Granola gives you wings

At two fifty something in the afternoon I ate a granola bar. I was starving. Must have been the nerves.

Earlier that day, a calendar event was sent to me for eleven am with the controller and the CFO, to discuss the upcoming filing. Perfect, I could tell them both right then and there that I was leaving. Ten fifty seven came and I saw the CFO getting ready to head to the meeting. I too went back to my desk to go to the meeting, but no notification had popped up on my screen, because I had no meeting to attend. The meeting was a week away. Those guys went into a different meeting for a couple hours, with a handful of other people, and I wasn't invited, and even if I was invited, it would not have been a good meeting to quit at anyway.

I sat and kept working on the important document for the first quarter. Its a little extra work to roll the document forward from one year to the next. I spend a couple hours working on the document and the bosses come back out of the meeting.

I'd been short the past couple days whenever the controller would imply that I would be given a new task here or a new responsibility there. I knew I was a short timer but hadn't found the right time to tell them. Plus, I was greedy and wanted my last paycheck or two, to begin my life of financial independence of an employer. The readers will correctly point out that the first step to financial independence is to have no money. I don't disagree, but greed is natural, and I felt some of it. Every two weeks, I'm given enough money to last me 4 months of normal recurring expenses, most of which is the last $3,000 I owe on the luxurious motorcycle that sits in the garage. After that, I pay $135 a month in student loan servicing (2% interest), $160 per month for the housekeeper, $100 a month for the smartphone, $50 per month on a $2700 credit card balance with 3% interest that I don't see a real point in prepaying, and $6 per month for the weekend newspaper, which I primarily get for the sports photography and comics page. The ridiculousness of all of this aside, I intentionally timed my departure to maximize a certain financial windfall relative to my recurring costs.

This moment had weighed on me for several months now. When Dawson came on November 2, instead of December 14, we knew that raising him wouldn't be as we expected. He's a normal baby, but it doesn't feel right to put him into daycare when we are perfectly able to care for him. Carolyn is the breadwinner of our household anyway, and has been assured another promotion at her job. We don't need two incomes, and our kid doesn't need to spend eight hours a day being pacified by too-loud classical music in a metal cage.

The moment has caused a knot in my stomach, which I attempted to remedy by eating a crunchy granola bar. With the un-chewed crumbs still in my mouth, I walked into the controllers office and shut the door behind me. I asked him if he had a minute.

"I'm leaving the company. I know it seems like a terrible time, but there is no perfect time"

"I'm doing the talking now"

"You can let me go today, tell me to pack my bags if you want, but here is what I am offering"

"I'll work through April 13th. I'll get my tasks done as they relate to this upcoming filing"

"After that, for a certain amount of time, I'll make myself available on a contract basis"

"You pay me plenty for what I do; you can't possibly compensate me for the things I don't get to do"

"This has been a tough decision. I come to work dreading this conversation, and I dread going home to Carolyn who is expecting me to have this conversation"

"You are either leaving the company high and dry, or you're leaving the family high and dry"

"I'll be shooting opening day"

"I'm good at accounting. I'm OK. But I'd be better at something else. I was a bike mechanic. I'm a photographer. I have a lot of energy. I am not an accountant."

"I'll do better at something I am more passionate about."

The conversation went fine. The job will be posted on the company intranet. The controller told me he hopes that he himself gets to work for himself someday. He'll have a better resume when he does.

I dream of a day this summer where dawson and I go around looking for cool looking stuff to, you know, look at.