Jumping ship as a path to Consulting…

Here is a comment I made over at Abandoned Cubicle regarding making more money from your cubicle job. I mentioned Cubert once before, as he quietly (and anonomously) plots his course towards Financial Independence.

In this post, Cubert recommends negotiating your salary. Many people (particularly engineers like Cubert and me) can be reluctant to do so. But if you don’t ask, you don’t get!

He also recommends jumping ship if you are still unhappy. It took me a while to figure that out, but once I did it made a big difference. Thus, my story on jumping ship:

Good advice. By jumping ship into my last corporate job (over 30 years ago) I doubled my income the following year. And I got to work for a great company and a great boss.

How did I double? Moved back into sales engineering. My new base salary was the same as my old salary, plus I now got commissions, bonuses, and a company car. And it was great preparation for starting my own engineering consulting firm several years later.

So I heartily agree with jumping ship if you are unhappy with your compensation. And I heartily recommend technical sales or better yet, starting your own firm. Sure worked well for me.

The bottom line. We are all responsible for our own careers. If unhappy, take charge — don’t wait for others. And don’t be afraid to stretch yourself (as I did when I went into sales engineering — and later into consulting.)

For therein lies the path to Independence (Financial, Occupational, Location, and more…)

P.S. Interested in consulting?  Check out my FREE webinar recently done for the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers), my technical society.  Watch it Here. 

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