DAY IN THE LIFE OF A CORPORATE REFUGEE

7:20 AM
My wife and I prepared breakfast and lunch for the little monkeys, then walked them to school with Dorito.
8:20 AM
Cleared my agenda. When I used to hear people say, "I cleared my agenda and went to my daughter's soccer practice," I was always very envious. My wife, a successful entrepreneur, would get to do the same. For me, it was impossible. My meetings would always pop up like hideous guac-a-mole heads and even if I was able to smack them, where would I go?? To my office to answer e-mails, but only until another meeting from my boss would pop up. I finally had the joy of clearing my calendar for the following day, just like that, to go on my daughter's field trip.
9:30 AM
When I can, that's the time I go to the gym, a big change for me. I noticed how different the mix of people was at that time of the day vs. at night when I used to go. At 7:00 PM you have all the people that come from their 9 to 6 jobs. They are goal-oriented, trying to burn as many calories as possible, tackling their workout like they might tackle a corporate project. 9:00 am, on the other hand, is another world. The parking lot is empty, the 7:00 am rush is over, and the vibe is much less frantic. I like to group the gym-goers at that time into 5 categories and, for fun, try to guess who is in which bucket: the successful business owner, the layoff-still-with-package guy, the model, the stay at home wife, the banker and the limbo lunatic that you don't have a clue what they do (like me).
11:00 AM
I have confirmed that sometimes my wife needs a break from me. I started noticing that she would take her laptop and run to her friend’s house every other day, normally during the time I was working at my home office. Finally, after a Guantanamo-type interrogation, she admitted that even though she loves to have me around, I was invading her “alone” time and she had to look for it somewhere else. I felt like one of those old couples where the husband retires too early and drives the wife crazy. So in a demonstration of love, I called my only .com startup wizard and friend John, and asked for asylum at his house. We had a great morning of entrepreneurial chat and work and we went for lunch at a Peruvian restaurant at 10 dollars a pop. My friend doesn’t know this but I’m planning on doing this every Monday.
2:00 PM
I had a conference call with Mexico, Colombia and San Francisco, simultaneously--very exciting. We were discussing a major changed in the algorithm of the website. In the middle of this critical call, my home phone started ringing nonstop. My mom was calling to see if I wanted her to bring some of her home made Puerto Rican soup, my wife was calling my cell phone because she thought her credit card was lost, her friend was looking for her because she wanted to help find the credit card, my daughters were dancing with signs outside of the office asking me to pick up the phone. At some point I lost it and screamed at everybody. Needless to say, next time I will schedule these calls in the morning.  
8:30 PM
Read Harry Potter to the girls and, after remembering that I had cleared my agenda for that field trip the next day, I went back to the computer to continue working until 1:00 AM. In a company where you are the boss / owner / employee there are no excuses. Work has to be done and there are no meeting rooms to hide in.