Freedom!

Four years ago today we sold our company.

The new owners guaranteed three years employment to the former owners but I got jack of their values and jumped ship after one and a half years to go studying. Well, if the truth be known the decision to go studying came after I jumped ship and was wondering what to do.

There was a further requirement of not entering into competition with them for a year after ceasing employment.

So four years neatly covers the two requirement and, just to add icing to the cake, I am very close to finishing honours in psychology. So I could go back into chemistry. I could head off into psychology. I could do a blend - auditing, training... I could do something completely different. Leadlighting, perhaps.

But I am totally free.

Well, cheap.
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Man overboard.

I was doing some tidying up today and found the above badge - it dates from a conference I went to in New Zealand in 2004.

One Team, One Vision.

Not so; I jumped overboard about nine months later because there were serious divergences between their values and my values. (Historical background: I was one of three partners who owned a laboratory in Melbourne and who sold our company to a NZ company and then stayed on as managers. I jumped, one was pushed and one remains.)

Cognitive dissonance is the psychologist's phrase for it. I believed in treating clients one way, the company believed in treating clients a different way. Mental conflict. It can only be resolved by either adopting the company's philosophy or by bidding them adieu.

I bid them adieu. Two years ago today.

It has gone incredibly quickly and remarkably slowly. Quickly because it seems that I have reached here in no time at all, slowly because when I look at everything that I have done it seems like ages since I left the company.

Two years ago we went out and had some nice steak to celebrate.

Tonight I am cooking some nice steak to celebrate. And having a good red.
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