Life After Work

Yeah!  I’m feeling much better!

Today I made several phone calls, cleaned my home office, and began the work of unpacking 10 boxes (8 accumulated years!) of stuff from my now former corporate window office.  I’m really going to miss the view of the valley and the hills from my old office on the 5^th floor.  From that vantage point, I could see for miles; and on rainy days, I used to enjoy watching the rain slowly travel along; dumping rain on some city.  But today, I unpacked my binoculars from box #1 and put them away in my closet.  I may never use them again, but I sure enjoyed looking through them on occasion with my commanding view.  Right up until someone put a building in my way, I used to be able to see my church’s steeple from about eight miles away.  My new home office view (with the blinds open) is a partial view of my driveway; mostly obscured by a really big plant.  This view is hardly as commanding as my old view, and so the blinds remain shut.  Still, as much as I enjoyed the view from my old office, there is an office view that I like even better: the view from my dad’s home office which looks down a lake.  Now that’s a view!

With four boxes unpacked, I moved on to fixing a laptop for a friend.  All kinds of drivers were needed to make it work – I’m sort of surprised that it ever worked!  After five hours of trying, one driver/device (USB) still doesn’t work – I can’t find the correct driver, and Dell keeps giving me the wrong one.  I’ll try again tomorrow.

I don’t know if I mentioned this or not (I checked – I did not), but FedEx delivered my final check yesterday – my severance check.  No more money will be coming my way from my former company.  I guess I’ll now need to think about where my future funds will be coming from!  The severance should keep us in cash until April 1; after that, we start eating into our savings.  Maybe I’ll need to sign up for unemployment in April… naah!

Motley Fool put a sell recommendation on Atheros (ATHR) today because they will likely be bought by a larger company.  This is truly a shame because it’s been a good stock for me.  I did sell today, and I made a tidy 60% profit.  With some of my earnings from that sale, I bought a 1% stake in SuperValu (SVU); another Motley Fool recommendation.  Since Atheros represented 3.5% of my portfolio, I now have 2.5% in cash to do something with.

I also got four books in the mail today – all “must read” recommendations.  I’m already a third of the way through one of the two books my dad recommended:  The Noticer by Andy Andrews.

Day 12 mood:  Mostly satisfied with my progress, but finding that last USB driver would have made my day.

Day 11 did not start well.  For the second day in a row, I had a very upset stomach.  Yesterday I could explain:  I had eaten very spicy Thai Food the day before, and my body had protested.  I blame today’s stomach on the aspirin I took last night right before bed – at least I hope that’s what it was!  Usually, I wouldn’t take aspirin right before bed, but I had bruised my thumb yesterday and by evening time, it hurt so bad that I had to put it on ice.  20 minutes later, my thumb felt no better, just colder, so I took two aspirin and went to bed.  This morning, I felt like I had a hole in my stomach, and my bowels were sending pain messages all over.  My stomach halted all progress for the day.  The thumb’s good though…

Yesterday also started finals week for my son.  For the rest of the week, he’s going to be home at 12:30.  For me, this is too early, as I am still in the swing of my day.  I don’t think I’m going to enjoy it when school has a holiday or when school is out, as it will disrupt my schedule.  How very selfish of me!  I should want to spend as much time as I can with my kids.

Actually, my son was quite helpful when he got home yesterday.  We handled the car battery issue together, and then we went shopping for supplies.  Later, I gave him a guitar lesson.  It was good one-on-one time with him.

Well, today turned out to be a wasted day.  My stomach cramps lasted the entire day – I couldn’t stand up for more than a few minutes at a time without severe pain, and I spent a lot of time in the bathroom.  At least I got a lot of reading done, and I did a fair amount of movie watching as well.  I definitely don’t want another repeat of today!

Day 11 mood:  Annoyed.

I must say that I really look forward to my Wednesday breakfasts with Bery and Culley; now more than ever.  Now that I don’t have daily office companionship, it’s good to hang out with some like-minded guys and hear what’s on their hearts.  The food’s not bad either.

