My story
In 2014, I was still an employee. (That’s me in the pic. Check out my awesome employee costume!)
A combination of timing and luck landed dream job at one of the top companies for my career path (creative software).
I was working for Adobe in a top level enterprise support role for their digital publishing suite.
It felt like being on top of my world!
My career began with Apple, first in sales, then teaching Logic Pro and Adobe Creative Suite workshops.
I spent about 3 years teaching at the Apple store as a Creative. It was a blast, and the skills I learned teaching software came into play big time later.
One of my customers at Apple recruited me to JCPenny’s marketing department, where I spent almost 4 years supporting Adobe InDesign, and supporting their Apple-centric marketing and creative users.
So when Adobe hired me in 2011 and I moved to Seattle, my thoughts were “This is it! I’ve finally made it to my forever gig”.
I was making a decent salary of 80k, around 1/3 more than JCPenny was paying me, and I was likely to see it increase handsomely in a few years.
I was also running an online rare bookstore which brought in around 20k per year.
A long commute didn’t bother me. I loved listening to music on the drive, and seeing the beautiful rolling mountain / ocean scenery of Puget Sound.
For three years, I was part of an on-call rotation, and being on call meant we would be working, usually until 11PM or later. We always had calls. There was no maybe. We were covering a gap in support time and had to support EMEA customers during evening hours.
Myself and my three teammates enjoyed two weeks paid vacation per year, and every other year, we could schedule a sabbatical for a month.
When it was time to my sabbatical, I tried to schedule it, but was told it would conflict with a launch that was happening and was asked to wait. It was never a good time to take it, so I assumed I would just take it the next year. When I asked the following year, it was denied. I would have to wait until the next year.
Why?
They asked us to start training a team in Noida India, so they could take over our on call hours. So at first, I was happy about this.
Then reality set in.
My supervisor called me into her office, and I was laid off.
I was encouraged to apply internally and were assured other positions would likely hire me fast.
Instead of looking for other positions, I took inventory of my life.
I wanted to move to Washington state to enjoy the Pacific Northwest.
I love the outdoors. My real reason for moving wasn’t work.
I had just assumed that having a great job meant being able to explore cool places.
I was able to do weekend things, and for two weeks a year, actually enjoy the outdoors.
The problem was…. I wanted to enjoy the outdoors all the time.
I wasn’t satisfied with two weeks per year, having to ask permission, maybe being in conflict with another, etc
I was tired of the social currency in software being who lost the most sleep on their project.
Moving up probably meant more hours, less freedom, ever increasing load.
And, I was one of the first to “quiet quit”.
Before it was cool.
I didn’t realize it at the time — but yeah, the burnout was creating a lack of desire in me.
I was not a very good employee anymore.
Me staying wasn’t doing them any favors, nor me.
It was 2015, and cannabis was just legalized in my state a couple years prior.
My friend from Texas moved up with his family and we plotted a way to break ourselves into that industry.
Due to the right combination of hardship and opportunity, I ended up launching a tools company that took off and Ive been self employed ever since.
Owning your own business can be serious work. It certainly wasn’t as much free time as I wanted, at first. But it always takes a bit of grit and time to build anything good.
I set my eyes to automation, and haven’t looked back.
I am now only working around 2–4 hours per week on my 3D printing niche, which frees up my time to build other income streams.
I also have much more free time to enjoy hiking, fishing, camping, and not being worried about making ends meet.
No longer do I need to ask permission to take time off.
Welcome to my adventure!
If I did this, so can you!
Thank you for reading!
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Until next time….
Onward and Upward Everybody!
-Chris
