Leaving the Cushy Job

Dear friends,

I started blogging in June 2016, driven by the desire to connect with others, document my journey to Financial Independence, get feedback on my strategy and my plans from people smarter than me, learn new stuff by forcing myself to do some research and trying to teach something, be accountable on my commitments, and try to inspire others. And many more reasons, of course.

I started blogging in June 2016 mainly inspired by a single blogger: Dr. Doom, the mind behind the blog LivingaFI.

I wrote my story series the same way he did. And I wrote my IPS because he did.

This hero of mine is not blogging anymore since 4 years. The hope that one day he comes back from darkness is still alive because he replies to comments every few months.

Doom, please, come back!

I want to know how your FIRE life is going! I’m not the only one who’s asking for it! Please, come back! At least do what Jacob did: a 5 years retirement update. And do not worry, we won’t judge. If you came back to work six months later because you were bored… good for you, no one is here to judge! But I really want to know what happened to you. I miss you.

Sincerely yours.

Mr RIP.

Btw, I saved all your posts as PDF and uploaded on few cloud systems, I hope you won’t mind. You know, in case you think of deleting your blog from the internets 🙂

Yeah, I know, maybe I’m violating some copyright blah blah blah but I don’t f***ing care!

Hey RIP, what the hell are you doing? I came here for the title… gimme the juice NOW! Did you quit Hooli?

Oh my dear friend, do you know that you yourself might be another LivingaFI inspired creature? Well, I don’t remember if he engaged in self conversations this way, so maybe you’re ok. Maybe you have some drops of originality. Mind that nothing is truly original anymore though, everything is based on something else and even this free will thing I’m not sure it’s truly a thing…

Yeah yeah who cares. Did. You. Quit?

Almost every post by Dr. Doom was deep, inspiring, and strongly relatable (at least to me). Today I want to celebrate him by sharing the article I’m (re-re-)reading right now, which is yet another article that feels like I could have written myself, if I were that good at writing.

It’s this one, and it’s called “Leaving the Cushy Job“:

What is this… hey, that’s me there! Is this a recursive post? We need to go deeper!

So I wanted to celebrate my all time favorite FIRE blogger by sharing one of its posts about “actually quitting” because his reasoning, feelings, fears, and the timing of this thing align very well with what I’m living right now.

I plan to share it verbatim, with my commentary added [RIP Note: in this form].

Here’s the link to the original post.

Enters Doom (5 years ago):


Leaving the Cushy Job

[RIP Note: before we even start… what an amazing opening!]

I have a pretty decent job, all things considered.  And I’m going to quit it anyway.

[RIP Note: Doom says he has a pretty decent job. I have a pretty amazing job, all things considered, and I’m going to quit it anyway]

But that’s all big man talk.  In reality, I’ve found this is easier said than done.

I’m not even talking about whether or not I feel financially ready to quit.  I am — I’ve covered this in great detail in other posts and I’m simply not worried about the money anymore. If anything, I’ve over-saved.

[RIP Note: (okay, okay, you knew it, right? I’m going to break the flow frequently 🙂 ) – I’m not. I’m fucking not financially ready. I’ve not over-saved at all (for Switzerland)]

Nope, the real problem is that I no longer hate my job in Software/IT. There are even times when it provides some small bits of satisfaction, perhaps a couple of times a week, as I solve a tricky technical problem or automate an irritating task.

[RIP Note: this is more complicated. I don’t hate it anymore, I’m just indifferent to it. Until 6 months ago I was collecting all the reasons why I can’t tolerate my job – and I’ll write about it in a veeeery loong series of posts in the near future – but I don’t feel them to be so important today. When someone asks me “what do you NOT like about your job?” I have hard time answering this question. But definitely it’s not hate. Ok, a bit of resentment for killing one of my creativity channel, i.e. software development, but I guess it should have been expected. Every time you transform a creative endeavor into a job, it ends up threatening your inner unchainable creative essence. That’s why I’m reluctant to monetize my blog for example]

Other acceptable aspects:

  • a) The people are all right.
  • b) My manager, although sometimes a pain in the ass, is by no means an out-and-out dick.  Occasionally I’m almost fond of him.
  • c) Salary is good.  (Money good.  Money always good.  Mmmm, money.)
  • d) Hours and Commute are fine, i.e. I have as much work-life balance as it is possible to obtain while holding down a job in my industry.

