less efficient therefore more expensive. Government employees are being pressured to take an ever-increasingly harder stance on twenty to thirty year old regulations. With exception of some relatively minor rule changes in accounting, air quality and water quality, the laws haven’t changed – the interpretation of the laws has changed.  Government intervention has become more about creating/maintaining jobs rather than protecting the public.  It was becoming extremely frustrating for me to know the consequences of this trend and how people would suffer in the end.   For my anti-industrial friends who are ecstatically applauding and encouraging this situation, I say start chopping wood because you will need it to stay warm.

Three month update:  Here is an example of what I’m talking about.  Recently I heard that OSHA is pressuring employers now to document “repetitive work injuries” to their employees on a daily basis.  So, if an employee comes to work and complains about sore muscles then that would be a documented reportable incident.  Then, the employer has to investigate it to determine if it is work related. Oh, what fun that would be. I had a repetitive work injury as a result of sitting at a desk, eating road food and constant stress.  I am glad someone tested Preparations A through G to find something that works for it.  Suppose I can still claim it as a disability?

Infinite growth with finite resources:
The company I worked for was following the infinite growth paradigm to the hilt. This company has weathered over a century of history of economic cycles.  It is run by a 50 something sociopathic nepocrat but in the shadows are a ½ dozen 80 something sociopaths/psychopaths with a huge stake.   I have no doubt that when the times come to cut out the infinite growth cancer – the culling process will as quick, clean and precise as Jason with a chainsaw in a dark room.

Three month update:  The company is still riding the wave of quantative easing.  They have plenty of work this year.  Next year ain’t looking too good.  I would guess that their slogan is “QE to Infinity and beyond!”

Snake Tank:
My wife came up with this metaphor to describe the social interaction with my peers, bosses and employees.  Imagine a pit of snakes: some big, some small, some smart, some vicious, some strong and some weak.  All of them are slithering around each other in constant fear of going hungry or being eaten. It fits perfectly.  You know those “Survivor” reality series shows.  The winners were not the best competitors or the best leaders – they were the best at conniving, scheming, gossiping and managing perceptions.  I couldn’t stand watching those shows – reminded me of company picnics.

Air Travel:
My home is in Wyoming.  When working away from home, I was flying to Denver, Edmonton, Calgary, St Louis and Houston.  Air travel has hit peak complexity as well.  Regulations made to keep people safe and healthy are being enforced while economic pressures are mounting.  Flights are cancelled and delayed with increasing frequency.  The interior of the planes were getting increasingly shoddier.  The airline staff members were getting increasingly more sharp and defensive – and incompetent.  Oh and let’s not leave out the TSA…

Big Brother:
The US is quickly falling into a totalitarian society straight out of Huxley and Orwell.   To me, the TSA is a scaled up version of the famous Stanford prison experiment where ordinary people were split up into prisoners and guards then asked to interact as such.  Eventually, ordinary people randomly chosen to be “guards” became vicious, strict and cruel.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment The psychological principles of disorientation, depersonalization and de-individualization are being applied little by little with each color coded alert.   For a while at airports, I was consistently being pulled aside for “random” checks.  Generally, I would go to the airport in whatever work clothes and boots I had on at the time.  My rollerbag had all the costuming I need for my destination so why not be comfortable?  So, why waste time changing?  Generally, I would ask questions throughout the process like “Why do I need to put my gooey stuff in a quart sized bag?  Why not a gallon sized bag?”   In the spirit of Carlos Castaneda, I decided to become someone else. I dressed in business casual, changed around my luggage arrangement and copied as best I could the mannerisms of the regular business travellers who generally acted pissed off, made no eye contact, walked through the processes like cows going to be milked and mumbled (moo’ed) a little here and there.  Guess what, no checks, in fact, they missed some big no-no’s I had on my person by mistake like two cans of PVC cement, a hacksaw and a multi-tool with a knife on it.  Now, does that make you feel safe?

The company I was working for was working on a big brother bender of its own. Complete with DNA samples, computer use monitoring, drug testing, background checks and GPS vehicle monitoring.  The incentive was to secure a bunch of high level government construction work.  They were spending huge amounts of money on these systems and way, way over budget – nearly double.  You see, the government was adding more requirements as it went along.  Why not?  It keeps the employment numbers up and the QE fodder moving.

