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I was a business major in college. (Marketing and Economics – woot woot, I’m a fun guy! Anybody want to talk about segmentation strategies or linear regression?) At that point in my youth, like most college students, I was naive and optimistic. I assumed that by graduating with an undergraduate business degree, I would automatically step into a marketing manager role at the type of fun company that has Beer Thirty on Fridays and a permanently casual dress code.

Needless to say, life doused me with reality like an ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. The only job I could get was a cold-calling sales job in TV advertising. Would you like to buy a 3 a.m. rotator to advertise mattresses? Please? I work on commission. (more…)

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Most of the regular readers here know I quit my job in December to be a full-time dad to our new baby girl. (If you didn’t know, consider yourself caught up.) It’s now July. I’ve been *not* working for at least six months, am not seeking a job, and have no plans to seek a job in the immediate future. (More on that later.) In short, my professional marketing career is voluntarily over.

That’s retirement, right? When you voluntarily stop working to pursue other interests (even if those interests are raising children)? I think so. Maybe. I’m not sure.

The more interesting question: What’s it like to be retired by your early thirties?

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In the last six months, I became a parent, a teacher, and a boss.

And thus died the years of my youth, free of responsibility.

Today’s post is about my recently departed job, and on moving from an “individual contributor” (read: peon) to “manager” (read: still peon, but now with the added weight and responsibility that if you screw up, somebody else’s life may be ruined).

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