Moving The Fuck ON.

*Warning - not much of a Vegas post*

Whelp, the time has come. I've been bellyaching about my dead-end and degrading job for a year now, and I finally have done something about it. I quit.

Deep. Fucking. Sigh.

I gave my 2 weeks originally after accepting a job with a tech firm by the airport, but after weighing all the ups/downs I decided to bail from it. Commute, less money, strange initial working environment (apparently the guy whose job I was supposed to be taking was going to train me?), parking issues here in the City and other factors.

One of the biggest being I just need a god damn break. I've been working non-stop for 10 years and I just need some time to clear my head and get some happy back. This last job was really a soul vampire for the last couple years. Yeah I'm stepping into uncertainty and don't have a guaranteed job lined up but I've never had much trouble in my life finding a job and in this job market I don't expect much trouble now. Not even going to look too seriously until January. That leaves me nearly 4 months to go hard on the job search before the benefits dry up.

I managed to finagle an exit from the current employer that saw me getting a healthy little separation bonus, over $5.5K after taxes. Add to that the 401k I'll be liquidating (because, let's be honest here, the way I live my life there's no way I'm making it to retirement age), the tax refund coming in February and a little "pennies from heaven" situation, and I'm looking to be sitting fat for the next good stretch of time financially.

The "pennies from heaven" is a package I got from Macy's a couple days ago. Apparently, during one or both of my two stints at Macy's (around 3 years total) I was paying into a pension plan which they are now buying out. It's $3500 before taxes, so I'm likely getting around $2500 of that, which is pretty damn good timing. All told in the next few weeks I should be hopefully seeing a little less than $20K come into my hands, standing me in good stead for absorbing the diminished earnings from, you know, NOT WORKING.

Will collect EDD benefits at the max level ($1800/month), that's a crazy drop from the $3K I pulled in a month at the job, but it covers all my rent and bills leaving not much after that - about $600/month which would all be soaked up by food and such. Certainly not enough to do any sort of going out in the City, much less any Vegas-ing, not without dipping into what I'm cashing out here shortly, but damn it I need the time. Frankly once November starts I would normally be in hellish Vegas save mode anyway so this will be no different.

Eventually what I'd LIKE to do with the small windfall coming in is pay down a bunch of my debt. I have a Mastercard that I've let get out of control and I'd love to pay off my car too if possible. That would take $345/month off my books and make the downshift in pay not hurt as much. I'm going to let it all roll in first, see where I'm at, then see what I can do.

I've actually resolved too, now that I'm embracing joblessness, to keep an eye on positions in Vegas, along with ones here. I could have a full apartment in Vegas for the rent I'm paying on this closet here, and would be able to spend every damn weekend on the strip there, rather than just 4 trips a year. I don't gamble much anyway now so I'm not worried about that, and obviously I have no family or GF or, well, ANY ties to the Bay Area now that I don't have a job here. I would miss the City, but maybe I could do reverse vacations and come back here for the odd weekend once in a while. We'll see. I think it would be a real positive for me.

So some big life changes, but I'm convinced all for the good.