This company had built itself from very modest beginnings with de-centralized, entrepreneurial, autonomous operations that had to stand alone financially.  Once the lure of all those freshly printed QE dollars started burning a hole in our government’s pockets, this company was falling in line with the whole militaristic, totalitarian paradigm – centralized, mechanized and proceduralized.  Any change in the order of things required a call to the boss, who called his boss, who called a lawyer or two and made a decision.    Precisely, the exact opposite of where a company needs to head to survive in this decade.

Change in values:
In the meantime, while mulling over the rips and tears in my golden parachute, how I valued money, status and prestige was changing.   Don’t be mistaken.  Quantative easing, higher taxes and bailouts is ALL about wealth distribution before the real impact of peak oil hits main street.  The message is loud and clear – “You, mainstreeters, are going to get nothing and you better like it.”

So, I asked myself, what do I value?  Health, being outdoors, clean air, clean water, my family, my rural community and the mountains.  Can I enjoy those without making a lot more money?  Yep.   The more I pushed for money, etc.; the further away I got from my true values.

Another value that changed was health care reforms.  For the past 10 years or so, I have been using mostly alternative methods to deal with my health problems.  Because, those methods worked and the conventional ones caused more problems.  Don’t get me wrong.  I owe my life to conventional medicine.  But, it has its limits.  We had this deal where we got lower insurance rates if we had a health assessment and talked to health coach.  Well, on my health assessment, my body mass weight ratio thingy was not in the right color band.  My cholesterol was too high.  I ate too much meat and eggs.   I’m a borderline diabetic – like Syndrome Z or something like that.

Now, in my own defense, at 46 yrs old, I work out daily when Im home – either in the yard or hiking in the mountains or at the judo dojo.  And, my Hodkin’s has been in remission for 20 years.  The high cholesterol runs in my family – along with cancer.  I am certain there is a link between these two factors.  I eat a low carb diet to keep my blood sugar and my weight down.   And, yes, I needed to drink less. (I am now that I quit.)  BTW if I were to eat the American Diabetes Association diet, I would be taking insulin twice a day.  I know – I’ve tried.  Insulin aint cheap.  The bouncing glucose numbers ain’t good in the long term.   I figured out once that I was saving around $450/month in prescriptions alone with diet, exercise, occasional homeopathic remedies and using meditation to treat asthma and chronic pain.

Then, the health coach calls.  She had a script of things I needed to do to get the lower rates.  Eat more salads.  Eat more grains and pastas.  Eat less meat.  Get more exercise.  Avoid alcohol.  Well, I lied and said I would do all of the above.  But, that didn’t set well with me.  The next time – my assessment was worse – more travel.  She suggested making salads in my hotel room to be eaten after an hour of aerobic work on the beat-to-shit treadmill in the tropical humidity of the Jacuzzi room.  At which point, I said “Dude, this ain’t worth my time – do what you have to do to my rates” and hung up.

Three month update:  My glucose is down to normal range.  I can eat more fruits and grains which my colon has thanked me for.  Ive lost 10 lb.  I haven’t checked my cholesterol – don’t really give a rat’s colon.  Using a Walgreens Prescription Club, my prescription costs are down to less than $24/month.  I can work or play all day like I did in my 20’s –  I don’t bounce back as fast.  Youth is wasted on the young.

Box to Box Living:
I was leaving my homestead, getting in a box, driving to an airport, getting into a flying box, getting into another box, driving to a big office box with smaller boxes called cubicles, working in a box, eating out of a box, driving to a hotel box, watching a box, working out in a box, sleeping in a box, and living around a bunch of people peddling boxes.   My whole life was about corners and boxes.   I was working to retire to a life with fewer corners.  More space.  More views.  Why wait?  Was I making a living or making a dying?

Three month update:  Im glad to be out of the boxes but still, sadly, need to be in and around boxes to feel comfortable.  I heard a story on the radio about a long term prison inmate that didn’t know how to be free when he got out.  Slowly, but surely I’m getting out of the box.

