From Employee to Self Employed
I once tripled my productivity at a Fortune 500 company and got put on probation for it. Here is why “Model Employees” are often the biggest friction in a failing system—and how I chose the long walk in the snow instead to make the critical decision who I wanted to be and how I was going to accomplish it.
When I was a young man, I worked as a computer operator for American Motors. I liked the work, and I liked the company. My natural gear was “High.” I arrived early, skipped breaks, and stayed late. To me, it wasn’t about the clock; it was about the output.
Because I’ve always had an eye for architecture—the way systems fit together—I saw a glaring inefficiency. I realized that if management consolidated two specific data sections, they would save a massive amount of capital and the data processing would become a streamlined engine.
I didn’t keep it to myself. I brought the solution to management.
I expected a handshake. I got a reprimand.
I was called into the office and told, in no uncertain terms, that I was to stop getting involved in things that were “none of my business.” For the crime of trying to save the company money, I was put on three months of probation.
So, I decided to give them exactly what they asked for.
For those three months, I changed my behavior. I stopped coming in early. I took every second of every break. I watched the clock and left the moment the shift ended. I did my job—and only my job. My productivity plummeted to a quarter of what it had been.
After three months, I was called back into that same office. The manager looked at my file, looked at me, and said: “Dan, you’ve become a model employee.”
That was the turning point. If “model” meant being an inefficient cog in a blind machine, I wanted no part of it. I took a long walk in the snow that day and decided right then to find a different path—one where logic was rewarded and grit meant something.
That walk led me to take a long walk in the snow.