Life after GM. (former General Motors Co. employee Brent Jones)

Some people left GM before it started cutting back. Brent Jones, for one, is doing just fine.

Brent Jones, a former GM white collar worker, is a typical entrepreneur running his own company -- undercapitalized, overworked and having the time of his life.

Nothing, not a recession, not a 20-percent slump in sales last year, not even a traumatic merger that has affected the way he can service his customers, can ever convince Jones to go back to a company like GM.

Not that GM was a bad place to work -- it paid well, the benefits were nice -- but there was no escaping the fact that Brent Jones, dealer rep, was a small cog in a huge machine, nameless, faceless and dissatisfied after 11 years on the job.

"I really, truly enjoy working for myself. I always felt I had more to offer than I was able to in a big company," says Jones, co-owner and manager of the Inacom franchise store in the New Center, in the shadow, ironically, of GM headquarters. "I bump into people I used to work with all the time, and they're still complaining about the same things."

Jones voluntarily traveled a path that other former GM people will soon be forced to follow. Thousands of GM white-collar managers will hit the streets over the next few years, and many will decide to start their own businesses. For execs in transition, franchises, with their lower perceived risks, are often the business of choice.

For Jones, there was risk, all right. But mostly there was hard work.