Those are the main reasons.  Yeah, there were some politics and personalities involved.  However, I had been dealing with them for 25 years – I could have delt with them another 25 years.   Facts are the faces and names have changed but those personalities and behaviors were always there.  Those personalities were easy to motivate and manage.  Just dangle another golden carrot in front of them.  Or, change their titles to something that sounded important – “Vice President of All That Is Technical and Onanistic.” a V.P.A.T.T.O.!  Give the naïve, ambitious, young up’n’cummers a big project.  When they screw up as they always do, you knock them down about 4 notches and hand it over to some other doe-eyed up’n’cummer who is more naïve of the rapidly approaching headlights. Fear of failure and love of creation – the cycle of corporate life.   In, out, repeat as necessary – in more ways than one.  Grease your tank tracks with their blood and bones.   I think every large corporation has some form of this.  All I know is that I had been done with it for about the last 10 years.  I didn’t care anymore.   I was just a fat happy snake in the tank content with my occasional mouse and a nap.

Since leaving, after working with people for 25 years, I got four emails and phone calls.  I guess maybe I was too fat and happy for them.  Or, maybe, they wanted that damn mouse. Or, maybe I was one less snake to slither around.  I don’t know.   Don’t really care either.  I see my bosses in a whole different light.  Their family relationships are just business relationships– no love.  Most will end in bitter divorce.  They are overweight, red faced from high blood pressure and alcohol.  To match their huge egos, they have huge amounts invested in the company.  They don’t have emotional integrity.  They are smoking their own crack.  The same crack they were brewing in their basements for years.   And, they were drinking the cult’s kool aid.  The same work-until-you-are-dead kool aid they have been killing people off over the years.  After years of controlling their emotions, they have forgotten what it is to be free.

Sad.

Since leaving, I have been getting up every morning to see the young one off to school.  I’m staying up late writing and blogging.  I’m replacing trim in the house.  I’m hauling in horse/cow manure from the neighbors for compost.  I volunteered to teach cross country skiing. I have been teaching taekwondo and judo.  I go to the rec center to work out occasionally with the wife.  I have a 10 day hut-to-hut backcountry skiing trip planned in a few days.   I had time to help an elderly couple change a tire on Christmas Eve night.

I have always wanted to work with Linux but never had the time. I played around with getting Linux up and running for about a week with an old Pentium desktop that was collecting dust in the basement.  It friggin’ rocks!   My weight is starting to come down with the added physical work.  My bones, joints and back hurt; but I’m sleeping lots better.  My dreams are more vivid and crazy.  I’m drinking less.  My blood sugar went down to normal levels within a week of quitting.

About three hours after giving notice, I called an old collegue of mine – my 1^st boss.  The next day he asked for a resume on behalf of the folks he now works for.  Various consultants I have worked with through the years have asked for resumes. I just got a new laptop and will be putting together a presentation for an international consulting group next month.

Mainly, I am just hanging out right now.  I’m debt free.  We just have food, taxes, utilities, fuel, chicken and dog feed expenses.  We are thinking about starting up a garden consulting business to leverage the greenhouse, tillers, tractor and knowledge around growing food.  Also, Im going to take some alternative energy classes to add value. We are investing in some solar panels and I might mess around with wind power on a limited basis.

Three month update:  I have been busy getting the homestead organized after 10 years of little bits of time here and there to get things done.  My investments are doing well.  On the hut backcountry ski trip, I had to emergency bivouac in a snow cave.  (An interesting change from living from box to box to box).   I have had to tone down my physical aspirations realizing that a 40something cannot act like a 20something without some time and conditioning.  My wife and I have had our moments.  It has taken awhile for her to get used to me being around more.  I interviewed for a job.  They want to hire me.  Their choices for me were: Calgary, Brisbane, Denver or put together a business development plan to promote their company in my area.  I considered all of the above and decided to stay.  They are looking at the business plan now.

For anyone contemplating leaving a good job…. First, you will know when it is time. Second, ask yourself whether it is love or fear that motivates you. Choose the love direction. Third, it was truly the hardest thing I have ever done.  But, it is the best thing I ever did.

Remember….It is just a ride….

Peak Oil Blues