{"id":8456,"date":"2014-12-21T22:16:11","date_gmt":"2014-12-22T02:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=8456"},"modified":"2014-12-21T22:16:11","modified_gmt":"2014-12-22T02:16:11","slug":"anniversary-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/anniversary-call","title":{"rendered":"Anniversary Call"},"content":{"rendered":"

I went to my former company’s Christmas party this past Friday. It’s sort of a tradition, if you don’t leave on bad terms, to come back your first year out. I was glad to see my old coworkers, and I was reminded of all the dread I had about making the jump. Looking back, I was more nervous about breaking the news to my bosses than I was about undertaking my new gig.<\/p>\n

Today’s the one-year anniversary of when I got serious about quitting my job and launching a new business. I’d been considering the move for a few weeks, and when I was at the office Christmas party a day earlier, I found myself looking around the banquet hall\u00a0and thinking, “Is this the last time I’m going to be at this?”<\/p>\n

The next day, I called one of the advertisers in my trade magazine to ask him three questions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Do you really believe your industry needs a trade association?<\/li>\n
  2. Do you believe I can build it and run it?<\/li>\n
  3. Do you think you can convince your company to join and provide start-up funding?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    He said, “Yes,” to all three, but he’s also a good pal of mine, so I wasn’t 100% convinced that I should do it. I mean, I wondered if our friendship affected his judgement about my abilities to do this. But, because he’s a good friend, I knew I could trust him not to spill the beans while I started reaching out to more companies.<\/p>\n

    I called another advertiser-pal a few days later — I’ve made a bunch of good friends from the nearly 15 years I spent on the magazine, which has helped me launch this new biz — and asked him the same three questions. I got the same answers.<\/p>\n

    In the next few weeks, I called on three more companies, getting farther from my friend zone with each call. The fifth company was a major player in the industry, but I had no close relationship with anyone there. My contact enthusiastically told me they’d be on board and would forward me funds if I needed them to get things off the ground. That meant I was five-for-five, and that’s when I knew It Was On. Fewer than four weeks after I made that first call, I gave notice at my job and started this crazy ride<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    I think I’ve gotten used to having a job that doesn’t yield a tangible product like a magazine (quite a transition, since I’d been doing this for 19 years), and I’m still working out the kinks of being my own boss, but I can’t forget that first call a year ago, that first time I said to someone besides my wife, “I’m thinking of quitting the magazine.” Did\u00a0I need to say it to believe that I was really going to do it?<\/p>\n

    My pal wasn’t in when I called that Saturday, but he rang back that evening while I was at our neighbors’ place. I took the call out on their enclosed deck, watching the headlights on Skyline Drive through the trees while we discussed my future. We talked about our businesses, and our midlife crises, and how long he’d been waiting for me to make some<\/em> sort of change. (The second pal I called said, “FINALLY!” when I told him I was thinking of leaving.)<\/p>\n

    I don’t have much to add; I just want to mark the anniversary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I went to my former company’s Christmas party this past Friday. It’s sort of a tradition, if you don’t leave on bad terms, to come back your first year out. I was glad to see my old coworkers, and I was reminded of all the dread I had about making the jump. Looking back, I … <\/p>\n

    Continue reading “Anniversary Call”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business","category-pharmaceuticals"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-2co","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1804,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/slappy-anniversary","url_meta":{"origin":8456,"position":0},"title":"Slappy Anniversary","author":"Gil","date":"November 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In December 1997, I experienced my first Christmas party with my new company. The party started around noon at Mt. Fuji, a great Japanese restaurant up on a big hill over in NY state. Noticing the amount of alcohol my coworkers and their partners were consuming, I turned to my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "suburbs"","block_context":{"text":"suburbs","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/suburbs"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2185\/2076115649_78c79a476a.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1429,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/publish-or-perish","url_meta":{"origin":8456,"position":1},"title":"Publish or perish?","author":"Gil","date":"April 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Just about everyone wants to get his words in print. At the trade magazine publishing company where I work, it's become far less of a thrill for me -- my 10th anniversary is next month -- but the associate editors and freelance writers always get a jolt when they\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 see\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3585,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-3909","url_meta":{"origin":8456,"position":2},"title":"What It Is: 3\/9\/09","author":"Gil","date":"March 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: Montaigne, Cultural Amnesia, and Liar's Poker. What I'm listening to: \"Little Person,\" the theme song to Synecdoche, New York. A lot. What I'm watching: The first season of Breaking Bad. What I'm drinking: Miller's (Westbourne Strength!) & Q Tonic. What Rufus is up to: Celebrating his first\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-3909#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=039333354X","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2057,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/rich-white-guys-rule","url_meta":{"origin":8456,"position":3},"title":"Rich white guys RULE!","author":"Gil","date":"May 13, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In the Official Newspaper of Gil Roth, Tim Marchman has an article today on how the \"corporate ownership\" wave in baseball never came to fruition, looking back on the 10th anniversary of the Piazza trade from LA to Florida. Marchman makes the key point that, as the decade has passed,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sports"","block_context":{"text":"Sports","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":772,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/ho-ho","url_meta":{"origin":8456,"position":4},"title":"Ho-ho!","author":"Gil","date":"December 25, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Happy Chanukkah and Merry Christmas, dear readers! Sorry I didn't post anything since before our French Quarter trip, but we've been pretty busy, and I don't like writing on the WinXP machine that Amy's parents own. I tried setting up a wifi network here with a wireless router from CompUSA,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2599,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/not-long-enough","url_meta":{"origin":8456,"position":5},"title":"Not long enough","author":"Gil","date":"October 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a quote from this morning's reading: \"We live in what is called a democracy, rule by the majority of the people. A fine ideal if it could be made to work. The people elect, but the party machines nominate, and the party machines to be effective must spend a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8456"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8457,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8456\/revisions\/8457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}