[RIP Note: I feel like shit while reading this. In my personal situation: (a) the people at Hooli are not just “all right”. In my personal experience I’ve only met amazing, smart, interesting, and nice people. (b) my manager, and all my previous managers, have been great. Sincerely, I’m not writing this because some of them read my blog. They’ve been great managers. (c) Hooli salary (and stocks, and bonus, and extra benefits) is awesome. My total compensation is more or less three times what Doom earned. (d) Commute is a 20 minutes bike trip with minimal interaction with cars, or 25 minutes by bus. Hours are as flexible as one could hope in my industry]

[RIP Note: … which means that I’m in a worse financial position, and working in a way better company than Doom was five years ago. And he was reluctant to quit. What am I doing? I must be crazy, and one day I’ll regret it 🙁 ]

So it makes sense that inertia has taken hold.  The easiest forward-looking option is to select the default:  Continue to report to work. Continue to grind through week after week. Continue to chase additional security, i.e. The Endless Pursuit of Happiness Through the Accumulation of Money.

I’ve come to believe that what I’m going through is normal for many people as they reach the last few miles of their Financial Independence / Retire Early marathon.  You know you’re going to finish the race, but at the same time, there is some powerful questioning going on behind the scenes:  You are closely examining, perhaps for the first time in several years, your real reasons for leaving the job.  This examination may lead to elements of doubt creeping in on the fringes of your consciousness.

Unless you have a powerful motivating force urging you to up and quit, it’s difficult to change the status quo.

[RIP Note: I couldn’t have found better words. Deep questioning everything while confronting obstacles called Inertia, Comfort zone, Doubts, Paralysis, Status Quo… Being intentional in this world is a continuous fight, most of the time it’s a fight against yourself]

Good, Evil, and N/A.

SuperHeroes usually need an event that turns them into what they are.  A traumatic experience occurs and suddenly there’s no going back.  Peter Parker could have been a lame-assed Spiderman who did nothing but wrestle for money except for the fact that his Uncle Ben died because of his irresponsibility. Spidey just couldn’t deal with that, and a Good Hero was born.

Batman may have decided:  Fuck Gotham.  But he couldn’t, because of intense internal wrangling with guilt and anger over the murder of his parents, which motivated him to try to save a city full of sin.  This idea holds true even for SuperVillians.  Uh… Jack Napier thrown into a vat of acid, anyone? Nicely done.  We’ve instantly created the Joker.

Geek Note: Yes, I know that Napier is a construct of Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman.  Please don’t send me emails explaining that I don’t understand Comic Book Batman versus Movie Batman.  It will make me sad. [RIP Note: I wonder if Doom watched the new Joker movie. I didn’t btw]

At any rate, for people in the real world, that aforementioned happening might take the form of a health issue that makes you increasingly value the limited time you have left on this planet.  Or it might be a Horrible Boss.  Maybe you need to immediately switch to full-time child-rearing, because hey, your kids are only going to be young once.  You get the point.

Thing is, none of these scenarios apply to me.  I want to quit, sure, but that particular feeling doesn’t feel all that urgent most of the time.  Instead the path forward seems uncertain and obscured, as though it’s clouded in fog.  I could leave, or I could stay, either way.  Meh.  Whatever.  Does it matter?

There hasn’t been a single specific horrifying incident to prompt me to make the leap.  Lots and lots of things that bother me, yeah, but no particular event that’s made me say:  That there — that’s the final straw, ya see?  I’m outta here!

Bottom line: I’ve got that FI power, but I’m not yet doing all that much with it. I’m a completely inactive superhero, just sitting on the sidelines, watching shit go down around me.

