First We Quit Our Jobs: How One Work Driven Couple Got on the Road to a New Life

by Marilyn J. Abraham

Overview

What happens when two executives leave their jobs, friends, and the city behind to hit the road in a twenty-seven foot RV? America the beautiful becomes a place of sights, foods, people, memories, and a little wisdom.



After fifty-two combined years in the corporate fast lane, Marilyn Abraham and her husband, Sandy MacGregor, embarked on an adventure that every work-driven professional dreams about but hardly ever has the courage to realize. They quit their jobs and hit the road in order to retrain themselves in the art of living. For almost a year, the couple traveled nearly 20,000 miles to thirty-one states, including Washington, Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, Tennessee, and through seven Canadian provinces to Alaska, in the hulking RV they named Sue.



More than just a travelogue, First We Quit Our Jobs is the story of recreating one's life and discovering what is real, what is true, and what is important. Filled with visions of Americana, this personal and touching memoir traces the author's search for meaning in this modern day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307796974
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/29/2011
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Marilyn J. Abraham was an editor and vice president at Simon & Schuster. Her husband, Sandy MacGregor, worked at RCA for nearly twenty years. When MacGregor was dismissed, he and his wife journeyed around the country in a Winnebago for four months and explored life outside the corporate world.

Read an Excerpt

1
The End
 
My eyes drifted across my office. Beyond the elegant gray and maroon art deco furniture, bookshelves filled with the national best sellers for which my firm was famous lined the walls.
 
Outside were the other immense limestone buildings of Rockefeller Center. Surely this was the most coveted business address in the world. Despite the sixty-plus years since the complex was built, its architecture and decorative art felt fresh and inspiring. It was always exhilarating to walk through the lobby of NBC, with its massive murals.
 
As I thought about my surroundings, I felt myself floating out through the window, into the fresh air, observing the scenes I knew were there. A few stragglers still ogled the empty set of the Today show down the block. Around the corner a dozen or so skaters caught the last days of the season at the famed ice rink as cheerful flags fluttered gently.
 
I heard the muted ring of my phone and the efficient sound of my assistant’s voice. In the beautiful spring morning light, the moment seemed a snapshot in some future album of how work once was. Even the dust was suspended in air, as if waiting for something to happen.
 
* * *
 
When my boss took the seat across my walnut desk to go over some routine matters, my mind reentered my body and snapped to attention. I focused intently on the business before us. We discussed the upcoming list of books we were publishing and which authors would need special attention. I updated him on our new staff members, pleased to report that they were all catching on quickly. He agreed. A few other odds and ends were reported back and forth. I was glad everything was running so smoothly. As he was rising from his seat, about to go into another meeting, I said, “Oh, yes, there’s one more thing.”
 
He sank back into the chair and eyed his watch.
 
“I’m resigning.” My heart pounded in my chest. I hadn’t planned to break the news yet, but I couldn’t hold it in. The reverie of the past few minutes dissolved into panic, as if I’d suddenly found myself on the crosstown bus without clothes on.
 
He sank back into his seat and looked at me, head slightly to one side, clearly indicating it was my turn to say something.
 
“I don’t have another job—it’s nothing like that,” I stammered, not wanting to offend him, even if I’d already stunned him.
 
“It’s just that we—Sandy, my husband, and I—well, we want to have a life. We thought we might do something different. In a small company. Maybe even move. Take a trip first. You know, that old after-college-cross-country thing.” I was babbling. But I was also making sense for the first time in a long time.
 
After a few moments expressing my desire to leave everything in the best possible shape, my boss left to report the news to his boss. I once again looked at the beautiful day outside my window and smiled, knowing I’d soon be out there.
 
* * *
 
As I left the office that day, I knew I was not dreaming. I was living my dream. My corporate days had ended.
 
2
Making a Life
 
After fifty-two combined years in the corporate fast lane as executive vice president and editor-in-chief respectively, my husband, Sandy MacGregor and I decided to cash out, review our options, set some new goals, see what was over the horizon. The process of deciding to do this was both slow and fast. It began with a shock. One afternoon Sandy appeared in my office looking pasty. His hands were shaking, he was sweating profusely. I was afraid he would die. Then he told me the news. He had just been forced to resign, several months shy of his twentieth anniversary with his firm. Like many other people, in similar situations, we found ourselves numb with disbelief that this could be happening to him, after many years and much dedication. I wanted to make sure it could never happen to either of us again. Our perspective on life was given a major tilt.
 
The mornings immediately following the news were stilted with routine. Sandy still got up early, put on a suit and tie, grabbed his briefcase, and sailed out the door, brave and robot-like. It pained me to watch the man I loved merely go through the motions of living. Instead of going to his office, he spent his days at an out-placement center sending out his résumé, making phone calls, trying to sound cheerful. While he searched for a job, he simultaneously started looking into what it would take to buy into a small publishing company. After all those years in megacorporations, my husband yearned to go back to a small town and be part of a community. The idea of owning something, creating something that was ours, grew on us. With amazement, I watched him progress from burned out to fired up over a period of six or seven months. We developed an idea of working together, in which we would split responsibilities according to our inclinations—which, luckily, were very distinct. Sandy had no interest in editing or design, while I would rather eat pins than read spreadsheets.
 
While Sandy continued to look for a job, I continued working, assuming our lives wouldn’t really change all that much. A broker friend began sending us information on various companies. One in New England seemed ideal. Although the town was tiny, it was near a university, a major medical center, and several ski areas. I glibly admitted to the fair possibility of life after Manhattan there for me, a girl born and bred on that lovely island. After all, in addition to all the quaintness you could handle, there was one ethnic restaurant, a bookstore, and a movie theater less than thirty miles away.
 
After seven months of searching, Sandy got a job offer in New York. While the idea of having our own business still held our dreams, it seemed irrational to turn down a concrete position. The company was big enough to be challenging, small enough to be personal, and young enough to be fun. Publishing books for the children’s market seemed a cheery way for him to retrieve his balance. Sandy once again put on the suit and tie, picked up the briefcase, and went to work. This time it was in a charming brownstone, and he had a bunny on his business card. The notion of being in his own business, however, stayed with him.
 
* * *
 
Sandy’s story had involved a rapid rise on the financial side of the business world. He first learned the ropes at the Ford Motor Company in his hometown of Dearborn, Michigan. Then RCA recruited him to come east, where he got involved in launching the first modern telephone system in Alaska while the new pipeline project was getting started. His monthly trips to Anchorage and Fairbanks were a heady experience. His next assignment was to develop business plans with a book company owned by RCA. Ultimately, he was seduced into publishing full time and loved it. His areas of responsibility included running the day-to-day operations of his company, which was cited year after year as one of the hundred best companies to work for in America.
 
All that began to change when the chairman, Sandy’s mentor of many years, was forced to resign and a new man came in above him. What followed was so incredibly predictable, it could have been lifted directly from the pages of a bad novel. As they say in those opuses: It was only a matter of time, the handwriting was on the wall, his goose was cooked, the gig was, literally, up. It seemed that no matter how hard he worked or how devoted he was to the house he’d helped build for twenty years, he would always be seen as part of the old team, the wrong team. Over a period of four years, I watched his natural enthusiasm stilled and his joy in going to work squelched. It was no longer one of the hundred best companies to work for.