I quit, Now What?

A month back, I did the unthinkable. Right when the signs of recession were disappearing, and people were switching jobs and consolidating their pay packages; I resigned from my full time job at Honeywell. "Shocking" and "stupid" formed the majority of the comments that I received from my fellow colleagues and friends. A handful of them though appreciated the decision as well.

Although the reason for quitting the job originates from my family constraints and issues, I still think I would have done the same thing sooner or later in absence of any such constraint. For the past 3 years, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time working on Aviation Electronics with some the best people I've ever met in my life, but I knew it from day 1 that I don't belong to this place. The 12-hours-in-front-of-a-computer job is
certainly not for me. I guess I've already overstayed my welcome.

I've always been a pretty decent student. Not so bright, but not pathetic as well. The only reason I wanted to
do my M.Tech was I wanted to get out of my home, and the job that I had in my hand right after BE wasn't
encouraging enough (in terms of money and location). A good GATE score(a surprise to me as well) strengthened the decision to pursue higher studies and I finally landed at VIT, Vellore. My 2 years of stay here were a real eye opener and I learned some of the most important lessons of my life (The biggest thing I learned is how to survive without a girl friend on campus when each of your friend is hanging around with a pretty face). No matter what people say, I truly believe that VIT rightly deserves a rank among top 10 institutes in this country (I would write more on this subject pretty soon).

When I came out of VIT, I had 4 different job offers in my hand. And I chose to go along with Honeywell even though the other offers were more rewarding initially, for 4 major reasons -
1. I did my internship at Honeywell Madurai, and I fell in love with the place.
2. The offer honored my Master's degree
3. I still didn't want to go back home.
4. Most importantly, the location was Bangalore !

Bangalore!! The city of dreams, where every engineer in India wants to be, where I wanted to be. The city of
pubs, the city of technology, the city of youth, the city of beautiful faces (The city of crazy traffic and stupid government as well. More on that later). My first day at office and my 1st reaction was - "So many girls
!!! ". Yes, staying in Madurai for 9 months will make you like every single girl in Bangalore.

My initial plan was to work in this place for around an year or so, save a few bucks and look for opportunities to set up a business of my own. But like so many of us who think to do the same and fail to execute the plan, I failed as well.

In the first year, I failed purposely. I never thought I would have such a good time at work. I was loving
every moment of it and I thought I might have been wrong all along...This is the place I belong to...And this
is the job I am good at..I even told my boss that I can't think of working at some other place doing some thing
else. And yea, speaking of my boss (my ex-boss), he was the only reason I stayed back for the 1st year and had a fantastic time at Honeywell. I was given the respect for the work I did, was rewarded suitably and there was no partiality, no sycophancy. I was having a time of my life...I made some very good friends along the way and rejected several offers from other IT majors as well.

Things changed once my boss left the organization and since then I've been trying to foolishly convince myself
that it is the same old "good" place; all in vain. My workplace became a tree full of monkeys. Those at the top
branches could only see monkey faces below them. And all that was visible to the monkeys at the bottom, were assholes ! Nevertheless, we were all monkeys !!

And then something happened ! Some issues back at home and I was needed there. Though I might have a taken a long long leave, I decided to quit !! The entrepreneurship bug has bitten me again, and this time there is no going back !! I've always believed that the risk-reward equation is always completely in favor of the
entrepreneur. There is no way that you will be economically rewarded less for being an entrepreneur than by taking up a job. Though I still don't know what I might be doing, I have a long list of pursuing my long neglected interests which includes traveling, photography and teaching. Lets see where I land up in next few
months.

I still don't know if I did the wrong thing to jump off the monkey tree or not. But all I know that I've been enjoying my time for the past few days. I didn't want to live a complex life, write complex code and have someone breathing down my neck and be under pressure for growth. I am more comfortable, leading an uncomplicated life. A life where all that I will do will be for myself and not for some asshole sitting on top of the monkey tree.


PS: If you are one of my ex-manager or senior at work and if you think that a reference above has been made to you and it makes you angry or offends you, but the same reference to some other guy in the team would make you happier, then I intend the other guy, not you. (And I hope now you understand why I quit !)