J.O.B. really bringing me down… - Posted by Jim Beavens
Posted by Jim Beavens on April 20, 1999 at 19:03:15:
This is another one of those long and pointless posts outlining more than you’d ever want to know about a complete stranger, so feel free to skip to the next message.
I feel like I’m at a crossroads. As my recent posts have indicated, last week I finally went looking for properties. I called a few realtors on their junker houses, drove the neighborhood to look at them and their comps and get a feel for the market, and made 8 offers (all of which have been rejected, of course ;). In order to do this seemingly simple task, I called in sick for a day, and spent more time at work following up with phone calls and crunching numbers. Obviously, performance at my work suffered. I’m a computer engineer on a large microprocessor design team who’s current 4-year project is set to finally wrap up around this October, and if I’m not concentrating 100% on my work, then I just have a hard time getting anything done. My brain can only seem to heavily concentrate on one thing at a time (and as we get to crunch time on this project, it requires a heck of a lot of concentration).
Once upon a time, I had a plan. It was a good plan. After the CREOnline convention, I figured that I had until October to do a few deals to establish confidence in myself that I could be successful in this business. Then I can walk away from the glorious achievement of this big project, feeling proud about the blood, sweat and tears I put into it, and decide if I want to quit my job then or not. So over the last 6 weeks or so I’ve spent my meager time in the evenings and weekends around my 60-hour work weeks and slowly absorbed the various courses I bought at the convention. I thought I was doing pretty good, until something happened a couple weeks ago:
My annual performance review.
As I was following my boss down the hall to find an empty conference room, for the first time I was simply sickened at the thought of this man and his superiors sitting in judgement of my accomplishments. I was even further disgusted by the fact that I was completely nervous about what my review would be (my performance had definitely suffered in the last 6 months or so as my interest in real estate grew). I vowed right then and there that I would never go through another performance review (FWIW, I got a promotion and a 9.7% pay raise…great, even more money I’m going to have to make up when I quit my job, not to mention the increase in my taxes; geez, Kiyosaki’s really warped my thinking ;).
It was at this point I stepped up my REI efforts, culminating in my week of activity last week, and I’ve gotten even less done at work as a result of it. Yesterday, I received a minor reaming from my boss due to my (lack of) recent progress. So now all I have to show for my efforts in REI is more stress at work as I try to catch up (and there’s a lot on my plate right now; it’s looking like my next 2 or 3 weekends will be occupied by my J.O.B). So I quickly dove back into my J.O.B, and turned my focus once again from real estate to transistors and circuits. Before long I found myself resenting real estate and the aggravation it caused me. Fortunately, I continued coming back to this board to keep my mind focused on REI, and I’m realizing that what I’m really upset about is how my job is making my real estate investing 10 times harder than it should be.
Frankly, I’m getting to the point where I think something is going to have to go; either my J.O.B. or my real estate investing aspirations. I was really hoping that I could complete at least one deal before I quit (not counting the two 6-plexes I bought with a bunch of my own money), but I just don’t think I can last that long. And when I start thinking about what is really important to me, I’m finding that I just don’t really care about this project as much as I thought I did. I also ran through the various advantages I had come up with to sticking with my job (another bonus in a few months, more stock options and profit sharing around the first of the year, insurance for our dentist visits in a few weeks, etc), and found they just don’t match up with the depression that hits me every night before going to bed when I think about trudging in for another day at work the next morning. It’s hard to get excited about real estate when I come home at 7 or 8pm every night hungry and tired.
So what’s the point of this tirade? Again, I have no idea. I just have a feeling that my job’s days are numbered (maybe to just a few days), and the thought naturally scares me (and I guess I consider this place as good therapy for this kind of thing ;). I also think that I’m not only feeling fear, but a sense of failure as well. I had set out with a goal to get started in real estate without quitting my job, and the fact that I can’t do this makes me fearful that I’ll continue failing to reach other goals I set.
But my mind is pretty made up, despite my ridiculous monthly debt obligations of $2,700 a month (including house…gawd I wish Rich Dad Poor Dad was around 4 years ago ;). My cash reserves after redeeming my stock options would last me about 2-3 months, and I’ll roll my 401(k) into an IRA, which will have about another 4 months worth of living expenses available (albeit at a hefty tax penalty if I use any of it). So even though I haven’t done a deal yet, I’m hopeful that I have enough to continue up the learning curve on a full time basis. I talked to my wife last night (no kids yet) and fortunately she’s supportive of whatever I want to do (with the caveat that she’ll be really mad at me if our creditors take away her pickup ;).
I’ve heard many peoples’ stories of when and how they quit their jobs (SCook85, Jim IL, Matt B), but I would still welcome both words of encouragement and warnings of disaster that anyone may have. The absolute insane thought of throwing away my 5 years of college education and my 4 year old career is starting to sound not quite so insane anymore. I’m the one who will be insane before long if I keep allowing my future to be dictated by annual performance reviews.
I’ll let everyone know what I decide.
