Why I Don't Want a New Job
I meant to post about this the other day, but got off on other tangents and tried to spend the weekend being programmatically productive instead of blog productive. Matthew Langham posted this note about my work situation and believe it or not, I've already gotten an email about it from someone:
Give Russell a new job: Here is my plea to you the Telco-People out there: Give Russell Beatie a job! Ok, he may not want (yet) another job - but I don't care. Rapidly becoming the Source for mobile news - our man on the mobiles - deserves more. Look at the service he is providing - without being payed to do so (at least I think that's the case). Now just imagine what this could be - if he were payed to write! This could be the chance you've been waiting for, dear Telco-People, to get UMTS off the ground (remember those debts you have...yeah) - get Russell to do a write-up. Get him to make a guest-appearance on the next Vodafone-Live commercials....use his name in your advertisements ("The new P742 - as seen on the Russell Beatie Weblog")...fly him to the next 3GSM and treat him to some cocktails.
So run - don't walk - to your email programs and make him an offer he can't refuse. Thanks.
Very amusing. Like I told Matthew (and my wife) I'm actually not looking for another job anymore. I mean - hey, if the offer is AMAZING I'm not going to turn up my nose - but I've recently decided once and for all that I HATE working for other people. That's more or less the core reason why there's so many jobs on my resume... and looking for ANOTHER job isn't going to do anything for me except prolong the pain. I want to be my own boss and have my own business. Period. It's more responsibility, more headaches, more risk, more stress, etc. I know. But I just can't deal with what I'm doing any more. Corporations are killing me.
I've worked everywhere... Over 30 companies in the past 10 years. I've seen it all. I can't stand being a "techie" any more, I can't stand having bosses and managers any more, I can't stand doing one set of work that I could care less about during the day then going home and working just as hard on my own projects during the evening. I want to have "one" working life that I can sink my teeth into.
Thus since my current job is paying me well (for Spain), and the work could be worse (though some days I come home ready to kill) this is the right time to either figure out how to launch my own thing, or cut the shit and just accept my fate. I've promised Ana that I'll stop job hopping which eases her mind in terms of stability but since I hate my job more and more every day (which is a natural state of affairs for me and has nothing to do with the job, corp. or people in case there's someone from work reading this) I have more and more incentive to figure out a working business plan. Thus you can see how I don't want a new job. I want a new LIFE.
How much of a pipe dream this is, I don't know. The desire has been lingering there for YEARS. Since well before I started my first failed corporation in 1999. Right now I'm putting together business ideas - looking for needs in the market - and the next step is to work out the financials to see if it's viable. I need to bootstrap whatever I do, which is a good thing. The last time I tried this, I started with a half-baked plan, quarter of an application and looked around for investors. Duh. Welcome to the boom. Honestly, I wouldn't have given me money either. This time I'm going to come up with a product or service that actually has a demand then see if I can charge real money for it. If it works, then I get off the corporation-merry-go-round. If not, I'll find my horse and strap in.
So after some thought - I've decided to just continue the whole weblog experiment to it's logical conclusion and post everything I come up with. Everything from the ideas (which I'm sort of doing already) to the financials. All available for "peer review" by the people reading this blog. One could argue that I could lose some sort of tactical advantage by putting my plans on the web free for all to see, but my thought is that there are LOTS of ideas out there, but you need to work them into shape and execution is key. I might get valuable advice from people who may have done it before, or from people who might be interested in that spending money on that product/service, or even just encouragement. That sounds good to me. The other alternative is to sit at home continuing making my late-night half-baked plans for world domination all alone without even Pinky to share them with. (Well, I tell the ideas to Alex, but he's more interested in learning how to stand up without holding on right now... It's an apt metaphor my current situation, really.)
So that's the plan. I'll start posting more details ASAP. Thanks for the incentive to get this all out there Matthew!
-Russ