Career Curveballs: Not Working For Microsoft Changed My Life

Early in my career, if fact, stemming from my first "real" job, I was offered a job at Microsoft. The year was 1988 and Microsoft was Flight Simulator, Mulitplan and MS-DOS, not exactly the technology powerhouse they are today . The story starts well before then, however, when I was working for a small disk-and-tape manufacturer named Tallgrass Technologies. Like I said, it was my first real job, yet the company wasn't long for this world. Quality was unpredictable, if not poor, and I was just starting to learn what a rep and manager for a vendor did and could do. I decided to leave the company, but not before my boss, Dan Stock, tried to get me to stay, giving me the hard sell in a small hotel room in Kansas City. Dan wasn't a lot older than I was, but, to me, he knew everything about being in sales and all about life. As I gave him my final answer, he said to me, "Mark, you'll work for me again"

True to his word a few years later, he approached me about working for him again. This time at Microsoft. We talked, it seemed interesting, he made me an offer. The problem was that the offer was about the same as I was currently making. It contained some stock options, which I'd had at my current company, but which hadn't resulted in much. I turned him down. I still have that offer letter, because over the next few years, that little company, Microsoft, grew, expanded and saw their stock rise, split, rise again and split again. I stopped torturing myself when I realized that job offer's stock options would have been worth over $4M! I'll never forget that as the worst financial decision I've ever made.

Now, maybe it's justification, trying to make the best of a bad situation, but I now look back at that decision and my career and life and realize that some of the best things that have ever happened to me wouldn't have happened if I had taken that job. I'd still have met and married my wonderful wife. We'd probably still have had our three glorious children. And, I'd probably still be pretty similar in personality as I am now. But, we never would have lived in Minnesota, would never have moved to Detroit and never have met most of the people I now call my best friends and closest colleagues. I'd never have played hockey, which, for those of you who know me, has become a lifelong obsession. I'd never have run my first marathon with Jim Alkire and go on to run eight more. I might never have spent time in Key West, where our son and his finance' now run a small business. I'd never have enjoyed some of the things that I now think of as most central to who I am.

Who knows, all that money might have left me exactly the same, with the same interests and maybe some even better and more fascinating. One thing of which I'm absolutely sure however, if you're reading this, I probably wouldn't have met you if I'd taken that job and that makes me believe that I made the right decision.