So I'm getting out of the rat race

TO THE BAT SIGNAL

 

I left my big ny firm about 11 years ago for an entirely new field. About a 2/3 cut in pay and commute. I miss it twice a month.

 

No career is more important to me than family.
On a deathbed or in palliative care the last thing I would be thinking about is fucking work.
I would rather be at home on a Saturday drinking a beer and watching a baseball game on the iPad than any supposed 'dream' job.

 

They have a King:



Saw this when I was a kid and it freaked the fuck out of me.

 

Willard.

Even typing that word gives me the heebie-jeebies.

 

Oooh, me too! Thanks, SpeedTchr

 

At the risk of outing myself to any friends who have already heard this story...

When I was a kid, I begged my dad to take me to see Willard in the theater. We didn't go to many movies, ever. But I HAD to see this one.

I ran crying in terror out of the theater midway through.

Thus endeth my movie attendance for many years.

 

There have always been "strivers" in the world, but it is getting more and more competitive out there. Just look at the resumes of Supreme Court justices, for example. Or most high-ranking federal government officials or Fortune 500 CEOs. Their lives have been an excruciatingly planned journey to the top. The youngsters I work with are the same way. All of them have absolutely sterling credentials. Most of them speak multiple languages. They've attended Ivy or equivalent schools for both undergrad and law school. They have amazing internships or public service to their names already. The veterans at my shop frequently talk about how their resume coming out of law school would never get them hired today, at the same place.

About a year ago, I was in the middle of a series of 80-to-90-hour, high-pressure, high-stakes weeks in which I was working for some really demanding, frightening superiors as the low person on the totem pole. This is the honest-to-God's truth: One day, I became convinced that I was having chest pains from the stress and strain. I still don't know if I really was. But I stood up from my desk and marched a few blocks to the urgent care center, where they hooked me up to an EKG machine and told me everything was fine. I guess it was a panic attack of some sort.

I am sure my new job will be no joke. It's still litigation, which is stressful. But I can't swim with these particular sharks. Not at this stage of life. I'm disappointed in myself, to a degree, but I also know that some of these people think nothing of flying the coop at home from three weeks or more to go to trial in another state somewhere. Can't do it. Won't do it.

 

I would have made a terrific stay-at-home mom, or housewife.
I am just not one of these people who derives much life meaning from working a job.
Even my favorite job I found eventually to be a drag. There was always somewhere I'd rather be.
I was just talking about this with my accountant the other day, telling her to start her own service.
I'm tired of working for other people, and really tired of working for people I don't particularly like.

 

I want more than anything to be a stay-at-home dad, especially now while my kids are little.

Now I just need my wife to double her salary, and we'll be good to go.

 

That's the other thing. Where I work now is a huge international firm, with layers and layers of bureaucracy. Just not my style.

 

I was witness to so much of this stuff as my daughter went through prep school and Yale. The resume shaping begins really young, especially with the kids of the already wildly successful it seemed. The competitiveness combined with parental expectations can create a lot of stress for the kids, so I went out of my way to take the pressure off my daughter.