Today’s devotional at breakfast dealt with trying to balance God and finances and how it is vital that you trust God rather than your own abilities or your finances.  This really speaks to me as this is my reality right now: I want to trust God, and I DO trust in God, but I also want a healthy pile of cash to rely on if at all possible!  I simply need to trust.

And speaking of money… the stock market started heading up today, so I bought six stocks that I had been tracking for a while.  It doesn’t look like they are going to go down anymore.  As of today, I am now 100% invested in equities again.  I won’t have any more cash to purchase stocks with until I sell my company stock in February.  My severance check will stay in cash, as I will no doubt burn through it in a few months.

Good news!  The PG&E guy came today and installed the bidirectional meter.  I’m now running solar!

I was also able to take care of my car battery issue, do some work for my wife (aka: the “honey-do list”), and I fixed a friend’s computer.  All in all, it seemed like a productive day.

Day 10 mood:  Satisfied with today’s progress, but beginning to wonder how I might make a buck in the near future.  I had one friend of mine, a former consultant, recommend a book on “dumpster diving for profit” today.  I’m pretty sure he was joking… and I’d rather not search for “gooey gold” if I can at all avoid it.

So far, so good.

Yesterday I reduced my monthly costs by $1104. – not a bad start!  I still have more to cut as my current “burn-rate” (budget deficit) is around $3000 a month even after yesterday’s cuts.  My goal is to get to a $1500. a month deficit, which is where my wife and I were eight years ago when she stopped working for five years.  Back then, I made what she is making now, so I know we can get there — we’ve done it before… so $1.5K more in cuts to go.  If we can stick to a $1.5K deficit, then I’m good for many, many years, and if I can find a way to make money without a formal job, so much the better.

I got my new laptop today.  Yeah!

My car battery died yesterday morning.  Boo!  I put the battery on a trickle charge overnight, and it was no better today.  I’m officially calling it dead.  I’ve only had that battery for three months!  If it weren’t raining today, I’d go and get it replaced right now.  I’ll do that tomorrow after the storm.

This morning, I re-read the beginning of my prayer journal right up to that seven month period that I had read to last week.  The journal starts 1.5 years ago – about six months after I had gotten a new boss and about the time I had decided that it was time to transition out of semiconductors.  July 09, when this journal starts, is also right when I first knew for sure that my former company had decided to get rid of me.  It took them 1.5 years to replace me!  Though that entire period of my life was definitely the most stressful period in my life, I could, without a doubt, see the hand of God on me; molding me and directing me.  I remain excited about my future under God’s direction.

I had lunch with my former crew today; looks like at least one of them is jumping ship soon.  They tell me that my replacement is in way over her head and they’ve given her the task of completing the chip I started.  She has no expertise in bipolar technology, so she will likely fail; too bad, she sounds like a nice gal.  I guess they won’t be hiring me as a consultant to finish that chip after all.  That’s fine with me – I’d rather not work for my former boss in any capacity.

I just hate watching my former company’s stock every day, but currently, it represents a ton of money in options – far more than my (former) annual salary!  I must sell all my options by Feb 9.

In doing the research, the stock appears cyclical on a year-to-year basis.  Usually, I wouldn’t concentrate on this, but with such a small window to work with, I must concentrate on short-term trends.  Fortunately, 14 out of the last 15 years shows that February is a month of huge gains – shortly after the announcement of the fiscal year-end results on 1/30.  If I wait until February, I will likely be in great shape.

Today the stock is back up to where it was when I left the company – right at the fair trade value of the stock by some estimates.  Other experts place the ideal stock price at six dollars higher.  All these figures will be adjusted shortly after the announcement on 1/30.  I hope that the estimates go way up!  With every fifty cents representing $10K in options for me right now, a couple more bucks in stock price sounds mighty nice.  In a way, what I’m doing right now feels a lot like gambling or playing the lottery.  Do I cash out now at a fair price, or risk it all for a chance at higher earnings?  I’m literally risking tens of thousands of dollars!

Having said all that, I do trust God to supply my every need; even if the stock market crashes and I get nothing.  I’m simply trying to be the best steward of His cash that I can.  All that I “own” belongs to God.

Day 9 mood:  Actually, today I’m feeling very “inefficient.”  I accomplished few of the goals that I had set for myself today.  That lunch really disrupted my entire day, and since it was spicy Thai food, it disrupted my tummy as well!  It was good to see friends though – I have no reason to complain!

