denverpilot
Tied Down
Oh my, what have I done?!
A few folks here know I've been toying with the idea of taking some time away from IT work to do some flying.
It's "semi-official". I talked to the powers that be at work today and shared that I need some more personal time to go outside and play. Ha.
How this came about: Frankly, it all your fault, collectively. Or at least I'm going to blame it on all of you! But seriously, Jonesy's thread about his "retirement" jaunt to the airlines, threads like the "Would you quit your job" thread and ALL of the great threads about you all flying all the time, were the inspiration.
A lot of years of just being relatively frugal and responsible, and having a pretty good fiscal situation. House paid off, no kids, vehicles all running and after the last few years of a really good paying and decent job, an aviation sized savings account.
I've got no aspirations right *now* to be a complete career changer, but recently I started talking to my lovely wife, who not only is very smart, but also knows when I'm taking too long mulling something over in my head. For those that remember, she's also the person who pushed me over the cliff into aircraft co-ownership after she analyzed it and decided I was being too much of a worry wart about it.
It's tax season, always a time around our house when budgets get tweaked, and we're already cracking the fiscal books anyway, something we both do separately for most of the year but during tax document gathering, we usually have a full weekend day where we're thinking and doing nothing but gathering all the paperwork and talking about the year ahead. After gathering everything this year and making up the packet of stuff for the accountant we both got distracted... I was in my office at home playing with a spreadsheet to see if the finances would allow me to just quit my job for a while, and unknown to me, she was sitting in a chair in the living room also doing the same analysis with her preferred method, a legal pad and a pencil.
Couple hours later I came out and asked if she'd come look over my shoulder at the screen in the office and double check the spreadsheet I had made, and she interrupted me and said she had run the numbers and we could pretty easily get by on her salary alone, as she waves her legal pad at me. Hahaha.
Okay then! That escalated quickly!
So that evening we talked about it more like a plan and less like a pie in the sky dream, and hashed out some more details. Worst case scenarios, etc. We came to the conclusion that I should go do it. Next, the hard question: When?
You see, even if I whine here a bit about silly IT, it's still a very good job and I work with really good people. We (as a company) don't always have our feces congealed (ha!) but the people I work with, I honestly like. (Sorry 6PC! Haha. No psychos that I'm aware of... Yet...!) I don't take this lightly. I've worked for really bad people and I actively avoid it now when I can.
And of course there's that mental block based in a lower middle class upbringing that says you never EVER quit a Good Thing(TM) that'll just scare you to your bones for no damned good reason whatsoever at the thought of walking away from a good job with good pay for the completely unknown.
We settled in on a soft date of May 1st. Reasons and probably not great ones:
- Better flying weather. We're bound to have some more crud before winter is out.
- Post April 15, just in case the taxes really blow this year, can toss whatever cash is needed from the last few paycheck at it and not hurt too bad.
- Time to change some bad but easily fixable monetary habits, like eating out a bit too much. (Already well on that path and eating much healthier and we're both cooking. It's a no-brainer but we got comfortable and lazy and "pick something up and bring it home" got too repetitive in our habits.
- Time for the people I work with to decide what projects they really want done and enough time to hammer them out.
- Time to talk with our financial guy and explain the income change, triple check the plan, change some insurance stuff, spend a couple of months pretending the income level is significantly lower and put my check in savings, yadda yadda.
Etc. All pretty boring stuff. But necessary.
So. Today was the day I talked with the boss. We talked for a while and he seemed interested in seeing what we could arrange to have me stay on in some sort of limited capacity and do project work or ... He's thinking about it. Of course, I'm sitting there with the worst in mind... If he says "two weeks pack your junk and get out!", for the first time in my life, I'm actually okay with that. Talked a bit about how much time the ratings would take, etc. He then surprised me, and it shouldn't have been a surprise, with the question, "What's YOUR ideal amount of time away from here, so I know where to start."
Well heck. I had spent so much time thinking about the worst case, I forgot to plan the best case! LOL. Oops. I was honest and said I would need to think about it a bit and couldn't decide on the spot if I needed full days off, or half days, or really anything. I was kinda dumbfounded he was asking. Like I said, I shouldn't have been. But I was caught flat footed on that question.
Add one more plus for the May date...
- Time to figure out how to maybe do this simultaneously with working some hours at the current company.
