I was telling a friend the other day that I have not yet come up with the story I tell potential employers when they ask - Why did you leave your last employer. So much of the old school mentality is centered around - testing your character for signs of disloyalty, looking for flight risks or people who aren't worth keeping. Theirs a lot of weight put into the common wisdom that it is harder to find a job when you don't have a job.

I certainly don't want to believe that. I was only lucky to land my current consulting position because I knew a friend who helped me out after I left my last job without having a job. However, I like to think that if that didn't work out, something else woud have.

So much of the old school ways is built on an economy of fear. I don't subscribe to that. I don't want to work for a company that relies on fear. I want to work for a company that challenges you to use your brain. If a company pays less but challenges you, I would rather work there if they offered equity. I believe a company like that who is also smart in business will eventually overtake the dinosaurs of the fear based business model.

I spent today exercising what I had read in the Ruby tutorial by building my own application. I also spent the weekend reading the views of 37signals - Getting Real book. It's their view of what works in the new entrepreneurial web world. As long as I don't give into fear, continue to build things and hone my building skills, practice the presentation of myself to others, I will overcome all of the attempts to label me as a loose canon or a money grubbing consultant or a guy who just couldn't cut it.

Madonna reinvented herself many a time. If you believe computer science is still an art form, you as an artist should not continue to be a follower but reinvent yourself.

Anyway, I'm going to hold on to this day job consulting for a while if they'll have me. In the meanwhile, I'll pursue other short term gigs while I continue to finish my whitepaper, write   out a business plan, finish my Ruby on Rails sample app. I also have a 6 month eval of SQL Server 2005. I plan to exercise that on my downstairs machine and offer that skill locally as a service. I am already working with Sql Server 2000 so it should be a no brainer stretch.

In short, I will defy the old school mentalities by focusing on bettering myself and proving that being a "doer" is not a bad word as long as you are also a "closer". I must make sure I differentiate myself from young coders and outsourced help by my experience but not shy away a challenge to outproduce them with smarter, more elegant solutions that are ultimately more flexible. If I can collect on my consulting assignment payments and sell the rest of my stock options, I have enough of a financial buffer to prove out my theories.

I may never have to work for anyone else again. Let's see.