My Favorite Business Resources
- Cheap Business Phone Service - Make phone calls anywhere for free or darn close to it.
- Cheap Printing - Always amazing deals on cheap printing with loads of free items.
- Manage Mobile Phone Costs - Great phone for controlling cell phone costs for business or teenagers.
- Really Good Web Hosting - As bullet proof as there is. A strong hosting provider with all the resources you need.

My Favorite Credit Resources
- Consolidate Your Debt - One monthly payment. Stop collection calls.
- Help Budgeting - Online and easy.
- Lower Your Car Payment - Refinance to reduce your monthly payment.
- Credit Report / Credit Score - This consolidated report is better than most.
- Credit Cards - Find the best card for you for low rates, balance transfer, credit rebuilding and rewards.

Mar

2008

Cubicles Suck! How to Never Be At Work But Get a Paycheck.

Posted by Steve Rhode as Business Advice, Making Money, Work Related

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I just read a great guest post by Mark Hayward titled “Chasing Coconuts: From the Cubicle to the Caribbean“.

Mark’s background on his blog MyTropicalEscape makes for a good starting point on his blog and it is worth reading if you have ever been interested in breaking the bonds of corporate slavery. Strong words, “corporate slavery”, but really, what else would you call being verbally beaten down and have your movements, thoughts and dress dictated to by a set of committee created policies and procedures just so you can be given money?

Photo by TempletonElliott

I’ve sat in the exact same Steelcase cubicles you are. My largest corporate job was at IBM so I’ve done the corporate stuff and know what the office politics, conformity and stress is like. Not fun.

But it wasn’t until I decided to make some radical changes and step outside my comfort zone that my life really opened up.

Following a sabbatical where I rode my motorcycle across the U.S. I decided to change my life dramatically. At the time of the trip I was the CEO of a 70 employee company that I had grown to not find much fun in anymore. With a big new 5 year lease looming for our 30,000 sq/ft office I decided to do the craziest thing, close things down.

I Manufactured My Own Freedom

I figured that what the hell. Life is too short to not live it the way I wanted to. I made sure we did the best we could for our employees, shed a lot of tears saying good-bye and we all went our separate directions. Trust me, it wasn’t as easy as it sounds.

As a testament to our work family, many people still get together and stay in touch. We call each other for favors and advice and we have great memories of working together.

I then reinvented my life and we moved from the U.S. to the U.K. where I have been for the past few years building a new business, but this time smaller and one that allows me to be able to manage it from any internet connection in the world.

I’ve managed to break free of the cubicle, I create my own days and if I don’t want to go to the office, I don’t. In fact our little 10 employee company here has a very liberal work policy. Basically, each person knows what needs to get done and they do it. Period.

By downsizing my own life I have managed to eliminate all those things I hated to do. There isn’t much fun about working in a cubicle, managing employees, doing corporate reports, having to go to or create meeting presentations, etc. So I just decided, I’m not going to do that anymore.

By not being afraid to make those changes I find myself yet again working with an incredible group of very talented people that don’t need me around much.

Another Move

I just completed another long 3 week vacation from work, driving across the U.S., in which we decided now is the right time to move back to the U.S. to be closer to aging parents.

But like Mark talks about in his blog, my life to this point has been about stepping stones to create the life I want and that life includes freedom.

This all didn’t happen overnight for me. I managed to rearrange my income so that it came from sources that did not require me to be physically involved. I earn money from my websites, writing, and providing services in a wide variety of areas. I slowly adjusted my expertise and value from needing to sit in a cubicle in an office to needing to sit at a laptop anywhere in the world.

Photo by Bcmom

As I type this I’m watching birds play in the tree outside my dining room window and enjoying the new yellow spring flowers making their way through the plush carpet of green grass. I’m remembering back to when I first didn’t have to go to the office anymore, but I did out of habit. I didn’t know what else to do. But when I started spending more time away from the office and doing things outside the office during your normal work hours, I was amazed that there was an entire world that operated between 9 and 5. I wondered what all these people were doing, weren’t they supposed to be at work?

Technology Creates Freedom

These days, between my MacBook, my mobile phone and an internet connection, I’m at work anywhere. I’ve updated web pages at 90 MPH as a passenger in a car, at 125 MPH as a passenger in a train, at 30 MPH as a passenger on a ship, and I’m looking forward to doing it at 550 MPH as a passenger in a plane, one of these days.

I’ve rambled on long enough for now but rest assured this is a topic I’ll expand on in the future.

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Steve