I got a call about a job opening this week. I said I wasn't interested, but its nice that people I used to work with recommended me. If I go broke hopefully they'll hook me up.

I tell you what

I'm going through as tough a thing as I've been through in an occupation. Every level of school was a breeze; working for GE was mostly easy with occassional sanity checks.

I've been losing money for over a month now. I don't think you can understand it until you've been there. But I'm still having fun. Poker is fun. I had a long, crazy, losing session tonight, but I still enjoyed it. How many people actually lose money on the job for a month and still enjoy it?

Observations

At work, I used to read ESPN all day. I'd estimate I averaged no less than 60 minutes a day reading ESPN articles with an excel spreadsheet ready to quickly flip to if someone walked by. 60 minutes is a very conservative estimate; I'm sure there were weeks where I averaged 3 hours per day. I devoted at least another 60 minutes to other topics, including my fantasy sports teams, Mark Cuban's blog, the latest news in science and technology, and tried to stay generally aware of what was going on in financial markets.

I spend very little time on any of those now. Since I quit the desk job, my records tell me I've spent 21.5 hours per week playing poker. I've watched a lot of movies and DVD TV shows (Sopranos, Lost, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Family Guy), and read a few books. I play way too much online Risk (the game of world domination!). I've played some basketball, soccer, and tennis. I've done some jogging and some drinking, and I cook a lot more. I read 2+2 for I'd guess an average of 90 minutes per day. At some point I decided I wanted to do more writing, and I've done a tiny bit but not much. I probably average 9 hours of sleep per night, which is glorious.

When people ask me what I do with my time, I don't really have an answer. I do most of the same things as I used to do, but now I just get more sleep, read different web pages, and don't spend 2 hours commuting. I guess I'm wasting away a similar amount of time as before, I just can't call it "work" now.

Leaving my job

Gotta get out - 2/1/05 - Realizing that I needed a change

The fine line between genius and stupidity - 2/28/05 - Q&A about my decision to quit my job

Response from coworkers - 3/1/05 - How people at work responded to the entry above

To do: - 3/7/05 - Unorganized plans for unemployment

The Exit Interview - 3/25/05 - Interview with the HR leader on my last day

Reading, Thinking, Writing... Being a Lazy Jackass - 6/17/05 - Is poker enough?

Opportunity cost - 6/24/05 - financial comparison of poker v job

Observations - 10/12/05 - wasting time

I tell you what - 10/15/05 - losing money and enjoying it

1/5/06 - not interested, thanks

Opportunity cost

In 13 weeks, I've made about $4,200 less playing poker than I would have earned from the job I quit. That extrapolates to a $17,000 annual paycut. The benefits aren't as good either, but what can you expect from flexible part-time work?

If you add back the 2 weeks vacation I got paid out, and consider the expenses I'm saving on commuting and lunches out in Bethesda, the financial difference looks much better. Plus I got a nice tax refund this year, so with that buffer I haven't really felt any pains in the wallet at all.

As a return on that $4,200 investment, I honestly expect my earn rate over the next 13 weeks can completely dwarf what I've done so far. My understanding of the game is growing every day, I feel like I'm playing the best poker I've ever played, and my results are starting to show it. Or maybe I'm just catching a good run of cards and in the long run I'll struggle to break even. It has been fun either way.

Its 11:20am, I guess I should go to bed.

Reading, Thinking, Writing... Being a Lazy Jackass.

This is what happens when I see a simple poker winrate projection...

I was reading Luke's latest, when I came to this quote:

In theory, playing 12 $2-$4 tables, beating each table for a bet per hour, and receiving a partial rake rebate would yield more than $250 thousand at 8 hours per day. A quarter of a million dollars at $2-$4 is actually possible!

Something about that math didn't add up to me as I thought about it, so I busted out the excel and crunched some numbers. I was about to ask him what kind of crazy rake rebate deal he had, when I realized what I was missing. When I hear "8 hours per day" I think 40 hours per week.

He meant 8 hours every single day. I can't do that. I know there are tons of people out there who work more than 56 hours every week, but I don't think I could ever be one of them. I can't think of any one thing I'd be willing to devote that much time to.

Coming out of college with a double degree in finance and economics and strong math skills, I could have gone for an investment banking gig. I knew I could make a ton of money that way, and my friends who went that route are making huge 6-figure salaries at age 25. I saw that potential, but I didn't want to slave through the 80 hour work weeks they make the entry-level analysts put in.

Hell, it got to the point where 40 hour weeks at GE was too much to bear.

