Why I Quit My Job

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December 30th, 2011 was my last day as Controller of a fast growing, mid-sized software company.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been relatively quiet regarding the fact that I quit my job.

Well, I can’t stay silent on the matter forever. Now’s the time to tell you why I left.

Honestly, I don’t think I could’ve worked for a better company.

• I pulled down a six-figure salary in a job that Myers-Briggs practically promised me I’d excel in. It was often challenging and occasionally intriguing.
• The company’s dress code was college casual and up. Whether in bow ties, flip flops or halter tops, employees could leave home wearing almost anything and feel certain their attire was acceptable for the office.
• In October 2007, the company paid for my first iPhone. From the day I received it through my last day of employment, I was reimbursed for my wireless bill. Not to be outdone by previous acts of awesomeness, in November 2011, the organization gave me my first iPad.
• I had an office and a little space heater to call my own. It might not seem like much to you, but I’m the type of chick who, in 100 degree weather, won’t leave home without a sweater. I learned early on that trembling like a chihuahua is unbecoming of a lady.
• From catered lunches to wine tastings to chocolate samplings to surprise cupcakes, employees were treated to company sponsored, ad hoc acts of kindness on a weekly – and sometimes more frequent – basis.
• My apartment was (and still is) conveniently located within a worry-free 7 to 10 minute drive from the office. Which afforded me the luxury of sleeping much later than most working folks in the highly congested Washington, D.C. metro area.
• Surely, my former colleagues are some of the most brilliant people I’ll ever encounter. Unlike me, many of them attended the most prestigious universities in the United States. Yet I always felt like I belonged.
• During the worst of the Great Recession, when several prominent financial institutions went under and millions of Americans lost their jobs, I proudly marched into work every morning with confident assuredness my Swingline® stapler was precisely where I left it the night before.

Honey, I could go on like this for hours. But you get the idea.

Things were pretty sweet.

I could’ve sat in my ergonomic chair with my shoeless feet kicked up listening to political podcasts working that cushy desk job for decades.

It was very, VERY comfortable.

So I did what any sensible person in my socks would do.

I quit.

Why?

Because greedy bitches always want more, and I proudly count myself among them.

I’ll gladly give it all up to take a swipe at what I’ve been missing.

My Passion

I feel tremendously blessed to have worked for such a wonderful company for five years. I love them, man! The problem is I couldn’t love my job because I don’t love accounting. I mean, accounting is cool and all, but I don’t love it.

My heart belongs to personal finance. And it’s been that way for quite some time.

My best friend’s high school graduation gift to me was The Wall Street Journal’s Guide to Planning Your Financial Future: The Easy-To-Read Guide to Planning for Retirement.

We were kids!

What kind of 17-year old gives a gift like that?

And more important, what kind of 17-year old would perform a string of crooked legged cartwheels to celebrate the receipt of a gift like that? (Hint: You’re lookin’ at her.)

Income Control

According to The Millionaire Next Door, about two-thirds of working millionaires are self-employed. Even though the self-employed make up less than 20 percent of American workers. Those numbers sound promising to me.

Like it or not, when you work for someone else, they limit your income.

Periodically, they’ll reevaluate whether you’re justly compensated. Up, down, side-to-side, it doesn’t matter which way, they-hey control the direction of your salary.

As an entrepreneur, your income earning potential is infinite.

Creative Freedom

If you work for someone other than yourself – and you want to continue doing so – you do what you’re told.

To be fair, it’s hard to escape this burden as long as your wages come from earned income. (You can’t exactly tell your customers to kick rocks and expect to keep them.)

But still, when you’re the employee and the employer, you exercise greater flexibility over what you choose to do in order to get paid.

I find this particularly beneficial. Since I’m the boss of me, I am master of my product. I am master of my process.

Time Flexibility

Work a 9-to-5 job and people have this crazy idea that you should be in the office around, er, 9-to-5 during the work week.

Unfortunately, there’s other stuff you’d rather do during that time period such as:

• Sit in on a discussion panel at the Brookings Institution, The Cato Institute, or The Heritage Foundation.
• Attend a local chamber of commerce breakfast meeting.
• Volunteer at an area high school.
• Go to happy hour, get a comfortable seat at the bar, unbuckle your britches, and fully partake in a smorgasbord of half-price appertizers and $2 Tecate.
• Take a nap in the middle of the day the way highly refined carbohydrates and God intended.

Location Freedom

In Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office: 101 Unconscious Mistakes Women Make to Sabotage Their Careers, author Lois Frankel, PhD, stresses the importance of asking for forgiveness instead of permission. When it came to performing my day-to-day job duties, I took this to heart.

Frequently, I made what I thought were the right decisions based on the limited information available – even if I wasn’t sure.

After several years with the same company, I can count on one hand the number of times Shawanda Greene (that’s me) apologized. (Not because I didn’t make many mistakes, but because saying “I’m sorry” is for sissies.)

Asking permission sucks.

But if you’re going to disappear from the office for a few weeks you should probably run that by your teammates.

Well, I don’t mean to sound like I’m whining, but I don’t wanna. *folds arms, stomps feet*

Through a series of carefully planned, well executed decisions I’ve saved a few dollars to sustain me while I get my empire off the ground.

It’s time to make it happen. I have no kids and no obligations, financial or otherwise, that make quitting my job a bad or even a scary idea.

If you’re wondering whether quitting my job was the right thing to do, you gotta understand.

I had to quit!

Because…because I ran out of excuses not to.

Could I be so arrogant to believe that I can have it all, yea, that I even deserve it all?

In one word: Yep.

Check out the ground rules I’ve set for myself in 20 Rules to Follow After You Quit Your Job.