[RIP Note: that’s me as well. No single FU event. Neither inside nor outside the office. Well, I might consider my burning desire to do something else with my life as a “motivation from the outside”, but it’s not really the case. I actually tried more than once to lie to myself and force a fake a FU event, but I failed. “Oh shit, this bug assigned to me is unbearable! I’m going to qui…” – “Ok RIP, relax. I’ll assign the bug to someone else. Take it easy. Go to the gym 😉 ” – “No no no manager, you’re supposed to play the evil guy and I’ll tell you ‘I quit!!’… you’re not helping me! 🙁 “]

[RIP Note: … which means the status quo is so comfy, so much comfy that quitting is the hardest thing in the world]

Inability to take action is often based on emotional turmoil lurking beneath the surface of our inner worlds, so I think it’s time that I list out concerns that flicker in and out of my consciousness.  Then I will refute them.  And this is all going to be done in tabled format to make it more easily digestible.

[RIP Note: I love this exercise, and I’m going to add new entries to the table]

Reservation Emotion Debunked
I’ll lose skills in my industry and never be able to come back to a high earning job again, even if I need to.

[RIP Note: same here. Plus I’m old and obsolete]

Fear You’ll always have a core skillset to which you can return, even if it means you have to take a crappier job.

[RIP Note: maybe. but I also fear I don’t have many people who’d refer me in this industry anymore. I’m not achieving anything impressive in my career since 2-3 years at least – Not fully debunked 🙁 ]

If I do have to find another job, it’ll never be as good as the one I currently have.  I’d be a fool to give this up!

[RIP Note: same here. Even more scared!]

Fear  There are a wide variety of jobs out there.  You can find decent something in the unlikely scenario that you need to, which you probably won’t. Statistically we’re talking about a couple of percentage points’ possibility of this happening.

[RIP Note: yeah, but Hooli is Hooli – not fully debunked 🙁 ]

I won’t know what to do with my time once I’m not working. Fear Are you kidding me? Exercise, sleep late, read, spend more time with friends and family — all while pursuing semi-retirement, i.e. finding something constructive to fill 10-20 hours a week.  My experiments with extended time off are among the happiest of my life.

[RIP Note: agree. I don’t fear not knowing what to do, even though I fear “wasting my time” and not being able to focus on just one or two projects (instead of a hundred), not being able to do “deep work”, not being able to find internal motivation and so on. I’m lazy by nature – not fully debunked 🙁 ]

My lifestyle requirements may unexpectedly go up in retirement i.e. I may regret limiting myself to a 20K annual spend rate.

[RIP Note: 20k annual spending? LOL. I do fear this, even though “luckily” I’m already experiencing what is probably our “all time high spending regime”. I don’t think we’ll go above our current spending level of ~7k CHF/Mo]

Fear Ridiculous.  I’ve been spending below this level for over a decade.

[RIP Note: yeah, me too… but I was single, in good health, with no kids, and living in Italy. How much of my well being would I (and my family, since mine is close to zero already) give up to get back into that mindset? I might be overestimating the impact of lowering our standards though – not fully debunked 🙁 ]

My manager and teammates will be disappointed I’m leaving.

[RIP Note: nice people, but I think my teammates and my manager would be happier with a more motivated colleague]

Guilt Yeah.  They probably will, in the short term. But they’ll also forget about you in 6 months. And you’ll forget about them.

[RIP Note: I have a lot of amazing connections with many colleagues, mostly outside my new team. I’ll make an effort to preserve them]

If a Net Worth of 750K is great, 1 million must be 33% better.  I should hold on.  Maybe I want to be rich!

[RIP Note: 1.2M EUR is great, but 2M EUR is better. And I’m not joking]

Greed We always want more than we have.  It’s human nature. Don’t confuse the pursuit of money with the pursuit of happiness.

[RIP Note: well, when you’re not FI maybe more money and more happiness have some correlation – not fully debunked 🙁 ]

Other people would be grateful to have the job I currently have.  I shouldn’t just give it up.

[RIP Note: people would sell their mothers to get hired here]

Guilt This is precisely why you should give it up.  Other people will be grateful that you’ve left your job — your employer must hire someone to fill your position and it will be a massive professional upgrade for them.