Tomorrow WILL BE better.

After being sick all last week, I targeted Monday (today) as the start of my new non-working schedule.  I would attempt to follow the schedule I had put together last week and see if it worked.  Well, I did great right up to about 10AM.  I sort of made a priority call based on my immediate needs rather than continuing with the ideal “sustaining” schedule I had made.  I’m not quite in sustaining mode yet – there are many things I need to do short term that won’t be on the long-term schedule – so I think a great deal of flexibility will be needed for maybe a month.  I may also have to adjust my schedule a few times; once I know what really works.

So far what works:  Morning Devotionals, reading emails, getting caught up with the world… which has been my routine at work for many, many years.  Those things are already established.  I then proceeded to “learn something” and exercise.  I might need to put exercising earlier or I won’t do it, and perhaps I should move “learn something” to later in the day.  Neither item seemed ‘comfortable’ where they were.  Truthfully, once I get done with the emails & devotional, I should tear into my most brain-intensive activities of the day because I know I will begin to fade right around 2 PM.

I had scheduled “learn a foreign language” after exercise, but this morning we were out of milk so I started one of my medium-term goals of finding out which food-staples were cheapest where.  I shopped at Nob Hill today and gathered “food data” which I then put in a spreadsheet.  When I returned, rather than “write something,” I did the very necessary task of moving all my email subscriptions to one of my personal accounts.  So many of the services I use send things to my former work email.

I then began canceling services that I won’t need or can’t afford now that, as of today, I am not receiving an income.  After I type this, I’ll attempt to bundle all my AT&T services and save money that way.  I can hardly wait for PG&E to install their “two-way” meter so I can turn on my shiny, new solar panels (which should save me over a thousand dollars a year!).

I’ve already had a couple of friends attempt to get me into other jobs quickly using the friend network.  And while I do appreciate it greatly, I’m in no rush to get back into the corporate life right now, and I’m fairly convinced that I don’t want to return to semiconductors.  I want to spend some time trying new things to see where God might want me.  At this point in my life, I’m looking for happiness rather than wealth, and low-stress for my health.

Day 8 mood:  Focused… on the immediate.

The week has gone by really fast.

I had a cold the entire week, and on Tuesday morning, I lost all access to my home computer (thanks to my former employer who removed anything that belonged to them… which also caused my password to no longer work).  Instead of blogging and writing, which I had hoped to do, I wound up setting-up my wife’s new laptop, which needed to be done anyway, so my time was still well-spent.

DirecTV has given me three free months of the Starz Network as a thank-you for all the money I’ve given them over the years, so I have been recording a bunch of movies and putting them on DVDs.  Every two hours or so, I turn on the TV to see the end of some movie, stop the recording, and then start another one.  I’m not actually watching any of these movies… yet.  In addition to that, my family still has a couple of weeks left on our one month all-you-can-view Blockbuster pass.  I sort of feel obliged to use that pass daily, since we paid for it, but I think I’ve only seen two Blockbuster movies this week.  My days have been filled with lunch dates, driving around doing errands and Costco shopping for our Church’s upcoming youth winter camp – I’ve been out of the house a lot!  Towards the end of each day, I have sort of collapsed due to my cold and as a result, most of my evenings have been sort of blah.

My son is getting used to me being home before him.  God only knows what he was doing in that span of free time he used to have before I came home in the old days.  He probably misses that freedom.

Good news!  My friend Bery came by last night and reset my passwords using some Linux password hacker.  I can now log on.  Life is back to normal… the new normal anyway.

By sometime next week, I’ll have a new laptop.  I went on EBay and ordered an identical laptop to the one I had at work.  I got it for a fraction of the original price – like an eighth – so I am happy about that.  With the laptop, I can function as a consultant, and I can again teach at Church in the manner to which I have become accustomed (almost everything I do requires multimedia).  Heck, I can spend my days at Starbuck’s writing the great American novel if I wish!

In the next week or so, I’m going to have to start reducing my expenses so my “burn-rate” won’t be so fast.  With any luck, I can find profitable things to do to keep the burn-rate at zero while I discover what I should be doing with the rest of my life.

