Welcome back! Please strap in for a dramatic telling of this past quarter’s events.
How It Started
The general outline of tasks related to quitting my job began by going exactly according to plan and then branched off into unanticipated spokes as I suppose most plans tend to do.
We paid off my Spouse’s student loans!!! Boom! We decided to accelerate the payoff so that it was one less payment to carry into my funemployment. Those loans have been with us for our entire relationship and now they are gone. And the hole they left is … delicious to my soul muuuhahaa so that lowers our monthly expenses by $120. Cool cool. With all the inflation floating around we can definitely absorb this elsewhere womp womp.
In early July I gave an informal heads-up to the director that I enjoyed working closely with for the past two years. Although I was prepared to have to give formal notice if she alerted my boss, she did not. She also didn’t use the extra time to do anything productive with our work portfolio either ha I had held a space of hope that she would offer me a position on her team to continue our work together, but alas, that did not come to fruition.
Then came the time to actually give formal notice the last week of July. I had a mid-year review with my boss on my calendar and I was planning to wait until the end of the review and then do it. After pacing and sweating through the morning the meeting began, and luckily my boss started my review with the remark, Since we all can’t have the job we want, what kind of job would you design for yourself if you could. LMAO a fun game of make-believe garbage. Without the support of my leadership, I can design any job I want and I would never get it. In that moment, I decided not to wait and said, I am giving notice today. She asked me to delay my notice and consider a retention offer.
And then things get interesting.
The Middle Bits
Context: Recruiters reach out on my LinkedIn once or twice a month.
Beginning that week, a recruiter reached out every single day for two weeks. And I responded. I started taking interviews.
My company put together a retention bonus offering a $15k bonus if I stayed an additional 8 months. I countered, asking if they could make it $25k? And they said, please hold for HR.
HR said no. So I finally hit send on my notice. Just a note about this particular day and experience: I work remotely and my spouse doesn’t, so I was alone in my home during the moment of quitting my job for a company I had been with for nine years. I thought it would be a lonely experience. False. Amazingly, four separate friends reached out that morning, two didn’t even know I was in the process of a monumental work change! My spouse also called and stayed on the phone while I hit send. It was not lonely at all. It was wonderful.
After I hit send, I saw a meeting go up on my boss and directors calendars with their boss labeled “staffing touchbase”. Curious.
The next day, they said they will make $25k happen they just needed some time.
During all this time, I was continuing through interviews and I got an offer from Morgan Stanley! But the role sounded…discombobulated so I passed on the offer.
I had taken two rounds of interviews with a company that sounded great. The team and structure and company were appealing to me and it came with a hybrid option to work in a Baltimore office (I love office!). Unfortunately, the second interview was on the same Monday that HR came through with the $25k retention offer, and it sounded like it would be a week before they made the decision for the final round of interviews.
I sat on the retention offer on Tuesday without accepting. This retention offer would mean that in March 2027 I would receive an AIP bonus of ~$20k, plus my salary, plus $25k retention bonus. I would make more money in one month than some people make in an entire year. All that money. At the price of my dignity, spirit, soul, overall quality of life and happiness. I would have spent eight months training an AI how to do my job only to leave and have my company pay this AI like 15x my salary. That money tho…
The Decision
On Wednesday I woke up feeling resigned that I should probably take that retention offer.
At 9:50am, the company I had been interviewing and vibing with called and made an offer. YIPPEEE!!
It’s less money.
It’s less flashy and exciting work.
I’d no longer be in investments or in the prestige of PrIvAtE EqUiTy.
But it’s in a beautiful office on the harbor, with a boss that made a good first impression.
Two hours later, I accepted the offer.
That afternoon, I declined the retention offer.
We flew back to MN to close out my notice period in mid-August. And I was done. I left my company of nine years.
How It’s Going
I’ve been with my new company for about a month now.
I love walking to and from work. I like the work. I like the company. I like my team.
The work is back in the trusty steed Excel without any talk of AI. And I’ve yet to meet an employee whose job is ‘opinions’.
I know we are still in the honeymoon period, but I am soaking it up. I am happy.
When I started the process of quitting, I could never have predicted this outcome! I had prepared financially and emotionally to take time away from work and begin the transition to coast fire and in the midst of an enormous life change I just kept answer every knock on every door and allowed this opportunity to present itself.
It was a classic close-your-eyes-and-leap trope.
It makes me giddy that it happened to me. I can hardly believe this life is mine. Now that my spouse and I both work in Baltimore, it feels like we are onto a new chapter of life and the next chapter of FIRE.
FIRE Related Details
My annual pay is now $92k plus 10% target bonus – in a way it is a pay cut. But since I was planning to be literally unemployed, I consider it $92,000 more dollars than expected, which is a very big raise if you choose to indulge this perspective. Hahaha!
And we went with a high deductible health plan, so I have access to an HSA again. Yummy savings opportunity.
That was weird to say Yummy. I’m not going to take it back, but I will promise not to do it again in any future posts.
It was a whirlwind three months. I did have 10 days between roles where I got a brief glimpse into the world of funemployment. It went freaky fast. And I feel reinvigorated to save and steady our expenses to head into FIRE.
So now…the question is whether to stay on the coast fire path…or go full steam ahead toward full FIRE………
…cliff hanger…
