I Stopped Going to the Office

Officially, I started working when I was fifteen years old. In reality, I started work long before that. I spent my early years as a farmhand on my family farm, my payment came in the form of room and board, according to my parent-employers.

By my teenage years, my father had stopped working his main job as a plumber due to a physical disability and the farm turned into more of a homestead with a large garden. I began working in the summers for various county offices around my hometown. I was lucky in that regard.

While many of my more affluent friends worked at fast-food chains and in retail, I was poor enough to qualify for job training. My grades and my ability to type afforded me clerkships with different offices until I graduated high school and went to college.

After college, I spent years working for businesses in mundane administrative jobs that paid me less than my male counterparts, treating me less equally in terms of promotions, and generally drained my will to try very hard. It seemed that the harder I worked, the less I achieved. Turns out people rather have an employee with more social skills rather than a hard worker.

After a host of employers and one lay-off too many, I decided not to go back. At first, it was a matter of not being able to secure employment in a terrible job market, but as I began to write more and do odd jobs to keep my bank account in the black, I realized that I didn’t need to go back. I was off my leash and why would I want one put back on by yet another horrible boss?

I’m not going to lie. It’s not been easy and I’ve had to make adjustments to my lifestyle. I’ve learned to live on less money and be happy. I divorced someone even though it meant walking away with nothing but a suitcase. This led me to staying in a less-than-ideal situation that left my mental health in a horrible state. I ended up homeless for a while and there were days that my state of mind prevented me from doing anything to change my situation.

Eventually, I found my way and began working on myself and my survival. I increased my ghostwriting. Over the course of the past seven years, I’ve written hundreds of articles, short stories, novellas, novels, and assorted content — none of which have my name on them. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it paid now instead of when it sold and that had value to someone trying to get back on their feet.

Now, I’m focused on pushing myself out into the light. I still do some ghostwriting. It still pays my bills, though both my bills and ghost clients are very nominal these days. I’ve published one book of short stories and have other works in progress. I’ve started writing on several different platforms that pay quite better than I'd imagined. I have other projects in the pipeline. I’m determined to continue working under my own name until I can finally cast the ghostwriting aside completely.

My path is not pretty and it’s certainly not the best way to go about leaving the desk job behind, but I’ve learned from it all. Perhaps the biggest lesson of all is that life is all about choices. If you don’t want to be chained to a desk, you don’t have to be, but you’re going to have to make some adjustments and work as hard for your own bottom line as you ever did for someone else’s. I only caution you to be more prepared than I was when I began. Plan your path and pursue it.

I work more hours now than I ever did in a traditional job, but I know that everything I am doing is for me and not someone else. I make a decent living. I call two continents home and have found the love of my life. Those things are important to me. I love being my own boss and finally putting my passions to work for me. I’ll never put on a company leash again.