

Furniture, movers, and entrepreneurship. - borski
http://www.theborski.com/2011/01/27/furniture-or-lack-thereof/trackback/

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Periodic
I just put in my resignation at my current job earlier this week. I'm just not
learning enough here, as I feel most of my time is spent dealing with
bureaucracy and working around bad code. Additionally, I don't want my career
to be that of an enterprise coder, despite it maybe being some good experience
at the moment, so I'm moving on. I'm now looking at some combination of
consulting and finishing my masters in CS.

When I mention this to people, most of them are shocked that I don't have
another job lined up and don't know exactly what I'm doing next. I think most
people are very scared by uncertainty. My wife certainly is. I'm just not
going to worry about it as long as I'm moving towards having the career I want
to have. Only one of my friends, who wants to start a business of his own,
thought that I made a good and brave decision.

I figure as long as I'm taking steps to get where I want to go, I should
eventually get somewhere I will enjoy being.

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chr15
I recently quit my job too, and am doing the same thing you are. All the
people that think you're crazy are saying that because they are very risk
averse. A normal life includes getting a job, buying a house, getting married,
and having kids. This is considered "progress". Anything that deviates from
this is viewed as crazy.

If you want a 9-5 again, there will always be a big corporation to go work
for. Surely, they won't fault you for having the courage to do your own thing.

"Ambitious programmers are better off doing their own thing and failing than
going to work for a big company." - Paul Graham

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l3amm
I like the analogy. I'm in graduate school, but I've recently realized that I
would much rather be an entrepreneur. I think a large part of the problem is
that I'm in the slog-mode of graduate school where I've stopped learning, and
I can feel myself becoming staid and boring, part of the furniture. To combat
this I'm trying to take as many classes outside of my discipline as possible
and am thinking about trying to start my own business. When you're 3+ years
into a PhD and you realize that you aren't where you want to be, it's a tricky
thing to either continue unhappily or write-off those 3 years with no safety
net.

I look forward to hearing more as you take the leap, and I wish you the best.

~~~
nicw
Grad school can be like that, moreso if others outside of grad school appear
to be moving faster. I'm near the end of my program and I know I've spent most
of those 3 years battling my decision whenever I get inspired by someone
else's work and want to start my own thing. The good thing though is you can
turn that energy into planning your steps, and when you're done with your
program you've got a more coherent concept of what you want to leap into.

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dcope
Very good article. Nice to see you taking the risk of self-employment in hopes
of a better lifestyle and personal betterment. Seems like a lot of people
enrolled in university will become "furniture" as they conform.

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borski
Looked like I got owned by the HN influx for a bit there; should be fixed now,
I think. :)

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borski
Feedback would be greatly appreciated. :)

