Eight Years Wasted
I lost my job a few weeks ago. First time in my life that's ever happened.
Looking back on it, despite some good times in the earlier days, that job was a nearly complete waste of eight years of my life. My salary increased an average of less than 1% per year since I started there. It was costing me over $150 per week commuting into Boston every day. I billed over 1,700 hours in FY 2009, and I got skunked on my bonus. Again. My severance package? Five frickin' weeks. I should have left years ago, and the only thing that kept me there was my friend/mentor who I've known for 23 years.
Honestly, I felt relieved. Joyful even. It was to the point where I hated getting up in the morning and dragging myself into the office. I couldn't stand most of the management team, the endless meetings, the mind-numbing processes for process sake, the command-and-control micromanagement mentality, the utter and complete lack of any sort of entrepreneurial spirit. It morphed into a completely different company than the one I joined back in 2002.
What did I do on the afternoon that I was laid off? I walked out of the door and not into a bar, but down the street and across the Charles River to MIT where I sat in on a MIT/Sloan School course on writing business plans.
About this time last year, things really started to slow down, and because I had just finished a large project, my billable hours dropped to about half of what they historically had been. At that time, I approached management with an idea that I had hatched back in grad school. It was an innovative green energy technology that was now being used in Sweden, where I was born. It had the promise to keep a lot of our under-utilized environmental scientists busy - ready made for the skill set that many of our employees already had. I had done my research, made some connections, and had an invitation from the leading US expert in this technology to meet him in New Jersey where he would give me a tour of the only facility in the US that is currently using this technology. Excited and energized, and passionate about the opportunity to actually save clients money in their energy costs rather than rack up billable hours on mundane compliance work, I approached the office manager and told him what I was up to and asked him to sign off on a one-day non-billable trip to NJ, plus travel. Our "improved" management system now requires written approval from the office manager for any non-billable expenditure over $50
. He turned me down, staing that he thought it might take years to book a sale using this technology, and he needed short-term results.
That's when I realized that this was a dead-end job and that it was finally time for me, at the age of 48, to start my own business. I've been working my ass off this past year holding down my full-time job and setting up my new business after hours. I set up an LLC. Raided the retirement fund. Took some vacation time and got some training. Spent countless hours reading and learning everything I could. Had a logo designed, business cards made up, bought some office equipment and remodeled my home office. Took more time off and sent myself to a conference in Sweden where I learned as much as I could and met the world leaders and practitioners of this technology. Established teaming arrangements with the industry leaders for projects I intend to win in the US. Designed and tweaked a web site. Started making calls and meeting policy makers and potential clients in my off time. Authored papers and gave presentations. Planted the seeds of commerce.
I can't help but be nervous about my financial situation and my future. I have a kid in college and two more in the que. Fortunately my wife has a good-paying job as an RN and she will be picking up more shifts. But I know I can do this, and that I will be successful. It's just a matter of continuing to plant those seeds and waiting for them to sprout.
I honestly feel I will look back on this time as the most important change of my life - when I really began my new career and started on the path to true success. It's going to be a wild ride.
I lost my job a few weeks ago. First time in my life that's ever happened.
Looking back on it, despite some good times in the earlier days, that job was a nearly complete waste of eight years of my life. My salary increased an average of less than 1% per year since I started there. It was costing me over $150 per week commuting into Boston every day. I billed over 1,700 hours in FY 2009, and I got skunked on my bonus. Again. My severance package? Five frickin' weeks. I should have left years ago, and the only thing that kept me there was my friend/mentor who I've known for 23 years.
Honestly, I felt relieved. Joyful even. It was to the point where I hated getting up in the morning and dragging myself into the office. I couldn't stand most of the management team, the endless meetings, the mind-numbing processes for process sake, the command-and-control micromanagement mentality, the utter and complete lack of any sort of entrepreneurial spirit. It morphed into a completely different company than the one I joined back in 2002.
What did I do on the afternoon that I was laid off? I walked out of the door and not into a bar, but down the street and across the Charles River to MIT where I sat in on a MIT/Sloan School course on writing business plans.
About this time last year, things really started to slow down, and because I had just finished a large project, my billable hours dropped to about half of what they historically had been. At that time, I approached management with an idea that I had hatched back in grad school. It was an innovative green energy technology that was now being used in Sweden, where I was born. It had the promise to keep a lot of our under-utilized environmental scientists busy - ready made for the skill set that many of our employees already had. I had done my research, made some connections, and had an invitation from the leading US expert in this technology to meet him in New Jersey where he would give me a tour of the only facility in the US that is currently using this technology. Excited and energized, and passionate about the opportunity to actually save clients money in their energy costs rather than rack up billable hours on mundane compliance work, I approached the office manager and told him what I was up to and asked him to sign off on a one-day non-billable trip to NJ, plus travel. Our "improved" management system now requires written approval from the office manager for any non-billable expenditure over $50
. He turned me down, staing that he thought it might take years to book a sale using this technology, and he needed short-term results.That's when I realized that this was a dead-end job and that it was finally time for me, at the age of 48, to start my own business. I've been working my ass off this past year holding down my full-time job and setting up my new business after hours. I set up an LLC. Raided the retirement fund. Took some vacation time and got some training. Spent countless hours reading and learning everything I could. Had a logo designed, business cards made up, bought some office equipment and remodeled my home office. Took more time off and sent myself to a conference in Sweden where I learned as much as I could and met the world leaders and practitioners of this technology. Established teaming arrangements with the industry leaders for projects I intend to win in the US. Designed and tweaked a web site. Started making calls and meeting policy makers and potential clients in my off time. Authored papers and gave presentations. Planted the seeds of commerce.
I can't help but be nervous about my financial situation and my future. I have a kid in college and two more in the que. Fortunately my wife has a good-paying job as an RN and she will be picking up more shifts. But I know I can do this, and that I will be successful. It's just a matter of continuing to plant those seeds and waiting for them to sprout.
I honestly feel I will look back on this time as the most important change of my life - when I really began my new career and started on the path to true success. It's going to be a wild ride.
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. A Batelle Northwest Labs study found that the US could reduce its total energy consumption by 7% using seasonal thermal energy storage, yet we haven’t even started doing it. 
