I was conditioned from a young age to defer to authority. “Don’t talk back” and “Because I said so” were common phrases uttered by parents in my house. You did what you were told or suffered consequences.
In high school, I was once again taught to listen to my authority figures without question. “No, deadlines are not negotiable”. “Yes you have to learn X despite it having no practical application to your life.” Continue reading “How Pursuing FIRE Has Changed How I Act At Work”
It finally happened – 7 years out of college and I am finally getting my first 401k match! I’ve dreamed of this moment for so long (yes, I have weird dreams – deal with it). While working at all of my previous jobs, I never qualified for the 401(k) match (if they even had one). If they did have one, you were not eligible for it until you had been there 4 or so years, which is basically unheard of in ad agencies. Well played HR. Well played. Continue reading “My First 401(k) Match, An Updated Salary and Inching Closer to Early Retirement”
For the first 5 years of my career – with 5 different companies – I never received a performance review. Not once. Not even after asking and hounding my manager for months. I hounded him because I was told performance reviews were how your manager evaluated you to give you raises and promotions, but as I soon learned, in my industry that’s not exactly the case. Continue reading “Are Performance Reviews Useless?”
It’s time to celebrate!
Don’t laugh – this is a big deal for me! Quitting and getting laid off is basically a hobby of mine. I’ve had 6 jobs in 7 years. I quit twice and have been laid off 3 times. My shortest stint was 3 weeks. Oh ad agency life! This milestone snuck up on me and I’m a bit shocked it happened. My current job is now officially my longest ever: 1 year, 11 months at the same company! Continue reading “My Longest Job Ever: 1 Year, 11 Months”
Continue reading “That Time I Laughed In A Financial Advisor’s Face”
Our living room view in Ecuador
My trip to Ecuador allowed me to explore more of my possible early retired life and try to discover who Retired Me might be. There are a few goals I have for retirement that I tried to accomplish during this trip, such as:
Short answer: No 🙂 . End of post.
Just kidding…I’ll explain. A few years ago I was laying on the deserted beach in Vietnam. The wind was blowing through my hair, the waves were crashing, the sun was slowly rising in the sky and I was thinking about…Emails. Yep. Emails. Specifically client emails: Continue reading “Do Vacations Rejuvenate You?”
So I was born and raised in Atlanta. Something that might surprise people is that Atlanta has horrendous traffic. We’ve been on the top 10 list of most congested cities since I was born and while I was growing up we were right behind New York and LA. We had the third worst traffic in the US. Continue reading “Carfree For Life”