These days I'm fully aware that playing poker for more hours is the most important thing I can do to build my bankroll, thereby allowing me to move up to higher limits, thereby allowing me to make more money. But I struggle to put in more than 30 hours per week.

Clearly wealth accumulation isn't something I've shown a willingness to invest much time in. Which is not quite the same as saying I wouldn't be willing to invest a great deal of time in something that would lead to wealth, just that I'm not willing to work simply for the sake of wealth. We'll get back to that point.

But for now, if not just for money, then what would I invest tons of time in?

Well, I'm pretty sure that I'd work 18 hours a day to ensure my own survival. And if I have my own family some day, I assume I'd include their survival as a higher priority than my own.

But that's really all I can think of. I'm too selfish to include any kind of altruistic causes that help people outside my small circle. God bless the soldiers and the Peace Corps and teachers and law enforcement, cause I sure can't do what they do.

Before you write me off as 100% worthless and lazy, note that so far what I'm writing about is devoting myself extensively to any ONE thing. I couldn't dissect balance sheets or fight crime for 80 hours per week. But I could probably do those both for 8 hours per week, and throw in 7 or 8 other things too.

Ok, maybe not all in the same week. I am 90% worthless and lazy. I have a short attention span; spending too long on any one thing drains my energy.

I guess the point here is that I want to enjoy my time, not just slave miserably towards a goal. My means are just as important to me, if not more important than the ends. Some people enjoy poker enough to play 8 hours every single day. It turns out I enjoy it enough to fill about 30 hours per week, and it turns out that amount of play meets my survival needs. I'm very lucky in that regard.

For some people, meeting survival needs isn't enough, and they don't mind working 80 hours a week at jobs they dislike if they know they'll eventually have more money. Some people trudge through the hours knowing their work is serving a higher cause. Some people never stop moving because they don't know how.

I got a job after college because I wanted to live on my own instead of having to mooch off my parents. I liked the job more than I liked the other idea. After a few years I found a solution I liked better and I started playing online poker in my underwear in the house I bought instead of sitting in a cubicle in business casual working for the man.

That was an improvement, and now I think I can do even better. I know myself, what I'm capable of, what my limitations are. I have a better idea of what I want. I don't want to put more time into poker, because I want to spend some more time on other things.

When I was working 40 hours per week, I was spending about 10 hobby hours on poker. Both those time chunks had direction. These days I'm putting 40 work hours into poker (30 playing, plus I probably spend 10 hours reading or analyzing my game), but I haven't picked up something else to fill those 10 hobby hours. Nothing with direction anyway. I've enjoyed a couple months of filling that time with diversions - movies, video games, etc - but recently I've felt the urge to start something with a purpose.

I love writing this blog. I'll sit down and start typing and suddenly an hour has gone by. I like it when I can entertain, inspire, amuse, or mostly just annoy people with my ideas and the way I express them. I look forward to hearing about people's reactions, and I'm always on the lookout for new material to write about. I don't mind making an ass of myself with this kind of public introspection, and I know that people find it interesting.

I'm going to start writing something else. I'm not exactly sure what form it will take yet, or if it will ever be worth anything to anyone else. But I have some ideas that I know I'll enjoy spending some time developing. Those are the kind of time investments I'm willing to make.

The Exit Interview

1:51pm

I have my exit interview coming up. They had sent me a survey to fill out. I wrote this on it:

There is widespread frustration with HR practices, at least at the lower and middle levels. Either the frustration or the practices should be addressed. However this could be difficult if voicing criticism of HR is perceived as likely to be damaging to an individual's reputation.

At their request, I sent a meeting invitation to our HR leader to "discuss my responses." See any conflicts of interest with an HR person conducting an exit interview in which I mention problems with HR? After 2 days, I got no response, so I sent another email yesterday. I still had no response, so I just went up to her office to see if the 2:30 meeting time worked for her. As I approach her door, I see her bent over trying to reach something underneath her desk. She started to reach down from sitting in the chair, but couldn't reach it, so she was half off the chair with her posterior sticking up directly toward the doorway, her shirt riding up so that half of her bare back is exposed. I tap on the door, and she awkwardly pops up and looks very embarrassed as she pulls her shirt back down. She mutters something about how she thought she had replied, and makes a show of confusedly checking her computer to see if she responded. She says 2:30 works fine, come back up in an hour. What a great start to this....

2:48pm

I just got out of it. It was very friendly, and pretty anticlimactic. I gave honest feedback about situations I've been in and things that I've seen and it was received in a polite and appreciative manner. She told me she wished she could do what I'm doing, and how a friend of hers did something similiar and it was very good for him.

