I’m a Repentant Lobby Slut

I quit my job on 1 May 2013. Actually, it was the last day of April but it feels much more freeing to say it was on May Day or the Day of the Worker. There hasn’t been one nanosecond I regret quitting that job. The boss was a short-tempered, insincere jerk. I’ll never be able to unsee him verbally humiliating his secretary in front of all the employees on one of our “team-building” days. Our consultancy took money from big corporations to try and get them more money from government grant programs while working the political system to get them contracts or other government favors through lobbying.

Yes, I’m a repentant lobby slut.

I only took the job in the first place because they agreed to pay me such an incredibly, embarrassing high salary. So let’s go back in time…It was January 2009, at the height of the financial crisis. A few weeks before, in Berlin, Germany, I had closed down my start-up, SmarterTours. Although I had earned my initial investment back, the company wasn’t going anywhere and I was emotionally drained (you’ll know if you ever start a company). I moved from Germany to my parents’ house in Texas. All I really wanted to do was to clear my head and ride my bicycle across the United States, a country I was born in but left at 21 to live abroad.

But responsible people get jobs, right? I told myself to send off some letters. Hey! It was the height of the financial crisis, who was going to hire me then? If I couldn’t find a job within a few months, I’d have an excuse to travel and hobo around. I never sent the Cleveland-based company my resume and never gave them references. They are either imbeciles or my phone interviews were so powerful that they flew me up for a personal visit. I saw the look in the boss’s eyes and I knew he really wanted to hire me, so I threw out the highest number I had. He sucked in. Then he bit. I’d be heading back to Europe.

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My Old Start Up: SmarterTours