April 4th is an important anniversary. Fifteen years ago I gained my freedom when I lost my job. I have written about it all here before, but for me, it is a day worth remembering. I can’t imagine how I could have survived much longer in a poisonous corporate environment or what sort of person I would have had to become to do so.

Freelancing suits me. I set my own hours. I goof off if I want but I can also make sure I have scheduled enough time to do my work properly, not always possible when people are tossing projects on your desk at the last second and demanding miracles. No longer do I need to waste hours reading War and Peace length memos from desperate careerists trying to make themselves seem important. I am not required to attend meetings where corporate bigwigs babble incoherently as they try to talk out of both sides of their mouths at once using the half of a brain at their disposal.

I take no credit for my emancipation. I am not an adventurous person. It was sheer luck that companies merged and the predictable slaughter of employees followed. And it was just as fortunate that not a single employer in Rochester, New York thought I wrote well enough to hold down any sort of job whatsoever requiring writing skills. I spent a long time applying before I realized I would have to start doing contract work.

Sure, Mary and I did suffer financially, but the job loss itself wouldn’t have hurt us much if not for my prior divorce and the family court’s inability to understand the reality of a middle-aged man’s employment situation along with a bit of treachery on the part of a former friend. (Never do business with friends).

Mary and I had been married less than a year and a half when I arrived at work, turned on my terminal and found my employee login disabled. Relationships have faltered on less, but we have continued on in spite everything and even managed to write a few books in amongst all the travail.

To be honest, had I remained trapped in the cubicle maze of death I probably would never have been able to co-author a book. Anyway, here’s to April 4th. Happy fifteenth to us.