People talk a lot of shit about her, but I've never had a problem with her personally. She's always been nice to me and I had a lot of fun at the golf outing where I shared a cart with her for 18 holes. I told her that there is widespread dissatisfaction with HR, and that I'm sure she knows of that at least somewhat. She said it always amuses her that people think she has more power than our Risk Leader, and I acknowledged that it might be better for risk managers to be able to use HR as a scapegoat. Its easier for a manager to say "HR won't let me promote you" than "I don't think you really deserve that."

I don't know what's really going on behind the scenes, and I really don't care. People working for huge corporations are always going to have issues with something, and they want to blame everyone other than themselves. Doesn't matter whose fault it is, what matters is what you do about it. You know the rules of the game, now put up or shut up.

To do:

Brainstorming about things I want to do in my unemployment:

• Design a new excel tracking sheet for poker that will be more useful for my new situation. Specifically I want to easily see weekly trends, and come up with a clear design to support my cash-out plan, which leads to my next point...
  
• ...Design a cash-out plan. If poker is my only source of income for a while, I need to perfect my plan for what money is bankroll and what isn't. I don't necessarily need to completely avoid mingling the funds as long as I keep track somehow of how to allocate wins and losses and expenses. Hopefully there will be wins.
  
• Create a resume and post it on Monster and other such places.
  
• Set a poker goal ($x,xxx by mm/dd/yyyy) that if I reach it, I buy a silly multiple monitor system like this. If anyone has set up one of these and can help me with it, let me know. I'd hate to spend a crapload on the monitors and graphics card and then find out my computer isn't compatible or something. I drool about nerdy stuff like this, but I have no idea how it works. I'm a wannabe tech geek. This is an investment though, since I could expand to playing up to 8 tables at a time.
  
• Domestic whatnot. I need to give my house a big brutal cleaning. I'm not good at continual upkeep, so I'll have to do a thorough cleansing occasionally. There are a dozen little things that need to be fixed around the house. I'm not handy at all, but I should be able to figure out most of them.
  
• Establish workout habits. I had been running every other day for several months, but stopped when it got cold. I was fine with stopping because I had basketball or soccer 3 nights a week. Basketball is almost over, and I'll have plenty of time, so I might as well do something daily.
  
• Establish a daily routine that gives reasonable time to: poker, job/career pursuit, exercise, reading, socialization, pillaging small coastal villages, and other leisure.
  
• Figure out my food plans. I had been spending $10/day commuting and about $8/day on lunches, so I should save a lot by cutting those out. I figure I'll eat most of my meals at home, so I'll need fresh groceries more often. I suspect I'll be eating a lot of sandwiches and hot pockets.
• Make sure I don't become a total hermit. Can't you just picture me disappearing into my weird isolated online poker world, emerging at sporadic intervals, sometimes months apart, wide-eyed and unshorn? I'd become some kind of urban myth, a cautionary tale about the dangers of never leaving your house. (This is going to be awesome.)
• Start to give school a serious look. What are my different academic options? Fall 2006 would be the earliest realistic target to start any full-time program.
• Start watching more NBA games. Abandon hope of ever getting back into baseball. Continue to care less and less about college basketball. Await NFL season with enthusiasm disproportionate to my actual enjoyment of the NFL. Await NFL fantasy drafts with enthusiasm disproportionate to my actual enjoyment of fantasy football. Continue to not care at all about college football. Revel in the success of my plan to destroy the NHL. Watch more UFC. Become an ultimate fighter. Live through my first fight, barely. Retire from ultimate fighting. Spend 3 months in hospital. While in hospital, watch lots of NBA games.
• Listen to the Junkies again. Ever since 99.1 WHFS abruptly switched to Spanish programming (which was seriously traumatic - how can the HFStival be dead??), I've been deprived of the show that revived my enthusiasm for talk radio. I haven't been able to listen to them during their 10am-1pm slot on 106.7 WJFK because I can't get reception at work. Problem solved. SILLY!
• Oh, and I need to hook up some kind of rakeback deal for online play. More on this when I figure it out.
  

Response from coworkers

I sent the text from my Genius/Stupidity entry to a bunch of people I work with, or used to work with. I told them I put together an FAQ for them. Here are some of their replies:

• You're crazy...LOL :)
  
• You're awesome
  sao tao and principe?
  
• The move makes sense. That everyone here is shocked by it should just reinforce that this isn't the place for you. Noone thinks anyone would leave here for any other reason than "the grass is greener." Its hard to explain that grass tastes like crap.
  
• Wow...that's pretty deep. I think you should just tell people that you're quitting to become a professional poker player. That sounds pretty cool.
  