[RIP Note: very good point, I buy it 🙂 ]

Maybe the quality of my relationship with my wife will go down due to this life change. Fear Doubtful.  We will finally have time to go adventuring together.  Right now all we do is “cope.” Suck.

[RIP Note: the fear is real, but data suggest that when I’ve been not working in the past couple of years (parental leave in 2018, medical leave in 2019) we’ve been doing great. I suspect it will be different when I won’t have a traditional job to come back to, but a desire to work on my projects. We’ll see – not fully debunked 🙁 ]

I’ll get bored or depressed.

[RIP Note: I’m a bit scared, given my current pessimistic mental state, but I also know that I can’t see truth while fogged, and I can’t unfog if I don’t quit]

Fear You’re bored at work already.  Work already places you two steps away from depression because you dislike so much about the grind.  If you’re not feeling any better without work, just go back to work, dummy.

[RIP Note: yeah. What the hell do I have to lose? Am I really anchoring to a “negative 80” points situation because I fear “negative 90”, when the spectrum goes from -100 to +100? Nonsense]

Leaving work will change relationship dynamics with your friends and family — for the worse.

[RIP Note: a bit scared as well. People will interact with me differently for sure. I’ll lose my “title” and the prestige associated. It won’t be easy to find a good narrative for myself and to tell others]

Fear My friends are OK with what I’m doing.  My family will be told I’m “freelancing” so they think I’m still working. Relationship dynamics will be fundamentally unaltered.

[RIP Note: my wife strongly supports me. My best friends as well. My readers are kicking my ass for not doing it. Who else should I care? Yeah, myself… you’re right…]

RIP Original: Moving back to Italy sucks. Staying in Switzerland is expensive. Moving to a country other than the two above scares the hell out of me and my family. Fear RIP Original: Moving back to Italy doesn’t suck that much. Staying in Switzerland is expensive but gives me higher chances of earning an income with my projects. Moving to a different country might actually be the best thing that could happen to us, if we find the courage to try.
RIP Original: My daughter will live an inferior life if I stopped earning such a huge salary and if we moved back to Italy. Guilt RIP Original: I grew up in a shitty neighborhood of Rome. My parents are ok people, but didn’t expose me to all the options the world was going to offer. Same for my in-laws. They were salaried workers who worked 35 years in the same company and then retired. My daughter will have 100x more opportunities than I had. She’ll be guided by me and my wife. We are modern and curious human beings who have seen a lot of stuff and speak 3 languages. I “made it”, despite my preconditions. My daughter will either make it as well, or signal she wouldn’t have made it anyway. It won’t matter what we’ll do and where we’ll go. Plus internet. I was going to forget this detail. Internet.

[RIP Note: there are many issues not completely solved. Residual fear / guilt needs time to be understood, faced, and defeated]

It’s time that I recognize all of these thoughts for what they are:  Stalling tactics.

The primitive part of my brain is urging me to not change anything about my lifestyle because it has, to this point, kept me alive.  So there is an underlying survival mechanism that’s urging me to just keep on keepin’ on, because since we’ve been walking down this path we haven’t had any trouble finding food to eat or shelter to sleep under.  Hell, we even have a pretty good mate.  Why would we change things up?  From the standpoint of getting our physical needs met, we’re doing just fine.

[RIP Note: amazingly written, and amazingly real. Never thought about in this terms. This primitive brain behavior is also well described in the first post of “The story of US” series by WBW. I loved the passage “keep on keepin’ on”. It perfectly describes my last 3 years at work]

Thing is, our primitive brain isn’t looking out for our emotional health.  It’s only concerned about our ability to feed ourselves and produce offspring.  It wasn’t evolved to care whether or not we’re “happy.”  To our ancient mind, staying alive and making babies is the same as happiness.  That’s why it creates all of these primordial feelings which are designed to make you stay the course.

[RIP Note: oh Maslow, how dare you? Self actualization? Meaning of life? Ikigai? Shut up and do nothing!]

