I remember when I came home after having resigned my position in New York. I was 24 years old and working for a Regional Bank (Iyo Bank) in the World Trade Center as an Assistant Credit Analyst. It was a small branch concerned only with institutional money (we bought parts of the loans of larger Japanese banks; we didn't make any loans on our own). My boss was the sole Credit Analyst at the New York office and he was teaching me the ropes. I particularly remember helping him decide if buying part of a loan a big bank (I think it was Fuji... or was it Mitsui...) was making to AMR Corp, the parent company of American Airlines. This was 1992 when United and Continental were both in trouble. I think Continental was actually under bankruptcy protection. And Eastern Airlines had just folded. His attitude was "Well, on of the American airlines has to survive."

Even though I was not only the only American in an executive position in the bank, I was the only woman in an executire position... Even though I had a great future ahead of me -- my boss was going to go back to Japan in another two years and I'd probably become Credit Analyst when he left... Even though I spoke Japanese everyday but didn't have to conform to the inherent misogyny in Japanese officeplaces... Even though I liked everyone I worked with and they liked me, I quit. One Monday morning, I spoke to my boss and told him I needed to leave the bank. I didn't line up another job. I just resigned, packed up my stuff, and moved back home to Pennsylvania.

Now, I won't lie and tell you that there weren't other things that played into my decision to go home. But my decision to leave the bank was based on one simple fact -- I didn't want to be a Credit Analyst. You see, when you've done what your boss does and you are completely capable of doing it, but it bores you to tears, there's not much you can do about that. And as I looked over the shoulders of my co-workers, I didn't like their jobs either. High finance is fun first thing in the morning when you're in a shop with a phone on each ear and everyone is screaming and waving at each other. But at the bank end of it -- where the guys in the glass box at the back of the floor pick up the phones and speak a price to those screaming guys in another shop -- it's pretty unilaterally boring.

I didn't see a future for me as a Credit Analyst. I knew I could do it. Hell, I knew I'd be brilliant at it. It's actually where I got my first taste of research because you have to know the backgrounds of companies and investigate their histories to determine if they've been a good risk in the past. Basically you had to become the walking expert on the company you were analysing. So all my college library skills came into play and my natural love of research was ignited.

But I was bored. There was nothing interesting about Credit Analysis. Not for me. And if you don't enjoy your job and you're really finding the whole banking thing to be a big snore, what do you do? Wait until you can get a job at Macy's? Wait tables while you make up your mind what to do next? Nope. You pack it in, go home, and regroup. So that's what I did.

I remember asking my parents if we could sit down and talk about what I was going to do next. I desperately wanted someone to give me some good advice. I wanted the Big Giant Head to tell me what to do. Unfortunately my parents weren't really good with advice about things they knew nothing about. I remember sitting around our kitchen table and being almost completely misunderstood. My father was absolutely convinced that I was lazy and didn't want to work and he told me I could live under his roof, but he wasn't about to give me any spending money. I remember trying to explain to my parents that I did want to work, but I wanted to work in a job where the work was meaningful and amusing to me. That's the last time I tried to explain this to a garment factory worker and a coal company truck driver. When your parents view work as a necessary evil you have to bear until you have the fortune circumstance of being permanently disabled or making it to retirement age, there's no explaining to them that you're the kind of person who has to enjoy her work. Quitting was poison and I was lazy. That was all.

My father's dream for me was for me to be an engineer. The truth of the matter is that my father's dream for himself was to be an engineer. If he had an ounce of ambition, he could have gotten scholarships and grants and all kinds of financial help. But he didn't even try. In his town in 1943, you took your high school diploma with one hand and your draft notice with the other. And when he was declared 4F... I think it killed him. He was being groomed to be a pilot when his physical results came back and they sent him home. Mum told me this. He never talked about it. For most of my life I had no idea that he hadn't been in the War like all his friends.

I remember asking him if he'd support me while I went to grad school and he said no. I think he always considered my college education a waste of time because I never "did anything" with it. So he wasn't going to allow me to just go to grad school. He thought I was being lazy. He'd only put a roof over my head while I worked. So I got a job as a secretary and went to grad school at night. That job lasted one and a half years and to this day, it is the longest I have ever held a job. Really. Ever.

It's not that I haven't tried to settle down. At some points I've been positively in love with the idea! But the desire the settle down and be a wage-slave has never coincided with the opportunity to do so. It's as if something in my fate or destiny or genetic makeup didn't want me to get a job I liked and would stick with. It's almost as if, just when I was dancing alright in the frying pan, I would get flipped and fall into the fire and have to climb out again.

What got me thinking about this is the notion of being an entrepreneur. Of entrepreneurship as a born trait, not something you can learn how to become. Maybe you can learn to be one. I don't know. I just know that I didn't learn this. This is just how I am. Entrepreneurs just plain act differently from other people. They are not easily satisfied with the work they do for other people. They are restless. They can even be judgemental of their supervisors and bosses and rail against management decisions. Needless to say, this often leads to a series of short-term employments.

My Mum still calls me on the phone and asks why I don't just get a "normal job". Her dream for me is regular paychecks and 9-5 hours. Doesn't she remember how I hated every moment at work? Can't she recall every evening when I came home and complained about some stupid boss who asked me to do things in a nonsensical manner?

Oh well. There you have it. The Monday musings of a madwoman.