Today was my last day in the comfortable corporate cocoon I've spent my entire professional life (twenty-one years) in, working for large corporations supporting several government agencies. Now I'm off to be the COO for a small company in a different industry that I believe has great potential. I'm looking forward to the challenge and relish the way this move has got my entrepreneurial juices flowing again. I have the chance yet again to live up to the free market rhetoric I frequently espouse and fervently believe. There is some risk, but then there is a potential reward commensurate to that risk.
I've changed jobs a couple of times before, but the transitions were to similar positions in other companies, usually with some contact with my former co-workers -- it's the nature of the business. But this departure was especially poignant for me, since I had opened the office here in St. Louis almost six years ago and seen it grow and flourish. I've left a lot of friends this time and it will take some effort to keep in contact with them as we are now headed in orthogonal directions, but I'll make the effort because they are good people.
This event has been some time coming and partially explains the hiatus for those that wonder about such things. I will be back in a couple of weeks with some changes if all goes well.
Oh, and in related news, one of my friends lost his job today.
Posted by Charles Austin at April 2, 2004 09:12 PMGood luck to you too! (I said the same to your buddy.) I've been an office mouse all my life myself; people who have the talents to start up on their own have my greatest admiration.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at 11:10 AM