Man, March 2020. Everyone was losing their minds, right? I remember reading that crap about “Virgo career forecasts” and laughing. Like, what good is a star chart when the whole world is literally shutting down? But here’s the thing: I was already feeling it. I was itching for a change, and that forecast, cheesy as it was, just gave me permission to pull the trigger.
I was working at this soul-crushing firm, doing exactly what I went to school for, which sounds great on paper, but in reality? It was hell. Eight years of wearing a tie, staring at a beige wall, and watching my boss, Frank, basically steal credit for everything I built. I put in the hours, I cleaned up the messes, I made the numbers look good. Frank just showed up for the big meetings and smiled his big, fake smile. I came home every day absolutely wiped out, not from hard work, but from resisting the urge to walk out and never come back.
Then the shutdown hit. The company went into full panic mode. Everyone was suddenly “essential” from home, but the workload doubled. We were supposed to be laying low, maybe slowing down, but Frank was terrified of losing his bonus, so he started demanding 16-hour days from his team. I sat there in my tiny apartment, watching the news, and something just snapped. I looked at my pathetic little bank account, looked at my monitor showing Frank’s 2 AM email demanding a report, and I said out loud, “No more.”
The Day I Pulled the Plug
I didn’t plan it. Seriously. No two-week notice. No polite exit interview. I just opened my work laptop, typed out the shortest email you’ve ever seen, hit send, and shoved the laptop under my bed. The email simply said: “Effective immediately, I resign. I’ll drop the equipment off next week.” That was it. I didn’t even read the replies. I just shut off my phone for 48 hours and went fishing, miles away from WiFi.
The first few days were pure bliss. Then the sheer terror set in. I had zero income, and the economy was tanking. Rent was due. I started calling old colleagues, not for a job, just trying to feel out the market. Everyone was in a defensive crouch. Nobody was hiring. I had taken the biggest risk possible, and it looked like I had played my cards at the exact worst moment in history. I remember staring at the ceiling, thinking I had totally messed up my whole life.
I had always hated being boxed in by one thing. I knew a lot of stuff—excel modeling, sure, but also basic web design, and I was actually pretty good at fixing old audio gear. Frank had always laughed at my “hobbies.” Suddenly, those hobbies were all I had. I needed cash, fast. So I started small.
- I grabbed a neighbor’s broken turntable and fixed it up. He gave me a hundred bucks.
- I built a stupidly simple landing page for a friend who was selling masks back then. She paid me in groceries and a small retainer.
- I started emailing people I’d met years ago, not asking for a job, but telling them I was doing independent consulting now—specifically fixing messy spreadsheets and making their data look pretty.
It was completely patchwork. I was invoicing people for twenty dollars, fifty dollars, sometimes two hundred. My income charts looked like a seismograph. I was working harder than I ever did for Frank, but I was building something for me. I had to learn how to do taxes as a contractor, how to chase slow payments, how to market myself without sounding desperate. That whole process was the real boot camp. I wasn’t just switching jobs; I was learning how money actually works when you’re the one holding the leaky bucket.
The Aftermath and the Takeaway
It took almost six months before I finally caught a break. One of those tiny consulting gigs I did for an old contact turned into a major contract proposal. They didn’t care about my previous title or Frank’s firm; they cared that I knew how to fix their mess. I landed the gig. It paid three times what I was making before, and I got to set my own hours. I’m still running that business now, years later. I mostly subcontract everything out and just handle the high-level strategy. It’s awesome.
That March 2020 gamble wasn’t a forecast or some mystical sign. It was desperation finally pushing me out the door. The forecast just helped me rationalize the jump. Looking back, if I hadn’t been forced into that terrifying situation—having zero safety net and a world that had suddenly stopped—I never would have figured out I could build my own damn table instead of fighting for a chair at Frank’s. You gotta quit the thing that’s killing you, even when it looks like the biggest, stupidest risk ever. Sometimes, the safest bet is the one that gets you fired.