Day 5 mood:  A mixed bag:  Trusting that God has a direction for me, but also sort of scared, since my income is coming to a sudden halt starting Monday.  My company stock is also moving in the wrong direction right now, and I have a lot of stock options to sell in the next 25 days.

I got let go at work today.  I wasn’t fired, and I wasn’t layed-off.  It was simply a “business decision” that I should be replaced by someone who is more in-line with the current administration.  And rather than simply demote me to non-manager status, they decided that having an ex-manager in the building would limit the success of my successor – my team would follow me, not my replacement.

I think it was a good business decision – one that I would have made if I were the boss.  My management style and that of my boss were like night and day, and we were never going to reconcile – both of us are set in our ways.  I did see my eventual exit from far off; and truthfully, I’m really surprised that they kept me around as long as they did!

My boss and I did part amicably, and I wound up with a rather nice severance package that will keep me going for some months.  I am now so glad that I didn’t simply walk off the job out of frustration… something that I almost did last month.  Now I have cash in hand, and I can even get unemployment should I choose to file for unemployment… which I won’t.  And wherever I wind up, or whatever I wind up doing, I have no doubt that I will be happier than where I was until today.  I loved my company, and I loved the people I worked with, but I simply didn’t get along with my manager.

Just think, this morning I was reviewing the past seven months of my prayer journal and it occurred to me that God was moving me in a particular direction (molding me, changing me in a “refiner’s fire”) so this morning I prayed that I might be ready for whatever was coming next, and that God would grant me change today!  Well, He sure did!  God answers prayers!  Yeah!  And praying boldly as I did, and recognizing that my prayer was answered, I can now totally trust that God is sending me in a new and exciting direction.  He’ll use me as He sees fit for His greater purposes and I’m quite alright with that.

In the meantime, my time “off” won’t be idle: The other thing I noticed as I was reviewing my journal is that I never did get around to doing the things God had placed on my heart to do over the last couple of years.  Everything I planned to do fizzled-out due to my limited amount of free time, and due to some priority decisions I made based on my limited time.  At least for now, I have all the time in the world!  I can now write (but in which direction?  Sci-Fi, “This Plot,” Bible studies, travel articles, blogging?), learn how to make web pages, pursue a teaching job, consult, exercise, and volunteer.  Heck, I could even read a few good books and learn a language if I’m really motivated.  The one thing I’ll have to do with all this new-found freedom is to use it wisely.  I’ll need to limit my TV time, and stick to my current self-imposed limits on how long I surf the web.  Both can be huge time-wasters.

Of course, my new job is to now look for a new job… eventually.  Truthfully, I’m not too excited about doing this.  I’d like to get away from Semiconductors (except on a consulting basis for bipolar chips) and move on to teaching or self-employment.  Who knows, maybe God has in mind that I should become a pastor like my dad.  I don’t feel “called” to pursue that right now, but if God asks, I’m there (and there are a few people at church that are hoping that I’ll go in that direction.  I’m not one of them.).  Could I also make it as a writer?  Doubtful, but I might have fun trying.

Day 1 mood:  Hopeful.

On January 3rd, 2011, a day like any other day, I was let go from my 7 to 5 job.  My flexible, “let’s try this” style of team management did not work well with middle management’s “you must conform or else” attitude.

Really, how can any semiconductor company in Silicon Valley expect to live for very long if middle management has assembly-line expectations of its workers; telling them that its not their job to innovate?  The company did hire highly specialized, creative engineers like myself for our unique skills — because we think outside the box (or really, at the edges of the box) — and then middle management does everything it can to  keep us stuffed in that box?  Really?  They’re choosing conformity over creativity?  That’s not the “safe” thing to do in this industry.

Truthfully, I was glad to go.  I had known for about a year and a half that I would eventually be let go, but during that time frame there were no jobs out there in this depressed economy so  I opted to stay, as painful as that would be, to save up as much money as I could until such time as they let me go.  Now with money in one hand, and a pink slip in the other, I’m looking forward to whatever the future holds for me.  This blog is my journey and discovery of “what’s next.”