I was working for a “Corporate Canada” company for several years as international administrative coordinator, contracts administrator and office manager and I hated my job. Not only was it not challenging (something I thrive on) but I referred to my boss as “Satan’s wife”. Managing by intimidation was her style and it seemed to boost her ego each time she beat my confidence level down a little more each day.

Not an ideal scenario for someone with a ton of ambition and the smarts to offer so much more to the company. Every time I tried to introduce a new idea at our senior manager’s meeting, I was dismissed as “just the little administrative gal”. (“Oh dear, that’s a nice idea but it’ll never work,” or “We don’t do marketing in this office, that’s for headquarters.” – What the heck did we do when we were selling our services to potential customers, doing trade shows, etc.? No marketing at our office? Hrumphhh).

Well, this little administrative gal had already seen greener pastures as an entrepreneur in her “previous life” (I had recently been divorced, forcing me to get that j.o.b.) and started researching different businesses I could possibly get into to get the heck out of my j.o.b. situation. The problem was, I had recently bought a house and my salary and profit sharing were really good. Something that keeps many of us hanging on longer than is often better for our sanity, health and the common good.

I needed to find something that would cover my mortgage and give me enough room to buy little luxuries like groceries and utilities…