There comes a time when a person can only act and no longer think.  I’ve contemplated periodically over the previous half decade to pursue ethical importance as opposed to monetary needs in pursuit of employment.  Often, I’ve shied away simply because I had been cowering in the face of debt.  Under this dark shadow, nary a person can pursue ethical gainful employment.

Due to a handful of variable significant milestones in the life of my family, we’ve been able to reap much of what we sowed by taking the path of the pioneers.  In a moment of clarity my family seized the opening in our doorway and left the Midwest, my home for most of my life.  In our moving van and car we traveled the long road across this amazing country without the promise of somewhere to unload our recently pared-down goods.  Upon reaching Portland we could have been homeless.  This was okay simply because this was our chosen path.

Indeed, by the time we arrived in Oregon one week after leaving the rust of Detroit we did have a place to live.  Upon moving into our new home, I realized that not only did we move ourselves physically, but we also moved ourselves spiritually.  This had yet to be revealed in its entirety.

The first four months of our new lives were spent relating with each other in our new land.  We built relationships with the nature here.  Learning what life offered here was a shock, even with the heavy research performed by my wife and me in the two years prior to taking our chance to move west.  Our lives changed.  I did not work.  We bonded more than we had ever bonded before, possibly due to fear of the unknown, possibly due to our raw, assured happiness.  I had been lent a new pair of spectacles with which to view my world and the world around me.  What incredible colors!

An agreement forged between my wife and me concerned our employment situation.  We understood that our savings would deplete and that eventually our work-free utopia would indeed have to come to an end.  In no terms were we to return to our former positions of employment, I to the technology field, my wife to marketing.  As time moved on these tenets unraveled and eventually loosened completely.  By Christmas I again had positioned my neck within the noose of corporate ethics and law.

I was reluctantly happy to don my business face once again and to have a steady income rolling into our bank account.  I assumed my role as the quiet liberal in a conservative workforce.  Gradually I had forgotten the spiritual fervor with which we took to our road.  My journey had been led astray by the need for money and the ease with which I could obtain money via the corporate world.  My starting wage was about $15,000 less than what I was earning in Detroit, but this was okay for two reasons: 1) Our level of debt had been greatly reduced and 2) I thought, with that salary how much responsibility could my company truly expect from me?  Ignorance on my part, obviously.

After two months of training I had finally felt a little more settled into this new routine, although having to leave my beautiful daughters each day to bring in profits for a company that I didn’t believe in ethically hurt my spirit.  Then I was hit with two hammers in a span of one week.

In early April of this year I attended a meeting at my company’s corporate headquarters in California.  For details, refer to my post on 4/8/2004.  At this point, I came to the full realization that I did not belong where I was working.  I did not want to bring any money to these robbers.  I did not want to perpetuate the great lie that our economy is rockin’ and rollin’.  I no longer wanted to be underpaid for my valuable skills so that company profits could be disseminated in a savings plan that I would not be vested in for five years.  Also, this very same week I received my benefits information that, surprisingly, included only health and dental care.  I was not offered anything above and beyond these, not even life insurance.  Furthermore, to cover my entire family medically I would have to pay almost $550 a month.  This is about 1/4 of my monthly take-home, post-tax salary.  How was I to afford this absurd amount of money to insure my family month-to-month?  I made inquiries as to the high cost of our coverage, supplied by BCBS of California, and I was met with, at the very most, “Yeah, I know.  Expensive, eh?” That’s it?  That’s all anyone had to say?  Was anyone else able to insure his or her families?  If so, then I was being sorely underpaid!  So, my family went uncovered and we became a part of the infamous growing national statistic.

Every Monday morning since then I would meet my wife before leaving for my despised job and tell her, “I’m quitting today.” Each Monday I would cower in fear of what the future held, until this past Monday.

I quit and I could not be happier.  By the first weekend in June I will no longer be indentured to the corporate warlords that are gaining increasing control of our liberties, freedoms, and happiness.  Times are in flux and I am ready to walk against the grain.

Who will join me?

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