Ditching the corporate culture

A NEW LIFE:Xuan Busto went from corporate culture to house husband, and now has a new career as a photographer

FEELING ISOLATED and hemmed in is hardly the recipe for job satisfaction. So when Xuan Busto saw an escape route from the "brainwashing" of corporate culture, he snapped it up and followed a more liberating path, becoming a stay-at-home dad while developing his career as a freelance photographer.

The need for change came not as a flash but a gradual development for Busto, who realised he was not happy on the corporate treadmill.

"In your 40s you think about what you enjoy and you know what life is like finally," says the Kildare-based father of two.

"Time really slips between your fingers and you cannot just be doing things because they pay your bills. That's okay for a while but you couldn't be doing that all your life. So I jumped from being the corporate man to the main carer and house husband."

Raised in the picturesque Asturias region in northern Spain, Busto originally trained as a marine engineer, much to his mother's delight.

"My family are very traditional countryside people, so for my Mum if you are an engineer or a doctor, that's the best thing you can be in this world," he says.

But even in his 20s, Busto's head was turned by other jobs, and he worked as a maths teacher and got into freelance photography.

"I was all over the place which is very unusual there because it's an employers' market, so people tend to stay very rigid. But I don't think that gels with my personality," he says.

He eventually moved into software engineering and, while working in Glasgow, he met his future wife Shauna, from Dublin.

"We met on a course and there was a spark there and we ended up going out together. An Irish woman works like gravity, you get drawn to the centre of their universe," he says, laughing.

The couple married and eventually moved to Ireland, where Busto got a job in the semi-conductor industry. But while he was happy to work there, being in a large company slowly wore him down.

"It was difficult. I worked a lot of weird hours to tie in with conferences and also I was a bit tired of the corporate culture; that kind of brainwashing takes a huge toll," he says.

"If you are an independent person and a free thinker you struggle with their systems. And the moment you lose your momentum you are in a corner. I felt that myself, and I wasn't able to get anywhere, I was stuck."

His route to freedom appeared when voluntary redundancies came up, allowing him to leave with enough of a financial cushion to get a new photography business off the ground, while Shauna became the main breadwinner.

He settled into life as a stay-at-home parent with children Isolina (four) and Fionn (15 months), while working on the photography business in the evenings and at weekends. But the change in responsibilities has sometimes taken a little getting used to, admits Busto.

"It's very hard but I never expected it to be less than that. The most frustrating thing for me is that you have no time to yourself. I might have work to do and trying to get an hour here or there is impossible until the children are in bed, but sometimes then you are so tired, you just want to watch Lost or whatever is on telly, some brain-dead activity."

But his innate ability and passion for photography has kept him going.

"I'm self-taught and had always been doing this as a hobby. I used to take pictures of people and they would end up on their walls. I had a knack," says Busto.

And his current venture is a family-friendly one. He often visits clients at the weekend to take portraits while Shauna and the children enjoy a few hours together.

It was Shauna who gave him the original push to change careers, and she continues to be the driving force in the background, says Busto.

"Shauna is very good at marketing, which is what I lack completely. I'm an engineer, I'm a geek, so I think that having a nice camera and being able to take pictures and knowing how to put them on the computer brings people in, but it doesn't; she has been brilliant."

Busto describes as "overwhelming" his good fortune to work at a creatively fulfilling job while getting to spend time with his family.

"I could have gone on to a string of other jobs like mine and got back on to the hamster wheel, but I consider myself lucky," he says.

"I got this redundancy package which is not huge, but it gives you leverage to take some time and think about things. And one day everything is hunky-dory and the next day, oh no, it's a rollercoaster.

"But I don't regret it and of course I would do it again, because if you don't try now you never will."

See www.asturphoto.com