But in the modern world, these things are not enough. Humans need more than just food, shelter, and an occasional toddler underfoot for mental well-being.  We need intellectual stimulation, variety in our day-to-day activities, numerous healthy friendships, continual learning and growth, and a feeling of connection to our communities.

I’ll be damned if I let my crusty old lizard brain define a future life of sub-par mental happiness because of a few stone-age concerns.

[RIP Note: put this way it makes much more sense. Kill that lizard!]

I will quit this job and start the next phase of my life.

[RIP Note: … “hey RIP? Did you say anything? RIP?“]

The Next Episode

Uhh, not a good idea, Spidey.

We can boil the entirety of my internal debates down to one simple fact:  There’s no requirement to RE just because you’re FI.

[RIP Note: yeah, imagine if you’re not even half FI!]

Although I’ve done what I can to make sure I’m ready to quit my job, leave my industry, and, ultimately, move on, nothing is making me leave my job.

[RIP Note: same here, same here!]

I should point out that, in the past, I’ve had no trouble whatsoever quitting. In fact, I’ve quit four, for various reasons.

  1. Left Job Number Uno after becoming fed up with the work and, unfortunately, not seeing any path out that might result in better professional satisfaction.
  2. The second I left because I couldn’t tolerate a particularly toxic manager, who I nicknamed The Cthulhu.
  3. Job Three I departed mostly because I was overworked, but also because I was bored with the underlying function.
  4. The fourth was simply a mistake — I took a job in Startup Hell, reporting to a psychopathic CEO.  I lasted just over six months and took great pleasure in leaving.

[RIP Note: again, the parallelism is incredible. I also quit my Research Group and my PhD (twice!) in 2004 and 2007, and – exactly 10 years ago, at the beginning of the previous decade – GameCompany. And of course all the companies I worked with during my Freelance years, one of which (NavalCompany) offered me a full time job more than once in 2011 and 2012. Heck, I actually quit a company before joining it (BiggerGameCompany) on Valentine’s Day, 2010, exactly 10 years ago, and faced the unknown… this is starting to get creepy!]

But the point I’m trying to make here is that I had a reason for leaving each of these jobs — survival, pure and simple.  Looking back at my past, I can see the pattern:  I quit after reaching a low point with an employer; the worm turned and things suddenly felt intolerable.  From there it seemed as though I had no choice but to leave.

[RIP Note: same here, more or less. Maybe except Freelancing and NavalCompany – which I left because I got the job at Hooli… and don’t get me wrong: I don’t regret it!]

On the other hand, I’ve never left a job before reaching that rock-bottom point. Sure, I have less than terrific days, but even then, the feelings of anger or dissatisfaction do not remotely resemble how I felt during similarly marked “bad days” at any of the jobs listed above.  Attributes I associate with Bad Days with my current employer (overwork, fatigue, conflicts with co-workers and management, boredom) are exactly the same as Average Days felt in Startup Hell.  There’s really no comparison.

[RIP Note: not for me. I’ve experienced hellish days at Hooli. Not the same hell as Doom describes, and probably mostly due to my own attitude and detachment, not because of actual workload. Maybe because I’ve never been 7.5 years in the same company, or maybe because the Corporate Life killed my creativity, or because because because… but I can’t say my average day here sucks. My average day here is just perceived meaningless by me. And as time passes, and the Grim Reaper gets closer, I perceive the opportunity cost associated with being a Lizard going up. And we crossed the break even point a couple of years ago]

My observation is that we tend to work until the point at which we can no longer stand it. Very few of us are able to leave prior to hitting that breaking point, and I haven’t yet reached it, hence, my mental waffling and the intense stalling tactics described above.

The challenge, then, is to actively and consciously choose a path which I believe will result in greater life satisfaction.  To choose to get the hell out before I’m feeding at the bottom of this lake.