• That's a good idea. It definitely answers all of my questions. You should send it to [the HR leader] in lieu of an exit interview.
  
• I heard the news. I thought you were going to Capital Source.
  Most people who left in the recent years move to the various companies listed below for a pay increase, but not for a career change. I admire you for taking the leap of faith in trying to find what you want to do. People who take that leap will usually find the greatest reward, their own personal sanity and perhaps a handsome $ or two.
  Good luck to you and keep in touch.
  Remember when in doubt.......double down.
  
• That right there my friend is awesome, answered any question I might have had for you.
  That's genius
  
• I love that!!
  i think you should put it on a t-shirt though and wear it around the office. maybe something a little more concise, like "I'm not going to CapitalSource or CIT"
  
• You are an exceptionally smart young man. I am serious. I truly believe you know what you are doing. Wishing you all the best!!!
  
• You might be my hero. I wish I had the balls (or at least some mad bow staff skills).
• Damn, you just up and quit, eh? How utterly glorious that is! I respect your cojones for that, Adam; it's a bold step. Moreover, you will get to play poker and earn money, now who can beat that! I wish I could help you find something here, because you were a great worker and a cool cat - but this job sucks and is so boring, so you will be in better shape than I soon. :) Don't lose my e-mail address, so that you can keep me posted when you want to hire my lazy a$$.
• You are the wind beneath my wings . . .
  I wish you nothing but the best and if you ever need anything let me know!
• Adam, good for you. I wish you much luck. You have already made the tough decision. The rest, while not easy, will depend totally on you which I agree is a lot better than working for GE.
  

I should also mention that my boss was very cool about this. He told me I had been kicking ass for him and he is sorry to see me go, but he respects my decision and offered to write me a recommendation if I ever need one.

I've worked with a lot of cool people, and although I'm not the most sentimental person, I'll miss a lot of them. Maybe I should send the same email to a bunch of the people I won't miss to see what kind of response I get from them....

• You are an idiot...LOL :) Seriously, you are retarded.
  
• WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? Only a complete fucking moron would quit a job before they have another one. I hope you have to move back in with your parents and work at Taco Bell, you dumb piece of shit.
  
• You seem to be "chasing a dream" or something like that. Didn't you go to the lunch-and-learn about forgetting your dreams? GE employees should have dreams about making the numbers and knowing every obscure acronym on every pitch, so maybe it is best that you are leaving. I think you need a refresher course on how to write your G&Os. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go stomp on my buddy's head while kissing up to my boss, since that might get me a raise and/or promotion (but not both, and not within 2 years of my last one) much quicker than if I just worked hard and looked out for my team.
  
• You're going to Capital Source aren't you...
  

The fine line between genius and stupidity

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

- Theodore Roosevelt*

Today I notified my boss that I intend to resign. I started with GE in August of 2002, and March 25, 2005 will be my last day.

Here is every conversation I had today:

So where are you going?

I don't know.

Oh I see, you're playing it cool? Come on is it Capital Source? Merrill? CIT?

No, seriously, I don't know.

You are quitting and you don't know what you are going to do?

Yup.

You don't have another job?

Nope.

Then why are you quitting?

I know that this job isn't right for me. I can't really look around and see anything here I'd like to be doing in 5 years. I figure I should get out now while I'm young and can afford to take some risks.

Why don't you look for a new job while you work here?

I've tried that the last few months, and its just too hard for me to work all day and then drive an hour home and spend more time looking for jobs. I think as long as I have this, I'd be lazy about my job search. This way I force myself to make something happen.

Wow. Are you my hero or do I hate you?

Some of both probably.

You really are just quitting?

Yes.

Are you insane?

Pretty much.

So what do you think you want to do?

I'm not sure, but this should give me some time to figure it out. I know I'd like to find something where I can use some creativity. I know that if I want to be in the business world, ideally I'd want to run my own business, but I'd at least want to work for a much smaller company so I can really jump in and make a big difference. I have a business idea that I'd like to tinker with, and I think a lot of what I've learned at GE could really help me have an impact at a smaller company. I'll also give serious consideration to going back to school.

Oh, so which business schools are you considering?

No, not business school.

Oh, law school?

No, probably not law school either.

Umm....?

I'd think about going to get a Ph.D. An academic career has always intrigued me - teaching, research, writing. In fact I was accepted to an economics Ph.D. program at Johns Hopkins and almost went there after college. If I did that now, I know I wouldn't want to study economics. There is a newly developing field of study called Evolutionary Psychology that interests me a great deal. I've been reading a lot about it lately, and plan to investigate options for further study.

This is all a joke right?

No, sorry.

