61–70 of 320 posts
If you have skills, a good resume, and know how to market yourself you should be able to land on your feet.
I've done this 3 times in my 8 year career so far. I pretty much leave every job this way. I like to take a few months between jobs to do my own thing and take a break. If you are financially stable enough and are in a spot in your career where you don't think you'll need to worry about getting another job too much. DO IT. Looking back at the last 8 years, those periods off are the periods I remember the most. One ti…
1.5 years later I joined a startup, with 3 other ambitious guys which was super successful. The first years was really a lot of fun and work. But over time that changed. Now I have left that startup and I am planning on building another one, just need to find the right ambitious people with a good and realistic business plan.
1. Have savings 2. Have your resume always up to date 3. Have a network of people who can hook you up 4. Take a deep breath, commit to leaving but do it on YOUR schedule - quitting on the spot is emotional, not rational - avoid doing that if you can. Back in the day I learned something that my employer was doing that I knew I could not abide by. I did #4 but I had #1, #2 and #3. Within a month I had a job offer and s…
I always hear have your resume up to date, how hard can it be to update your resume ? It can’t possibly take more than an hour or two?
I quit just last week. Saved up 10 years worth of salaries. Currently on the doing nothing stage. Doing more sports, running/cycling everyday, taking my time to cook, more time for kids, so far so good, i have no plans for the future, whatever happens happens. Previously i was working 15 hours a day, i did like my job but was impacting my health severely.
But I always got better job next time, because when I was unemployed, I learned lots of new things in webdevelopment and app development.
That was a spectacular failure where I realized that most of my mental models were either explicitly broken or the Fischer Price version of the actual model. I learned an outrageous amount. By the end I was glad I did it and wondered if I would do it again.
I found it easy to get a new job. Quitting and working on my own project was probably the best career move that I had made up to that point.
I took the next job and realized that I no longer enjoyed working for other people. I had seen too much. Office politics now seemed extra goofy too. It's just hard to take seriously.
So I reloaded my savings and then after a while quit again and I'm back to working on my own projects.
I learned a lot since last time but I'm sure I still have a lot to learn. Learning has always been the fun part for me. This time rather than working on just one thing I wanted to experiment with a bunch of different projects which is proving to be fun and already yielding more traction.
I'll tell you what the not fun part of the whole thing is, part of this is just the part of the world I live in and people I hang out with. People hate it! Boy do they hate it. Did you remember the part in pulp fiction where Jules is telling Vincent "I'm just gonna walk the earth, like Caine" and Vincent is going "No, Jules you're gonna be a god damn bum". Most conversations I have seem to have that undertone.
Not having a boss, especially before you reach success seems to make people really uncomfortable and sometimes upset. On the other hand not everyone reacts that way and I feel like it can shine a light on who your best friends are so thats cool.
It's a weird path, but I've enjoyed it quite a lot so far. I'm also sort of a weird person so I don't think it would work for everyone. I don't have any kids. I'm not really into material things so my expenses are extremely low. I usually work for longer than this but I've done the math and I'm pretty sure I could cover 1 year of expenses with 1 month of work. It's a good ratio.
I've also thought about doing this in SEA or Eastern Europe to cut expenses more. The idea of being a "digital nomad" (if thats what they still call it) seems super fun.
1. Early mornings and late nights ----- I really thought I would be able to unwind and relax but I guess that is just not my nature. I still find it very difficult to turn off, the stresses and thoughts that used to center around my job gone but new ones have replaced them. Eg. Current ones are based on inflation and my savings burn rates, investment bubbles and on and on.
2. Loneliness ----- I really do miss having those daily interactions with coworkers, even the "useless" meetings. Things may be different now as I left long before Covid so it could be that those interactions are gone forever.
3. Weight Gain ----- Correlation isn't causation and it is also likely as much to do with my aging as not having a job, but not being on a daily schedule has contributed to the extra weight I am carrying.
4. Stigma from financial and services institutions ----- This one might be more of a personal perception but when starting relationships with banks, investment firms and even utility providers there are always questions regarding employment. I have a very healthy bank account but still feel it is more difficult to get a credit card for example without filling out the employer section.
Anyways I don't want to stomp on anyone's dreams here, I just wanted to share a few things I found through personal experience. I am still content with my decision and the good outweighs the bad.