[RIP Note: and it’s a hard challenge. I’ve been discussing about intentionality with so many people these days. It’s so hard to prove yourself you’re at the helm of your ship! And even if you do, does it really matter? Is it worth? Isn’t everything futile? This fog must go away]

It’s time to put the fears, reservations and hesitation behind.  Time to move toward something interesting and awesome.  Time to focus on a new future instead of a difficult and boring past.

It’s time to choose life, whatever that may be.

Fact:  SuperVillains have more fun.

[RIP Note: yeah, let’s do that! Not the crime though 😉 ]

[RIP Note: “…and?“]


and I did that!

I sent my resignation letter today. I’m quitting Hooli for real by end of March 2020.

And I’m scared as hell! Fuck you, lizard!

I’ll write much more on this topic over the following weeks, stay tuned 🙂

Have a nice day!

47 comments

  1. Well done!
    I’m still too married to my lifestyle (as is my second half) so FI is still ~15 years off (but I do have a plan!)

    Don’t go all Doom now and make me mirror all your content for future generations.

    (And if ever in Geneva and don’t mind me spending my income on your coffee, let me know)

    1. Ahah well, yes, please do save all my posts!
      Not because I’ll delete my stuff, but because it’s likely than something goes wrong with hosting and whatnot!
      Will ping you if I’m in Genf!

  2. Congratulations on quitting!!! I’ll be counting down the days to March for you. I also miss Dr. Doom and re-read his whole blog annually. Saving all this posts (regardless of copyright issues…) is genius. I might need access to your archives if he ever does pull the plug on hosting. Anyway, thank you so much for sharing your journey and thoughts in your own unique way. I love it. Good luck!

    1. Thank you Purple, I’m also following your countdown 🙂
      Loved the idea of “This Is The Last Time”, and I just accelerated it a little bit 🙂

  3. Woot! Congratulations I guess! I wasn’t expecting this, given that you had changed departments a few months ago.

    I actually just recently joined a company paying a Hooli-type base salary, so I hope to finally accelerate my path to FI.

    Looking forward to hearing your tales from the other (FI) side! 😉

    1. Congrats you too! Don’t get burned out, enjoy resting&vesting 🙂

      P.S. I’m not on the other FI side yet! Definitely not! Just a little bit…

  4. Hi, RIP. As a long time reader, first time commenter, I think you made the right decision. Let me make a few points that you should also consider:

    You are one of the most savvy people at managing money and investments (you even teach other people how to do it). I’m sure you will be fine, financially wise.
    The decision to quit was made since a few years ago. It just took a few years (of extra, unnecessary anguish) to reach you consciousness, and then to act on it.
    Your family deserves the best version of you, not the second-hand, tired, depressed, apathetic one. You cannot give to others out of an empty tank.
    Hell, YOU deserve the best version of you.

    I think you’ll be just fine. Good luck!

    PS: I wrote the above points for myself as much as for you.

    1. Thanks Stefan for taking time to write this very good comment 🙂
      My rational self is nodding while reading your words, my emotional self is screaming in terror.
      The lizard is ok, I have enough food in the fridge for today 🙂

      Btw, you’re right that the decision to quit was subconsciously made few years ago. It takes time to ground it, get fully convinced and act upon it.

      Good luck with your decision making as well 🙂

  5. Congrats on the move RIP, you will be just fine. You are a natural problem solver and if things ever go south… well that is just another problem calling for a solution 😉

    Do watch the Joker movie, I have a gut feeling you will like it. I did very much even dough it was a little bit “too artistic” for my taste. Still, Joaquin Phoenix was absolutely phenomenal in my opinion the real and ultimate Joker for me always will be Heath Ledger. Just like Batman is Christian Bale. Period.

    1. Hi bro!
      I’ve always laughed at “you’ll be fine” because “fine” is also an Italian word that means “the end”.
      So I’m reading your comment like: “Congrats on the move RIP, it’s just going to be the end (of everything)”… LOL!

      About Joker… I’ve never watched any of the Batman, Spiderman, Marvel, the other guys, the guys that do wars in space, the guys that do trek in space… I’m not good at “suspension of disbelief”. And few philosophical youtubers that I follow said that it was shallow so I’m not interested.

