For the first entry in my translation business blog, I thought that I'd put together an outline of the course of events that led up to my decision to embark on this whole adventure. Some of this is taken from emails I sent to friends and family while I was mulling the whole thing over in my mind.
Mid-August, 2003:
Things had gotten progressively worse where I was working, since the new management took over. I found myself in toxic moods every Sunday as the prospect of returning to work loomed over me. I realized that I did not care about my work anymore. This was not always the case – when I was translating, I did take pride in the work I did. But as a Project Manager, I couldn't care less about the reports I typed up for other people or the spreadsheets I scrounged together from random data for projects I knew little about overall.
At the same time, my workload at home with my part-time, private translations had been out of control compared with the last year. In 2002 I did a total of 21 translation jobs for 3 clients. As of August 2003, I had 61 translation jobs either completed or in progress, for 6 clients. My average income per job was far below the year previous, but the workload increased dramatically and my client base expanded, virtually on its own.
At some point on a Friday, I foundd myself sitting behind my desk, shifting uncomfortably in clothes that have never felt like they fit, and staring with absolute despair at the work in front of me. It seemed like all I did all week was pour coffee, stir coffee, drink coffee, talk about coffee. I was angry at myself for having lost my desire to rise above the status quo despite the bad morale, but I was also angry at my company for not caring about the loss of my desire.
The point, though, is that my mind, when not on coffee, was on the work that I could be doing at home. On the ideas I had for expanding my business. On the overwhelming number of people who already freelance full-time. And on the fact that here I was, twenty-five freaking years old and already a miserable corporate slave.
This, I decided, simply could not go on.
Later in August, 2003:
After laying my cards on the table with the VP and explaining that I wanted to make a go of it on my own, at least part-time, I was thrown a curve.
What happened was that the Vice President returned from a trip and offered me a new job.
He took me outside so he could have a smoke and then passed me the news in a rather nonchalant manner. “It’s just something to think about,” he said, “before you make any decisions.”
A vision of Odysseus strapped to the mast of his ship with wax in his ears, sailing past the sirens immediately popped into my head.
The sirens in this case were a job offer, whose song went something like this: pay increase, travel opportunities, extensive technical training opportunities, paid visits to company headquarters in Germany, cell phone, paid travel expenses, new title, status change. Perks a'plenty.
I discussed the matter with several people experienced in these sorts of situations, and the one thing almost all of them told me was that one should be extremely cautious about accepting an offer from a company one is trying to leave.
I decided to wait for a written offer before I made up my mind.
Early September, 2003:
My wife and I went away for a long weekend. Sarah and I drove to Portsmouth, New Hampshire and took a ferry out to the Isles of Shoals to visit her brother Jordan, who works on Star Island at a conference center. We spent a fabulous weekend in the middle of the ocean relaxing, exercising, catching up and hearing ghost and pirate stories.
I didn’t ponder the decision I had to make. It was never at the forefront of my brain. As is often the case when my brain decides something without my permission, the issue had already been resolved by my subconscious. My brain was just waiting for me to realize it.
The whole time I was on the island, the most obvious way that the issue rose to my conscious mind was to think, “I could be working right now. On an island, in the middle of the ocean, I could be working and supporting myself. In an Adirondack chair overlooking the Atlantic, I could be working. On a rocking chair on a deck with a view of an island where Captain Kidd reportedly buried some gold, I could be working.”
Eventually I found myself writing a list of all of the things I have to do after I quit my job. It’s a very long list.
It was not an “IF I quit my job” list. It was a “WHEN I quit my job list.”
At that point I realized that I had little choice. The decision was made.
A final, convincing stroke came in the fact that I never got a written offer. I was supposed to receive it on a Wednesday. There was nothing by that Friday. The VP promised to discuss it with the CEO while they were traveling together that weekend. That didn’t happen either.
So that was that. I handed in a letter of resignation. I also wrote a proposal for an extended agreement with my former employer. I was not going to burn bridges. I was going to build some of my own.
I knew I might be short on money for a while. But a wise friend told me “You cannot put a monetary value on Independence – freedom has no price tag. Freedom is the end goal.”
Another friend told me, “Potential poverty and insecurity are always better than having your spirit enslaved.” A wise woman once told me, “if you don't take
a chance when offered , you won't get anywhere.” These are true words.
By mid-September I was gone, and my new career had been launched.