Because working to make rich bankers richer is a soulless, thankless endeavor, As well as for other reasons, I’ve decided to leave the Information technology field for good. Thankfully, I insured myself against this time when IT contract opportunities have become fewer and further between by launching my wife into the Nutrition store business over a decade ago. That business has absolutely flourished in the past 11.5 years.

Even with enough income to essentially not HAVE to work a job, I’ve never been good with playing second bread winner and there’s always been the expectation between Nancee and I that I would personally pay most of the monthly bills apart from the store.

After the end of my last contract in the summer of 2017, I began to think of leaving the field altogether to find something else to do. I had a small surgery that kept me out of work for a few months and the idea really grew on me.

Even though on the whole I feel I was paid plenty for my work while in IT, the lack of job security and especially the political nature and utter lack of any loyalty whatsoever always bugged me. My favors for others and going over and beyond for managers and peers to my boss, never resulted in a single raise or position. I was placed under less skill people constantly based on nothing more than their ambition to manage others.

Then before I knew it, I had 15 years of experience and was at my earnings ceiling. When I was beat out for a full time position by an attractive woman with 4 months experience to my 15 years experience, whom I’d witnessed screw up the job terribly. I knew something was amiss. They hired her at 3 pay levels beneath me and then the picture started to crystallize. It was time to leave.

In March of 2018, I decided to help out one of our distributors who needed drivers. The money was rotten and the guy just had a horrible attitude toward employees. I did have my own agenda for doing it though and that was to see if I could swing the transition to a physical job. I was glad to see that my body withstood the initial shock just fine. 6 weeks of that was enough to prove to me that purely from a physical level, no job was too tough for me. I’ve still got the heart and drive at 48 to do hard labor when it’s needed

Around this time, an acquaintance began to talk to me about getting into a sole proprietorship job doing what he’s been very successful with for the past 11 years. I was generally aware that his business was good, but only recently was made aware of how successful and lucrative it was. His earnings for this past year eclipsed my best year, like to the tune of 30K over my very best year in Information technology work of any kind.

I applied to purchase my own territory after spending some time with him seeing the ins and outs in person. It’s a tough, demanding job to be sure but physically a lot easier than my test delivery job. Less hours on the whole too.

This Monday May 14th, 2018, I got the word that my background and credit checks were good. I’ll begin my official 1 month training period tomorrow and take over my territory in about a month.

Once the ink dries, I’ll share more specifics about precisely what this new business is.

This is going to mean some rather specific changes for me, one of the bigger ones is that my new work hours will not afford me the time to play music gigs through the week. In particular the Wed nite Little Tokyo Lounge will have to end. They’ve been so fantastic in supporting me and the other local original music artists. I think owner Hahn really deserves a lot of credit on this! I’ve been performing there at least once every 6 weeks for several years now.

For the few of your reading this who’ve ever attended one of my shows, thanks for the support. It’s been fun. Brent Bowers Music will continue on in spirit and on recordings. There is actually big news on that front I’ll be sharing soon. For now this post is to put a shiny bow on playing live for peanuts and live of the gig game a decade longer than most of my compatriots!

Tomorrow I launch into my new business like a rocket into space! God Bless Everyone!