Its about 12:20am here and I’m sitting in the dark, with head phones in as to not wake my wife sleeping in the other room. I’m still working – my eyes actually tearing up from staring at a screen all day. Buried in an excel document that is now giving me a splitting headache and all I want to do is go to sleep.

But you know what? I feel great.

This is a blog post about work ethic. Some people just have one, others aren’t as fortunate. Some others still learn to develop one. Thats where my story begins.

Almost a year ago now I was laid off from my job. I had been there seven years and I’ve got to be quite honest — i was bored of it. Looking back now, it was a blessing in disguise to be laid off. First, it came before the economy went to shit. Second, I was looking for job already but only half heartedly. Doing the same thing for that long, with the same people, just wears on your after a while.

Anyway, so I was called in to my bosses office and told my position was being eliminated. I was surprised, but only that he was laying me off and that he wasn’t in fact telling me he was moving on. I always thought I’d outlast the majority of the folks at the company, but obviously I was wrong.

Being laid off, at least then, was like a slap in the face with a glove full of lead. It hurt and I was pretty angry about it.

For about a month and a half I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do. I put together my resume pretty much right away, and started sending it out. My strategy in the job search was to put out the very best resume I could, and hope to get someones attention.

Week after week passed – and while I got a lot of interviews, very few companies were biting.

I remember walking at night, as I often did back in those days, thinking that if I ever got a job (and I knew I would eventually, maybe I as just being dramatic) that I would not coast again. I wouldn’t just be happy to be there, but instead work really hard and attempt to prove myself every day. And if that job ever got boring to me, I’d move on to something else, and not stay for years and years.

It feels good to be doing an all nighter tonight working on client work. Whys that? Because I work at a place now that values hard work and the work itself is fun and challenging. There is very little about agency life that is status quo.