January 15, 2006 – Quitting Job?

Originally posted on LiveJournal.

So about that ‘life changing decision’ I mentioned. I’ve been thinking about quitting my job (or taking a very long leave). This has been on my mind for quite a few months — since August. When I went back to work after my mom died things there returned to normal fast. I like the people there, I learn a lot, I have a lot of time to work on projects I enjoy at my own pace, and I’m paid well — and yet I’m considering leaving. Why? Well there are a few completely unrelated reasons. I’d really like to get everything in St. Pete finished up in a hurry. There’s still so much to do! I’d love to spend some time fixing up the house, dealing with tenants, selling/giving away the massive amount of stuff I’ve sorted out, that kind of thing. I admit, I haven’t been working on it as many weekends as I should, or as many hours as I could have, but I am where I am now. I also haven’t had the funds to do major house repairs until probate is finished and dispersed, which should be any day now. The second reason for leaving is the more significant, more far fetched, and hard to explain without it sounding like I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. :p Since getting into web programming my ideal job has always been to own a website that supports me. How amazing would that be? You could work on it when you want, and you’d be working on something you love. Now, I have no website that makes any significant amount of money now; but I do feel I have the skills and the ideas to make one. The two limiting factors for me are usually time and money. For now though, I’ll be set money wise for quite a while. If I stay working, I can continue to progress in this slowly, but I’d love to take this chance to really envelope myself in something I love. I’m not sure how crazy the idea of quitting a job to try to make money elsewhere sounds, but I think it would be great experience. Whether this experiment succeeds or not I’d be able to look back and know I tried it. If things don’t work out I know I’d be able to find another job in no time, even if that’s just a backup plan. I’d give it a good year or two for things to develop, this wouldn’t be a month long experiment, nor would it be until my funds come anywhere close to running out. I’m still split in whether this is a good decision or not at this moment in time. For now I’m planning on giving notice once the final disbursement comes in and, of course, parting on the friendliest terms I can. For those that can read this, what do you think?