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Making Your Escape From Employment

Making Your Escape From Employment September 12, 2007Office Escape Routes0 Comments

It’s really simple. There is one thing that you have to do to break free of the rat race forever. Just one. And if you can do it, you will never have to go back to being a wage slave, dependent on forced hours and having your time and life stolen away. It’s as close to a guarantee as one can get. All you have to do is…

Earn a Living Wage on the Side

Once your earnings surpass your average monthly expenses, you can quit your day job. Then, if you use all the extra time that you have stolen back from your boss to instead further your side business, you can maintain it and watch it grow.

This isn’t much of a secret, really. There are a few things you should know, though.

To start a side business or create a new source(s) of income, you’ll need to work on your own time IN ADDITION to working your regular job at first.
If you are making enough, but are still feeling a bit scared to make the total leap, you can consider quitting your regular job and taking a part-time job.
You can always go back to prison. There will always be restaurant/retail/administrative positions available for you to suffer through should you have a setback. Don’t be afraid of taking the plunge for fear of running out of money.

Monthly Expenses

If you live on $1,000/month or less, it won’t be nearly as difficult to make your escape as it will be if you require $3,000/month or more for car payments/mortgages/children etc. If your monthly expenses are very daunting, consider cutting some of them to make the escape route easier and take a short amount of time.

If you don’t want to part with your favorite car/cable subscription/cell phone plan think of it this way: Would you rather have more cell phone minutes per month or a free life? If you chose the former, then I wonder what you are even doing on my website. Besides, even if you do want the minutes, you have a greater potential for earning the ability to afford them by working for yourself anyway than by taking a monthly paycheck. You’ll get those minutes and then some.

But how do you really know that it’s time to kick your boss out of your life?

It’s time for a pop-quiz. Which scenario do you think is a better reason to quit a full-time job?

A – You are a single guy, age 29 who lives in a cheap apartment and lives on $900/month. You just started an internet business that has been steadily growing, but you’d like to have more time to work on it. You are making over $1,500/month for the last two months. You work as a bus-boy at a restaurant downtown and are sick of having things spilled on you every night.

B – You are a 35-year old mother of four and a pharmacist who is married to a workaholic investment banker. You live in the affluent suburbs of Seattle and pay off a mortgage, car, credit cards, and more. While your combined income is well over $150,000 per year, you feel like it’s just enough to get you by. On the side you’ve started your own nanny service for the kids in your neighborhood which is currently paying you almost as much as your current job, which you cannot stand.

The answer is at the end of the article. You’ll just have to read on for now!

Readjusting to Freedom

Another consideration one should make before making the leap into voluntary unemployment is how you will handle your time. If you have been an employee for a few years, the adjustment will not be nearly as difficult for you as it would be for a life-time office slave. I have even heard some horror stories of people who retire only to find that they no longer have the ability to fill their time up with meaningful activities. They’ve lost the ability to simply be. So what do they do? They go back to work. They know no other way.

Don’t let this happen to you. Think about what you will do as a replacement for the time you have been selling away. If you are self-employed and have a major hand in the maintenance of your business, you’ll probably be plenty busy anyway. But if you’ve managed to create a good stream of income that needs only occasional care, you will have plenty of time on your hands. And don’t kid yourself, it will be an adjustment, even if you think it won’t be.

What you need to do to counteract this effect is to think of things you enjoy doing for fun, and things you have always wanted to try. You can also read my entry on Life After Work for some ideas. Write down five of your favorite hobbies and new goals. After you have done this, you can begin to slowly pursue those. Don’t rush though! You finally have some time! It will probably take you a few months just to unplug yourself from the working world, at least mentally. For those first few months it is probably best not to try to do too much.