In December 2008 I had to look my team of 30 people in their anxious faces and tell them that by Christmas, almost half of them would no longer work for the company. As the year end progressed, I had to walk each one of my team members down the long hallway to the HR department where they would individually discover their fates for January. I knew no more than they did about who would leave and who would still have a job in 2009. The long walk became known as "Dead Man Walking" mocking the walk taken by prisioners on death row.

By the end of the day before Christmas break, the layoffs were over and my team had an entirely different face. By the first of the year, they longer had me as their leader, and my ten year employment and dedication to a company I loved ended.

With a severance package, a lot of time on my hands and a desire to finally start my own business, the concept of WOGOGEAR was born. I started simply selling items from around the house that I no longer needed and sold much more than I had anticipated. My feedback was good and people were looking and bidding in my auctions. It became an addiction from the start.

So I got a business name, narrowed my focus, and opened a store on e-bay. It opened March 1st! I am still playing with all the buttons and whistles and learning more than I ever thought I might about running this business (certainly more than I learned in college!). It's great fun and I feel passion for something real for the first time in a long time. I'm not going to be a millionaire, and I may not even make a respectible living for a long time, but it's something I can control and make better and work hard for knowing that the direct result of my actions determines my success.

I still have bad dreams about the people who lost their jobs that day. I truly sympathise with each one and hope that they can find their niche in the world somewhere. For me it has been a blessing in disguise and an oppertunity to become all I ever wanted to be if I had had enough time. Well now I have nothing but time, well time and desire and the passion that I regret wasting for all those years working for someone else.