  6. Congratulation !
    I don’t know how you planned the upcoming months but,If I can give you two advice :

    1) don’t go now to the unemployment insurance yet. You can subscribe in six month and still have a two years scope of compensation (with the four first months of penalty).

    2) Go to unemployment insurance in six month/one year, just to confirm if you want to work again and under which rules. Because I know that, even if you say you are outdated, enterprises will want you, maybe for some job you didn’t think of it.

    Again congratulation, for me you are FI-like even if it is for some limited years in Switzerland, and with that you can rewrite your story and legacy for you and your family.

    1. Hi Euler, thanks for the good advices!

      1) I better go soon, since I can claim I quit for medical reasons (my doctor would support me in this) and I should get money from day 1

      2) I guess this is obsolete given 1. How I will face the “official unemployment time” (i.e. being employed by RAV) is yet to be decided. I know that if I want to get a job I should be able to do it within the first month. But I don’t want it. I guess I’ll aim to the moon (exciting role in exciting company with Hooli-like salary) and see what happens. If an offer shows up I’ll think about it.

      1. Hi Mr.RIP,

        I hope you will listen to your feeling before you subscribe.

        Here is my experience:
        For some people it’s easy to do 10 or 12 applications per month ‘for free’ but, I only speak for me, I got hard time to do these applications and even more to go for interviews to say, ‘well you are not bad , but not good enough for me. plus in fact I just want some defined time to settle up almost everything in my head/life. ‘

        I ended up not taking advantage at 100% of this unique time I had. So, for two months, I stopped doing any application without being accountable to the unemployment insurance. If I had subscribed, according to them, I should have accepted any ‘decent job’.

        Maybe it won’t be the case for you, I only hope you won’t go through hard time and that you can put into perspective the time window you have now.

        You will feel it maybe with the first applications of this month and next month.

        Good luck again for everything, wish you the best.

        1. I don’t even have to do my own application, I received 5-6 recruiters email in last 2 weeks. I don’t think it will be hard to apply for jobs if I want to, and even going to the interviews sounds fun 🙂

          Anyway, there’s the option of announcing yourself as seeking self employment which I will explore soon. Maybe you should read my latest post: https://retireinprogress.com/stupidifi/

          1. Did you change something on LinkedIn after deciding to quit Hooli which resulted in such a wave of recruiters contacting you? Or it was like that before, you were just not paying attention to it? 🙂

  7. Congratulations! You tried the different role and then it was obvious to you. Now you can relax a bit and catch up on your sleep.
    Actually my husband and I are planning to move from the Netherlands to Lombardia, Italy or Catalunya Spain in two years, Looking forward to hear your new adventures.

    1. Yeah, but in June a new stock vesting event would have happened… it would have been an extra 75-80k for another 3 months of grinding (3 salaries plus ~35k USD of stocks)… the grind never ends 🙂

      Wow, Lombardia? Why? Where? I’d love to hear more about it. Feel free to write me an email if you want to discuss that 🙂

  8. I loved your post; the idea of taking a Dr Doom post and expanding on it was a great one.
    I also miss the Living a FI blog and often wish for an update.
    Will be eagerly anticipating your next posts!

  9. As a fellow Italian who is now in Switzerland to study Computer Science, I just wanted to congratulate for the content of your blog and wish you good luck for the future, I am curious to see what you will do.
    I think right now if i was completely free and with enough money I would probably do a paramedic course or something like that and volunteer.

    P.S. I will be at Hooli Zurich sometime in early March to present something from ETH, ping me in case 🙂

    Alla prossima

    1. Hi Tommaso, welcome to Switzerland (and to retireinprogress)!
      Good point on volunteering, but as you can see I’m not “completely free” 🙂

      Well, you ping me when you come to Hooli (before end of March)

  10. Congrats also from my side. Enjoy the time with your family and find your next goal. I was really worry as I read your last post. I am pretty sure you will have no medical problems anymore.

