After all this time I thought the polite thing to do was to give an update on this....
My previous employee 'working for the man' contract finished this summer and since then I've been keeping myself busy with some hard, manual labour (great way to clear your head) in the garden while serving out my end of contract anti-competition lock out clause to the letter. I have too much respect for my old company, work colleagues and for myself to do anything sneaky.
I've been so busy in my garden and not been off the reservation much my job for next week was to put into motion the processes for registering my company, talking to legal and accountants etc. Hell I haven't even found time or the need to buy myself a new cell phone
I have deliberately not done any networking or made any approaches to find my first contract or consultancy role as I thought the best way to see what new opportunities are out there was to carpet bomb all my contacts and the companies I'd like to work for in one short, concentrated burst of emails to see what response I get back. I had planned to do this the 1st of next month which would be my first day of freedom.
As motorsport is a small world over the last few months I've bumped into a few old work colleagues who have asked me what I'm doing next and I've casually mentioned my plans of doing my own thing so I'm a little astonished and pleasantly surprised as how today has panned out.
Today I had my first meeting since deciding to go it alone, a lunchtime meeting to discuss a small project, basically to see a friend out who asked me for my help with an engineering challenge he and one of his client were trying to fix. I've offered my help as it looks like a suitably hard challenge which involves a GT race car and a multi-national company developing a new automotive design concept. Won't put much food on the table but its always I nice feeling to help a friend out and fingers crossed it could hopefully lead on to bigger things in the future
When I got back home in the afternoon I had an email confirming an interview next Tues. for a senior design contract role on a car project ????? with a world respected high performance engineering company specialising in designing and manufacturing cars for GT, touring car, rally, sports prototype cars.
Supper time a good friend working for another advanced automotive engineering company called up and offered me a design contract to help him design a new racing car for one of their clients. Got a meeting next Mon. so I can find out more to see if I want to get involved or not.
Then later this evening a another old work colleague phoned up from Germany after somehow finding out my home tel. no. asking for my help to design out some weight on his teams DTM race car.
On top of this I'm also still waiting to hear back after a telephone interview I had with a F1 engine manufacturer a few weeks ago for a very interesting contract position within their design group
Nothing signed yet and I know it is early days but it is looking like I may have made the right decision to stop working for the man. Thank you all for the advice, very much appreciated and your words helped give me the push I needed.