Are you the CEO or the non-executive employee? One of the reasons I put my email in my profile is that it brings me interesting questions. :-)

I'm gainfully unemployed and like Luke you can't make me go back!

I've job hopped looking for a place where people don't engage in the Kabuki but apparently all the worlds a stage. Maybe I'll make one of those lil ships in a bottle this year.

Perhaps you will find, as I did, that the secret here is having a purpose. I know a number of people in the same situation, they don't "have" to work but when they don't have full time employment they just kind of wander this way and that. This becomes a problem when they realize that there is no 'win' in life, you just die. So the time wasted wandering is just that, time they never had to truly live.

Given my experience and my interest in systems I have become something of a 'journeyman' engineer in the traditional sense. I like helping folks and I like figuring things out. I charge money for that because it weeds out the freeloaders but I don't charge a lot of money. My terms are that if its not working out, we'll part friends, but we will part. As a result I've managed to meet some manager types whose only tool in their manager toolbox is "I'll fire you if you don't do that." (which is a pretty weak toolbox).

It is an exceptional thing to be where you are, at the age you are. How you choose to spend the years can be very satisfying and impactful, or a source of anger and regret.

Thank you.