    1. I hope so, but I’m sure the clouds won’t disappear just because I quit my job.
      I have other monsters to fight: self esteem, productivity guilt, negative cash flow worries, paradox of choice and so on.
      Better problems, I agree, but still problems. Amplified by some sort of “generic anxiety”.

      Will keep you all posted, of course

  11. Hi RIP,

    Congratulations of quitting! I’m trully happy for you. I wish you the best and I can’t wait to hear of your new adventures!

    I really like LivingAFI, he inspired me to start my blog as well. I think he was an excellent writer, I wish I could hold a candle to him in this regard. I also wish he made an update on how it’s going for him because it’s frustrating to have an online superhero of your own and not knowing how his story has been. It would be great to see posts like his work experience just for his freedom years.

    1. Hi Mocsi, I took a look at your blog and… congrats on your saving rate! You’re doing great!

      And yes, we’re all waiting for a LivingAFI return 🙁

  12. Hi RIP,
    I subscribe every word! I don’t hate my job as well, but I keep on asking to myself: am I wasting my time / my potential / my healthy youth / why is this routine killing my enthusiasm and my creativity?
    Finding other people who feel the same as me is really conforting.

    Meeting this big FIRE “family” was a blessing and a pain too: you know, knowledge sometimes hurts, but at least we can see a light at the end of the tunnel! 😉

    So I’m really happy for your decision! Follow your heart and be the best version of yourself with your wife and your kid, this is the most important investment you can make in my opinion, and to hell money!!

    Ciao
    Dome

    1. Oh, Mr DIP has been (virtually) with me the entire quitting day.

      Me: “Hey DIP, take a look at this screenshot of my resignation letter !”

      DIP: “Yeah, you won’t send it…”

      Me: “What about now! screenshot of my email sent

      DIP: “Yeah, Photoshop…”

      Me: “Tha fuck’s wrong with you?? Here, take a look at our internal tool for leaving Hooli, and here’s the confirmation mail from HR that says that… ok, my manager needs to approve it…”

      DIP: “Oh shit… tonight I’m going to get drunk! But wait, where’s your manager confirmation??”

      Me: “I don’t know.. it will come. See? In your face DIP! Who was “too scared to quit” now? Eh?”

      DIP: “Gooooood Job 🙂 “

  13. Hi,
    first of all, good luck with next steps! 🙂

    You have kind of convinced me to try Hooli again this year (I failed the interview 5y ago). There are not many SWE offers in Zurich though. Some Hooli-like companies have momentum in Munich.
    How is Hooli there or do you have any other European location recommendation ?

    Cheers

  14. Hi Mr. RIP,

    Fellow software engineer fom Germany here. Congratulations on quitting your job!
    My wife and I have reached our FIRE number about a year ago. I feel the same as you and Dr. Doom and really didn’t expect this part (between FI and RE) of the journey to be so challenging, psychologically. My wife had a much harder time than me at her job and quit a few months ago. She was really miserable, so she had a compelling reason. For me, it is different. The term “cushy job” fits rather well. I’m not miserable. Not happy, either. It doesn’t matter. Meh. You get the blues 🙂
    Now, I haven’t seen my wife happier in a long time. I’ll join her sooner or later.

    Wish you all the best. Don’t stress yourself and have fun!

    1. Hi chn, thanks for stopping by and for your kind words and good luck with your internal struggle!
      My recommendation for you is: make sure if you decide to quit it’s because you are not only achieving “freedom from” your current job but also “freedom to” do something else you are eager to do.

      1. Thank you. I have many creative passions, absolutely no worries about that. You know, I regard myself as being (among other things) an unrecognised musical genius. So I’m going to work more intensely on that career after FIRE 😛

  15. Mr RIP,

    I learnt about your blog just a few days ago and I’ve been really enjoying reading through it.
    This article in particular was so relatable that you contributed to put into words a feeling I’ve been having for a couple of years. Thank you.

    Moreover, I discovered MrDoom’s blog and found a recent update describing his whole after-RE life, did you read it? Was it the way you envisioned the unfolding of his life?

Leave a Reply to marttokas Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment Spam Blocking by WP-SpamShield