The Matrix...

SAN FRANCISCO – I hadn't blinked for a while. Feeling a headache coming on, I look up from my computer and lean back in my chair. Shifting my gaze out the window of my office I take in the view – looking north, San Francisco Bay is neatly framed to the left by the San Francisco skyline and to the right by downtown Oakland. Stretching across the water between them is the Bay Bridge. It’s a million dollar view. Wait, this is San Francisco – it’s probably a ten million dollar view. Glancing down at my computer I suddenly lose all interest in whatever business plan, financial forecast, or sales report is staring back at me.

The FedEx guy shows up at my cubilce with a package. It's my new cell phone.

I suddenly feel like I am in The Matrix, fully expecting Keanu Reeves to bolt around the corner at any moment in a leather trench coat. I glance over the cubicle wall, looking for men in sunglasses and dark suits.

Without thinking I stand up, leave my office, and go home.

Don’t get the wrong idea; I’m not one of those people that hates my job and can’t wait to leave. In fact, I’m quite proud of the work I do. For more than a dozen years I have developed, marketed, and supported tools for life science research, primarily analysis of DNA. Many of my customers have made important discoveries that will hopefully lead to cures for diseases like cancer, diabetes, or AIDS. It’s extremely satisfying to know that you’re making products that will change the world and improve peoples’ lives, but at the end of the day it’s still a business —working in an office, answering email, and trying to come up with the next great widget before the competition. In my case the widget just happens to be something like a tube of synthetic DNA.

Stopping at Starbucks on my way home for a grande drip coffee, I conclude that I don't want to spend the rest of my life working in an office. But what to do?

I fire up my computer, coffee in one hand, mouse in the other, and start doing Google searches for random things, seeking anything that will spark my imagination. Clicking on one link by accident I almost hit the back button before something catches my eye. Thirty minutes later, still staring at the same page, I make a snap decision.

The following morning I step into my boss’s office. “I need to take a six month leave of absence,” I tell her. She stares back at me in silence for a few moments before posing the obvious question.

“Why?”

“I want go to South America to study bears.”

“They have bears in South America?”

It isn’t quite the response I’m expecting. The previous night I had discovered the web site for the Andean Bear Project, a long-term research project to better understand the habitat range of the Andean Spectacled Bear in the Ecuadorian cloud forest. They are looking for volunteers to come to a remote Andean village to track bears that have been tagged with radio collars. It has everything I need: adventure, a foreign country, another culture, another language. How can I resist?

I am pleasantly surprised to find her supportive of the idea. “Go for it,” she encourages.

My next stop is Human Resources to formalize the plan. I explain my idea to the HR person.

“They have bears in South America?” she asks, blinking.

Is there an echo in here? After a few questions to make sure that I won’t be using my time off to engage in criminal activity, covertly work for a competitor, or do anything else that could scandalize the company, I get the stamp of approval.

Finally, I have to break the news to my landlord.

“They have bears in South America?” comes the expected response.

Preparing to leave the country for several months is no trivial thing. The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity, trying to anticipate every minor detail that could come back to haunt me later. In two weeks I’ll leave my job, the movers will come and take everything I own to a storage facility, and my adventure will begin.

I hope you’ll join me along the way.