(More next post...)
A few folks here know I've been toying with the idea of taking some time away from IT work to do some flying.
It's "semi-official". I talked to the powers that be at work today and shared that I need some more personal time to go outside and play. Ha.
How this came about: Frankly, it all your fault, collectively. Or at least I'm going to blame it on all of you! But seriously, Jonesy's thread about his "retirement" jaunt to the airlines, threads like the "Would you quit your job" thread and ALL of the great threads about you all flying all the time, were the inspiration.
A lot of years of just being relatively frugal and responsible, and having a pretty good fiscal situation. House paid off, no kids, vehicles all running and after the last few years of a really good paying and decent job, an aviation sized savings account.
I've got no aspirations right *now* to be a complete career changer, but recently I started talking to my lovely wife, who not only is very smart, but also knows when I'm taking too long mulling something over in my head. For those that remember, she's also the person who pushed me over the cliff into aircraft co-ownership after she analyzed it and decided I was being too much of a worry wart about it.
It's tax season, always a time around our house when budgets get tweaked, and we're already cracking the fiscal books anyway, something we both do separately for most of the year but during tax document gathering, we usually have a full weekend day where we're thinking and doing nothing but gathering all the paperwork and talking about the year ahead. After gathering everything this year and making up the packet of stuff for the accountant we both got distracted... I was in my office at home playing with a spreadsheet to see if the finances would allow me to just quit my job for a while, and unknown to me, she was sitting in a chair in the living room also doing the same analysis with her preferred method, a legal pad and a pencil.
Couple hours later I came out and asked if she'd come look over my shoulder at the screen in the office and double check the spreadsheet I had made, and she interrupted me and said she had run the numbers and we could pretty easily get by on her salary alone, as she waves her legal pad at me. Hahaha.
Okay then! That escalated quickly!
So that evening we talked about it more like a plan and less like a pie in the sky dream, and hashed out some more details. Worst case scenarios, etc. We came to the conclusion that I should go do it. Next, the hard question: When?
You see, even if I whine here a bit about silly IT, it's still a very good job and I work with really good people. We (as a company) don't always have our feces congealed (ha!) but the people I work with, I honestly like. (Sorry 6PC! Haha. No psychos that I'm aware of... Yet...!) I don't take this lightly. I've worked for really bad people and I actively avoid it now when I can.
And of course there's that mental block based in a lower middle class upbringing that says you never EVER quit a Good Thing(TM) that'll just scare you to your bones for no damned good reason whatsoever at the thought of walking away from a good job with good pay for the completely unknown.
We settled in on a soft date of May 1st. Reasons and probably not great ones:
- Better flying weather. We're bound to have some more crud before winter is out.
- Post April 15, just in case the taxes really blow this year, can toss whatever cash is needed from the last few paycheck at it and not hurt too bad.
- Time to change some bad but easily fixable monetary habits, like eating out a bit too much. (Already well on that path and eating much healthier and we're both cooking. It's a no-brainer but we got comfortable and lazy and "pick something up and bring it home" got too repetitive in our habits.
- Time for the people I work with to decide what projects they really want done and enough time to hammer them out.
- Time to talk with our financial guy and explain the income change, triple check the plan, change some insurance stuff, spend a couple of months pretending the income level is significantly lower and put my check in savings, yadda yadda.
Etc. All pretty boring stuff. But necessary.
So. Today was the day I talked with the boss. We talked for a while and he seemed interested in seeing what we could arrange to have me stay on in some sort of limited capacity and do project work or ... He's thinking about it. Of course, I'm sitting there with the worst in mind... If he says "two weeks pack your junk and get out!", for the first time in my life, I'm actually okay with that. Talked a bit about how much time the ratings would take, etc. He then surprised me, and it shouldn't have been a surprise, with the question, "What's YOUR ideal amount of time away from here, so I know where to start."
Well heck. I had spent so much time thinking about the worst case, I forgot to plan the best case! LOL. Oops. I was honest and said I would need to think about it a bit and couldn't decide on the spot if I needed full days off, or half days, or really anything. I was kinda dumbfounded he was asking. Like I said, I shouldn't have been. But I was caught flat footed on that question.
Add one more plus for the May date...
- Time to figure out how to maybe do this simultaneously with working some hours at the current company.
(More next post...)