Seriously?

Yes.

You're going to CIT aren't you?

No.

What about money? How can you afford this?

Well I think I can last 3 months, maybe 6 if I live light, with no more income. I have some savings and a roommate, so I should be alright. Additionally, I've been fairly successful with online poker, and I think there's a good chance I could cover my mortgage and bills playing for maybe 20 hours per week.

So you are leaving a job at GE to go play poker professionally?

I don't look at it that way. I'm leaving my job at GE because I don't like it. In my free time I plan to play some poker, and hopefully it will help me pay the bills until I figure out something else.

Bullshit! You are quitting your job to play poker!

Maybe a little.

Is that quote at the beginning for real? Are you actually trying to glorify the fact that you are about to be an unemployed hobo?

Yeah, its pathetic.


Thats all for now. Much more to come I'm sure.

* I slightly misquoted Teddy originally. I believe this version is correct now. Source.

Gotta get out!

"So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life. "

-Peter Gibbons

Here was what I actually did last Thursday afternoon. I was sitting in a meeting where I had no responsibility whatsoever, growing more and more bored, when I decided it would be fun to sketch a portrait of the guy sitting across from me. 5 minutes later I had a drawing that to my amazement actually looked like the guy. I was so proud of it that I scanned it and spent the rest of the afternoon emailing it to people and accepting their praise and laughter.

So in an apparent effort to top that, today I rolled in to the office 30 minutes late, took a 2 hour lunch at a nice French restaurant and charged it to the company, and then left 90 minutes early, making sure to leave my computer and desk lights on so that anyone walking by would think I was still there but just away from my desk. I'd say in a given week, I do about 15 minutes of real, actual work. I wonder how many bored 20-something cubicle clowns compare their life to Office Space every day?

I'm in desperate need of a change, since I clearly don't give a shit about this job any more. Its been 2 or 3 weeks since I got the non-negotiable offer letter from HR and learned that I'd be making less money in 2005 than I did in 2004 and would once again have the job title that I had when I started working here 2.5 years ago and had been twice "promoted" beyond. Ever since then I've pretty much given up on this gig. I just have to smile until my yearly bonus payout in 3 weeks.

My career options at that point:

1. Try to get a job with our competitors. I'd probably make more money and have more responsibility, but its just another 9-5 in a world that ultimately doesn't interest me.
2. Try to find some other job in something totally different. Ideally I'd find a small company where I can make a huge impact really quickly and use more of what I have to offer. The problem with this is finding the right situation is damn hard, and then convincing them that I'm right for them might be pretty hard also. I have a few years with a highly respected company, so that will perhaps count for something.
3. Go back to school. School is great, but I would have to be damn sure its what I want to commit 5 years of opportunity cost to getting a PhD.
4. Play poker professionally. I'm fairly confident, but far from certain that I could make a decent living from poker at least for a few years. This is obviously extremely high risk, not to mention socially challenging, but there isn't a better time in my life to try to "scratch that itch." I could always try it for a few months and if it doesn't work out just retreat to one of the other options.
5. Keep limping along where I am until I figure out something better.

Or various combinations of these. Melanie (who deserves an entire post sometime soon) had a quote on her desk that was something to the effect of: "If everyone waited to act until they knew their actions could be perfect, nothing would ever get done." If I subscribe to that way of thinking, I should probably scratch #5 off the list.

This isn't something I'm going to figure out tonight, but here is what I can do:

• Search through job listings and other sources to see what opportunities are out there
• Put together my resume
• Start to more seriously investigate school options
• Do some details financial planning for the poker option (which I've done to some extent, and might address in a post on my other blog)
• Talk to my friends at the local companies and see what my options are
• Keep writing about things and organizing my thoughts
• Two chicks at the same time!**
  

That's all for now. Its 5:30 and I'd just now be leaving the office, so I consider this already a victory for my personal productivity.

Oh, and I think I might forget my plans to keep this just to myself. I got nothing to hide, especially not from the people who would actually take any time to sit there and read what I write. So I probably will put a link to this one in my IM profile too. Maybe I'll write more later about that decision.

** CLARIFICATION: "Two chicks at the same time" is a quote from Office Space, a movie that I had already referenced several times as a running theme to this entry. As the final paragraph hints, when I started this blog it was only seen by a few close friends, most of whom would have recognized this memorable punchline. Like 90% of what I write, it wasn't meant to be taken seriously, which I now feel the need to make clear since my readership has expanded to people who might be on the far side of the sarchasm. Believe it or not, even I have limits to my tastelessness, and I doubt I'd ever be so boorish as to write about something as private as my sex life in a public forum.