Lynn Truong

Left the 9-6 corporate world in 2004 to "take a break" but never found a good enough reason to go back.

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Member for: 2 years 47 weeks
Location: Los Angeles, CA

I left college excited to start working in the "real world" and to climb the corporate ladder. I thought my college degree would be my ticket to success. All I wanted was to get a good job and stay there...forever. But instead of going into finance/banking where most of the people from my major (Economics) went and got paid well for, I wanted to try something that sounded more fun--advertising. I was an idealist. I wanted to love my job and get paid well for it.

I spent a year at an ad agency where I did have a lot of fun, but got paid very little for it. There I also had my first experience with office politics and corporate bullshit. There were a lot of promises made and a lot of talk about what lay ahead of me, but in the meantime, they wanted me to stick it out for pennies. I actually ended up leaving a year later because they offered me a promotion. I knew the promotion would end up trapping me there, because with a little more money, I'd feel a little less eager to find something else, and I had decided by then that an ad agency wasn't for me.

Right before I left I was ironically interviewed for a LA Times article that talked about our generation demanding much more from our jobs than job security and benefits. I was quoted and described as someone who had just submitted my 2 weeks' notice at Grey Worldwide.

Shortly after, I landed what I thought was my dream job--a place at CBS/King World Productions. Entertainment was exactly what I wanted to pursue and joining the marketing & advertising department of King World was exactly what I wanted. 3 years later I realized I wasn't happy, in fact, hated going into work everyday. My commute was hell, and I felt unchallenged, bored, and wasted away. Again I left without another job lined up. I thought I would be taking a few months' break to reassess what I really wanted to do.

That was in July of 2004. When the months kept passing and nothing on all the job boards looked in any way appealing, I realized it wasn't King World or Grey Worldwide. I hated having to go into an office from 9-6 so I can sit in front of a computer and pretend to be productive 8 hours a day. I hated being lied to either because upper management didn't want to or was told not to tell us the truth about our raises and promotions. I hated feeling like I was getting dumber everyday because my talent and skills weren't being put to any good use.

Now I'm involved with projects I love and that challenge me on a daily basis. My dream is for these projects to become financially successful so that I never have to return to working for anyone else.

Because of the lack of consistent paychecks, I have had to learn very quickly how to live on a budget and spend money wisely. I had accrued a heavy credit card debt right out of college, and maintained it even when I started working. Because I was unhappy, I spent a lot, justifying the spending through my "hard work" every day. I can no longer afford to do that. I've learned there's a lot I can live without and I can adapt fairly easily to a smaller budget. I value each dollar in my bank account because I have no idea where the next one will come from. And I've learned to know myself well enough to know things I would get over quickly enough if I didn't get. I believe spending habits have everything to do with priorities, and right now I value my independence more than any temporary satisfication buying something can give me. I'm scared to death of having to rejoin the rat race.

I know the most important thing to me, and the thing that has always been the center of my big decisions, is freedom. And I know there are better ways to gain financial freedom than to labor for another. I hope to write and learn about personal finance, frugal living, and life through the great writing here at Wise Bread.