I have always thought of myself as an entreprenuerial individualistic person that danced to the beat of a different drummer and heeded no authority. Well here I am 34 years old and sitting squarely in a middle management job. I have made several feeble attmepts to start businesses but my heart has never really been fully into the task. I have fabricated reasons not to take massive action and to be totally honest I have just been plain lazy. After a long day at work a couple hours in front of the TV is a welcome escape from the monotony of the rat race.
I haven’t always been like this and the truth is that I really am not like this. I have travelled the world, gotten an education, married my highschool sweetheart, raised beautiful children and had adventurous jobs. I was the envy of many of freinds and I had the big house on the block. I had a low stress job that gave me lots of time off and paid surprisingly well. The job even offered a fair amount of time to work on my personal businesses while I was at work. Like they say, you never know what you have until its gone. The only problem is that I did know what I had and I also knew I was wasting it. The ultimate temtation showed up in the form of a promotion. I think back on the quote now, “work a tireless 8 hours per day in an effort to get a promotion and be the boss so you can work a tireless 12 hours per day.” I took the bait.
All is not lost, I had a pretty good idea when I signed the contract that I was signing an agreement that would confirm all of my beliefs about working a middle managment corporate job. The job itself has been a great learning experience and a brutal awakeining. I want to get the EFF out of here and really put my skills to work. This is motivation, the only thing that could be more motivational is a pink slip.
I was recently listening to a podcast where the host said something to the effect that he feels truely sorry for the poor chumps that are stuck in middle management jobs. His take was that the poor shlubs in middle managemnt are basically screwed. Most are so far in there is no return, they are established with familes, balooning dept, lack of sleep and just plain terrified that if they step out of line for a second it could all come crashing down. The chilling thought that entered my head was that I had gotten so close to that precipice that I almost took a nose dive over the edge, never to return.
So much for that bad dream. I am digging in my heals and planning to prove that nightmare wrong. My highschool sweetheart and I will triumph, we will work like no others so we can eventually live like no others. We will baseline until it hurts and if we have to eat Ramen and live in a basement until we are successfull we will do it.
Life is too short to be marginalized and there is too much opportunity out there to work a job you hate.