This first paragraph might sound like bragging. It's not. Just trying to set up why I'm so conflicted.
I'm closing in on 40, make about $150k per year, married (wife works part time only so she can be home when kids leave for and arrive home from school), couple kids, have about $150k in my 401k and $25k in cash. I owe about 20k on one car and I've got another car that's paid off with less than 60k miles. I owe about $360k on my house but could probably sell it in less than a week for $550-600k because the market here is absolutely on fire. I've got three college degrees - B.S. computer science, B.S. engineering, and an MBA. I'm an engineering manager at a big well respected company that you've all heard of and I live in a big city on the west coast. I've got great benefits, awesome 401k match, pension, almost 5 weeks paid vacation plus a couple weeks of paid sick leave. Lots of stability and upward mobility. American dream, right?
So here's the deal. I hate my life. Not suicidal at all - not like that. I just my place in the world right now. I'm sick and tired of the corporate world. The never ending BS of corporate politics, feeding the status machine, creating schedules for inventions, corrective actions when inventions don't work as planned, matrix organization structure that results in having numerous bosses, unbelievably bloated bureaucracy - it all sucks and I'm tired of it. I actually really enjoy working for and developing my employees (who I love and are some of the smartest people on the planet) but I'm starting to really hate everything else. Endless arguments over budgets and variances. Hours upon hours of worthless meetings. Bloated executive ranks. Endless processes and procedures that don't really mean anything. Corporate initiative after corporate initiative - safety, cost, quality, excellence, blah blah blah. Having to explain to VP's above me why my team can't just bend the laws of physics. Working my ass off to get plans approved by one set of execs only to have them undone by the next set of execs. Having to tow the corporate line and repeat shit to my employees that I just don't believe.
All of this shit. It's just wearing me down to the bone. I work more hours than I can count. I don't have enough time for my family. The thought of taking a vacation makes me sick because every time I take a week off it takes me a month to catch up on the other side. The other night I brought my laptop to my kid's soccer game and worked through. I carry my work phone everywhere. I feel like I barely know my wife anymore. I simply cannot do this for many more years. I've lost the passion, the fire, the motivation. I'm starting to drink more than I should. I feel like this life is slowly killing me.
And still, with all that, I am damned near certain (based on my network and past history) that if I keep working here (and keep up the facade) I will move up. I suspect that within 5-10 years I can be making double my current amount and drive a fancy car and live in a bigger house and be just as much of a complete cockface as the executives above me today. This is the American dream, right? I know it sounds great to a lot of people but really it's not. The vast majority of others in my level of leadership at my company feel the same way. Many of us are trying to figure out how to escape.
Or am I stuck? I could go off to another big company but I'd be dealing with a lot of the same shit because a lot of the problems we have aren't particular to my company but rather to large organizations. I can keep doing this and die in the next 20 years of heart failure but leave my family with a big fat chunk of change, life insurance, and college tuition savings. That's what the man is supposed to do, right? Take care of his family? Not be a bitch?
Or I can just say fuck it and quit. We could sell our overpriced house and just get the fuck out of here. Travel. Or just go somewhere cheaper and pay cash for a smaller house and be free of my corporate masters. Do odd jobs. Whatever. Be in the sunshine during the day rather than looking out my office window. Of course what about health insurance? My kid's college tuition?
So that's it. And that's where my question to you comes in. Who else has been in my situation and how have you gotten up the courage to just get the fuck out. To give up the stability and do something bold (or just plain crazy)? To start your own business? To travel? To deal with the uncertainty.
Is this what they call a mid-life crisis? I'm looking for a little encouragement.