Living Without a Net: An Odyssey into Self-Employment (Part VI): Forgiving the Defectors

One of my former neighbors came to see me yesterday. We used to live in the same apartment building in San Francisco--I lived on the fourth floor, he lived on the first. When I met him I had just moved into the building and was very nervous because I'd just signed the lease and then lost my job the same week. He had just left his business development position at one of the more successful companies in the Valley. Both of us were single. Needless to say, we had a lot of free time on our hands.

It was San Francisco during the Dot Com bust. Our yuppie neighborhood was like the unemployed version of Melrose Place. It teemed with professionals that had just lost their jobs. They hung out in cafes and kept the local eateries busier during the week than they were on the weekends. Some folks were experimenting with alternative lifestyles. One of my friends, formerly a marketing executive with an MBA, was leaving for art school in London. Another friend, a computer engineer, was training to become a personal coach. A neighbor on my floor, a laid off banker, used his time training for an Iron Man competition; when he wasn't training he delighted in long bouts of daytime sex.

The groaning that came from the other side of the wall didn't so much irritate me as much as it aroused feelings of deprivation. Not only was I starved of a paycheck, I was starved of attention and companionship, something that cubicle mates unwittingly provide. Whenever the groaning got loud enough to distract me I'd call my friend on the first floor.

"Lo?"

"Hey it's Jory."

"Sup?"

"They're at it again."

"Wanna go get coffee?"

"Yeah." 

We established an oddly platonic partnership, inviting each other to parties and introducing each other to potential date material. He'd call me in the middle of the day to see if I was up for hanging out at one of the local coffee shops. I came over in the evening to watch shows on his wide-screen television. He'd busted his knee a few months earlier and had arthroscopic surgery, resulting in several months of limited mobility. I came over to bring him groceries. He took me out to dinner at places where we would never have found parking had he not qualified to have a temporarily disabled sticker on his car. We talked about relationships (about not being in them, mostly) and, most often, about leaving the security of a steady paycheck.

We'd both entered the world of unemployment via different channels; I was unemployed because the Start Up where I had worked had gone under. He left because he'd questioned the integrity of his management, which seemed to buckle under the pressure of a sinking economy. Despite being cheated out of a five figure commission, he'd earned enough during headier days to take considerable time off and ponder his next step.

Both of us were burned out from having poured our lives into our jobs, and a bit disillusioned. I'd experienced what felt to me like the ultimate job--constant challenge, constant reward, but then a sudden cut off. Now I was left to wonder what it was that I really wanted to do--well-paying or not. He felt that his values had been compromised and he wanted never to work in a corporation ever again. His father was a successful entrepreneur and grew his business honestly. Though he considered his father "too slow to pick up on technology", he idolized him as a businessman. My friend had an MBA and figured he would develop and grow his own business concept, "when this recession thing blew over."

We lived a fun, slumber-party-like existence, knowing that at some point the sun would come up and we would have to re-emerge groggily into employment. But after nearly two years of stark unemployment in the Bay Area, the picture wasn't getting any brighter. Our conversations shifted from talking about our dream lives, which were similar to the ones we were living but with more travel and paychecks, to perfunctory statements or requests--"Hey when you get up can you hand me the remote?"--as we became more unsure of how we would conduct our re-entry into the working world.

After several months of putting energy into a novel and well-intended, but low-income projects, I was finally forced to get a "real" job. I had "lucked out" according to my friends, by taking a position that paid only 20 percent less than I had been making in base pay. My friend reached his own personal low and sold his Porsche, the last vestige of his exuberant years. He became an intern for a hedge fund firm, trying to get his feet wet in a new industry. After six months of no pay, they said they would love to, but could not afford to, hire him for pay.

We both met partners and spent the majority of our time with them. I moved to the East Bay, closer to Berkeley where my b-friend went to grad school. He moved to the peninsula to be closer to his g-friend, also a grad student, at Stanford. They married a few months back. I quit my job, just as he re-entered the working world. I quit my next job just as he quit his. Perhaps we would be back in synch again.

He parked in front of my place wearing jeans and a button-down silk shirt--a dead giveaway that he was working a corporate job again.

He was almost sheepish when he came inside, explaining why he was in my neck of the woods.

"We had a training out here for my new job. Don't worry, it's only temporary."

We walked to a coffee shop and shared a cookie, like we used to. He seemed happy, if not cautious. He liked being married, he said, though he wasn't sure about the new job.

"What's wrong with it?" I said.

"Nothing, except that it's a job. A regular old job. I'm back in a cubicle, making phone calls and enduring a commute. I said I would never do that again. But I'm married now, and she's just out of grad school and not working yet." He pulled out a business card.

"What's this?"

"It's the company I'm starting on the side. If everything works out I'll be back working at home and running a business from my laptop."

"That sounds nice."

"I can't do this nine-to-five thing knowing that's it. That this is how I'm going to be living my life."

I thought about him, and about my friend, Leanne, whom I wrote about last year. She'd left the corporate world to pursue a career as a Pilates instructor and to open a studio. She'd developed a clientele, but not enough sustainability to keep going. She'd been living on the fumes of friends' generosity for a year and just wanted to be able to support herself for a while. She had the same look of resignation as my old neighbor. That look of, "I know I said I'm never going to do it again, but ..."

They look at me, still fresh off the corporate payroll and still excited about the possibilities of self-employment, and wonder, I suppose, if I think they are quitters. What they don't know is how much I can relate to them. After all, this is my third time going solo. For many soloists there comes a time when the pressure of not making money, of being independent but not on-purpose, overshadows the original premise. You need to re-enter the situation you left in order to remember why you left it in the first place.

I told my friend: "Going solo is like giving birth. The periods of independence are like contractions. Once you're in labor, they occur at closer and closer intervals. At some point that baby--your business--is going to be born."

I'm not sure when my friends and I will be back on the same entrepreneurial page, however I'm perfectly willing to wait. It will happen.

Comments

[Carrie]

This is a great post. Looks like I've found a new blog to read :-)

[Joy DJ]

I love this post....this whole series has
been wonderful....kudos! -Mom

[Dustin]

Jory,

It seems as though you and your friends see this as a very black/white issue. You either clasp onto the ball and chain of the corporate job, or you experience the thrills and dangers of self-employment. I've done both, and I can truly say that I have never been happier with my career as I am in my current corporate job. I would love to be self-employed again, but I have found that being your own boss is not the solution to a satisfying careeer.

I've spent the last four years as a marketing director for a telecom start-up. The first three years I felt as though I were the wrong man for the job. I'm an idea guy. I'm a "big picture" guy. I'm not a marketing planner or media buyer. What I realized was if I did what I AM good at (interacting with customers, creating inspirational marketing, boosting office morale, etc.) then I would not only enjoy my job more, I would also be more effective. So, that's what I'm doing. I'm fortunate to be in a position where I can have some freedom. I still have to manage spreadsheets and do clerical work that I don't like, but overall, this is my dream job. I'm not saying this to gloat, but rather to say for some people, a corporate job can be freeing. I think it has more to do with the individual than the environment.

[sam parker]

I always found my enjoyment (purpose) in working with someone else's company came from the people and the struggle - the people with whom I worked (colleagues and customers) and the challenge of getting and keeping customers.

"Corporate" sounds like an ugly word (to myself, to entrepreneurs -- unless they have a large well-paying corporation as a client -- and to those who haven't found purpose in their work).

In fact, its real meaning has more to do with the unification of individuals and their work together -- a positive thing.

You've got me thinking. Thanks, Jory.

[DJ]

What a great post!