I want to ask you all a very personal question.
To answer this, forget bout salary, focal, sabattical, ISP, VSP,
and all of that what I call ancilliary crap.
Take the work you are doing (if you are still at Intel), or the
work you were doing (if you have left or are in the process of
leaving).
Look at yourself in the mirror and ask, did you really enjoy what
you were doing? Did you look forward to going in and doing your
thing every morning? Did you say to yourself, Thank God It's Monday!
or Oh' Sh-- It's Friday! Forget about your horrible commute and
the lousy coffee/sugar/whatever in the Cafe or the Happy Pills
in the Clinic.
Lets put it this way. Take whatever you are/were doing (the actual
work) and take it away from a paid environment and put it in a
volunteer environment. Would you still do it? Would you get a charge
out of doing what you are doing?
I am asking this because if my own experience. I am doing volunteer
work at the Spark Museum here in Bellingham, Washington after working
at Intel for 11 year doing computing security. And I have come to find
after volunteering at the museum and fixing vintage radios and jukeboxes
that in fact, I could have very well not enjoyed what I was doing for
much of the 11 years. Because I have been finding myself in a new
euphoria with what I am doing now that I am saying to myself 'Oh Sh--,
it's Closing Time on Friday!". In fact, I have got them to agree to allow
me to bring some of my work home with me to my own electronics shop
here at the house.
And I am not getting paid nor getting stock nor getting a free gym nor
getting invites to GPTW events.
I have seen too many people in my life (not all at Intel) who were let go
from a job and then only later on realize how they did not enjoy what
they were doing.
Perhaps I should ask another personal question.
If someone is really enjoying what they are doing for 'work', would they
need any of the so-called 'Happy Pills'?
Perhaps it's time for all of us (myself included) to really look into
that mirror and ask the question. . . . .