Out of America

After working nearly 30 years as a software engineer, functional and program manager, I have been laid off.

Like millions of Americans, my job was deemed too expensive and, even though some of what I did required US citizenship, the work has been transferred to China. I suspect that once they get digging into it they'll quickly realize there's no back-filling my position "offshore".

Having watched as US industry rots from the inside out I have rather strong feelings about how business is conducted these days. With CEO compensation many many times the salary of their employees, it's hard not to be cynical about US "business."

It wasn't always this way. There was a time when what employees knew and how it could be applied to building things that could be sold to make a company profitable and a society sustainably earning money was deemed valuable and worth paying for.

I knew this day would come.

I am now forced into early retirement. At my age, there is little chance that I will find a job, let alone one that pays what my last job did. I'm too old and too expensive. I know too much.

In working on a retirement model, I realized that my wife and I could sell our house and live anywhere we chose. So it's the best and worst of times. While I hoped to work several more years, we're now freed up to pursue our wildest dreams.

How is this possible?

My wife and I have never bought into the idea that perception is everything and that we deserved to buy "stuff" that filled our lives and our home. We never believed that "Stuff" might make us happy for anything more than few moments. Instead, we worked and saved and lived a different set of values.

In this way, we are fortunate to be able to look at our current situation with cold hard eyes and calculate what needs to be calculated and put into action the very things which will lead us away from America and into a new life. At this point in life, it's good to be granted One Last Dream.

We are moving to Paris, France.