10. 10 days. 10 business days, that is. 10 business days and I’ll no longer be employed by “the man” and will be a full-time writer and real estate broker. Yeeeeha.
It’s starting to get real. I’m thrilled, but I sense The Freak Out lurking in the dark corners of my brain. If you see me fleeing from nowhere and nothing, screaming, crying, and blabbering senselessly, don’t worry, it’ll pass.
27 business days it would have been, had they stuck to their original reduction-in-force (R.I.F.) schedule of Dec 16.
5 days it could have been, as they pushed the bulk of the R.I.F. up to Nov 11th to save money but then my date was extended to Nov 18 so I could hit a service milestone for the extra weeks of severance pay it brings.
14 days left if you count the weekends. It’s starting to get real. I’m thrilled, but I sense The Freak Out lurking in the dark corners of my brain. If you see me fleeing from nowhere and nothing, screaming, crying, and blabbering senselessly, don’t worry, it’ll pass.
14 years to the day with the same company. Well, 15-1/2 if you count the 1-1/2 years I spent there as a contractor first. All told, 2-1/2 years as a software tester then the remaining 11-1/2 as a developer. That last decade+ I worked on the same applications. The same things that whole time. The. Same. Things.
19 years in the Information Technology world.
13 years before that in the Veterinary Technician world.
I’m good at what I do now but I was an accidental geek. The geek skin never really fit. The writer has always lurked inside.
27.7 years in the writing world is what I predict based on the above pattern. That’d put me at 78.2 years of age when it’s time to move on, what career will be next then?
2 foci for me going forward: writing first and foremost, next comes real-estate-brokering–riding–jeeping–dogging–wife-ing–friending–forever-studenting–and–lyfting (listed in no particular order.)
14-18 months of a full-time writing hiatus possible, depending on how long the severance pay lasts and/or supplementary income, well, supplements that, and/or whether or not unexpected expenses suck the well dry. Then I might have to “leave the guest room and go back to The Firm”, but I plan to avoid IT at that point if possible. Plus, I think it would be harder to transition back into the geek role after flexing the creative side of the brain than it will be to go from geek to writer. I’m good at what I do now but I was an accidental geek. The geek skin never really fit. The writer has always lurked inside.
1 very excited person!