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What Do People in the IT Field Do for Side Jobs?
Flagg0204 asks: "Growing up in a primarily white collar household I wasn't exposed to 'side-jobs' until I met my girlfriend whose family was mostly blue collar. This got me to thinking. What do people in the IT field do for side jobs? Electricians, plumbers, HVAC, mechanic, these fields have many opportunities for a little extra cash on the side. What are some IT/IS side jobs that Slashdot readers do for extra money?"
it depends what kind of IT skills you have.
i am working for few online games like iclod and xmoo, they generate a bit of incomes and open up opportunities for other jobs.
the advantage is i don't need to be there physically to carry out works, but with that advantage, i also get the disadvantage of having thousand of similarly skilled people fighting for the same work.
i believe hardware-IT may have more opportunities. just post an ads on local newspaper to "Fix Your Computer Problems At Home" and there bound to be some elderly people who would rather get a local service from a local person at home.
Play iCLOD
read slashdot.
Punch the monkey!
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
I learn fun new stuff, I get to take things at my own pace, I get fun email from other people, and I make enough to cover my car payment. Best of all, it feeds my megalomania.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
The moment they know you're in I.T. everyone in your family, and all your mother's friends, want you to fix their PCs.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Aside from that, I've noticed that the lion's share of part-time skilled labor still takes place between 9 and 5. There are plenty of 10-15 hour a week IT jobs, but very few where you're not on regular work hours. Even if you find one, any bit of success tends to pull the work towards business hours -- I briefly had a side gig as a trainer at night, but that quickly devolved into "can you do this during the day?" once companies started demanding our services.
As a consequence, you are forced to look for jobs which are both off-hours and feature very flexible schedules. This tends to translate into low skill and thus low paying. I don't mean to sound elitist here, but when you're making good money at a regular job I think you'll find that it's just not worth surrendering your free time for what you can bring in working at Starbucks. Remember: just because you're not paid when you're not at work doesn't mean that time is worthless.
If you're not making enough money, it might be a better use of your time to continue your education. Many universities cater to people who work a 9-5, and a lot of employers will help pay for you to go. The payoff isn't as immediate, but in many situations it's a far better plan overall.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I sometimes to photography or video work, which as time goes on, has a lot more to do with technology than ever before.
I got into engineering because I liked building things. (Additional joy comes from seeing people use what I build). So, you're not so far off when you guess that HVAC, electrical, and plumbing work may be a good side job option. I've known some guys that do car stereo installations, or home alarm system installations as side jobs.
Another side job related to IT work is typing. Sometimes you can find a simple temp job that requires you to type in data. Because programmers are generally fast at typing, it's an easy fit.
...turn on a computer.
Because the company I work for owns everything I think and do, according to my employment agreement. Nothing is considered "side-work."
--Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
and spam from people in the neighborhood.
Help end the use of Sigs. Tomorrow
Lots of IT peopel do Porn, some in it but mostly porn websites and what not. I kno w at least teo people. i know an electricain as well.
I have started my own IT consulting business for home PC users. I advertise locally in the neighbor hood and work nights and weekends.
Women swoon when I talk to them about high-speed computing, VOIP, and the inherent tension between creator and consumer in the post-copyright world. It's a tough gig, but I'm happy if I can fall asleep knowing that I brought a smile to just one face.
In before anything useful, yo.
Oh, and I work part time at Wendy's when I'm not doing IT stuff.
It seems almost depressing, but it's good pay for what I do.
Any brainy IT person can end up drowining in side high school maths tutoring jobs
I work about 10 hours a week at a local ski lodge for a season pass and decent compensation. Gets me outside and arround people who are totaly not about work but about skiing.
Cybersquatting and phishing scams? Not much!
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Pr0n star.
To all you posters who think you're comedians, I'm going to beat you to the punchline...
3) Profit!
When I'm not VP of IT for a 200 employee company, I fix/tune/hack German cars for a local speed shop. The money is good and I find it to be a lot more interesting than my "day job." At the end of the day, the car either works or it doesn't so it's very easy to see a sense of progress and feel like you've accomplished something. Compare that to a never ending network/software rollout while sitting in a cube giving/taking orders...
Not so much for the extra money, but for the opportunity to get out of the cave and flirt my ass off.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Wait tables at the local bar, http://www.bavariangrill.com/. Free beer, food, fun in a place I like. And they pay me to be there :)
Serving is the ultimate people hacking job. "No, you don't want that sir. Did you drink a lot of paint thinner as a kid? No? Ok then, you don't want that." Also, fun to see the way people react to weather :)
I find that it's a very fun, and profitable, hobby to have on the side. I'm playing enough now that I do consider it a side job... in fact, I make a better hourly wage than at my real job! The best part about it is, I can play whenever I have a spare hour or two... I don't have to schedule it in.
I've started getting all of my other friends in IT hooked on it as well :)
If your employer is to have his way, which they usually do in this economy, they'd have you work long hours and possibly work more on the weekends and most of the time, won't get paid extra for it (like EA games).
So, to answer the question - nothing.
PORN and PORN websites.
And sometimes fixing a porn star's computer too.
I have a personal LLC and contract the odd IT job, mostly single instance sysadmining or system configuration. Quasi-appliance servers for small and medium sized offices. Depending on how much money I want to make, I will take more or less jobs that I don't enjoy. I have also been known to do sys support on call during critical projects for various companies.
Just as the colleagues from the Physics department do...
However, I have some friends in the IT field that do general contracting (home additions, decks, drywalling, home improvements, etc.). It's apparently lucrative. One friend mentioned he loves it since he's not stuck behind a desk, and he can keep his craftsmanship skills honed.
If you're already doing contract work its not really a stretch from your existing skill set.
Throughout my years as a Unix admin, I have been a working blacksmith and woodworker in exotic woods. Recently I have branched into selling BDSM gear and sex toys, but that's beside the point.
I suspect many IT workers have a more artistic/creative outlet, whether it earns them any money or not. Its amazing how theraputic hammering hot metal is after a day dealing with computers and their users.
Write, edit, produce, direct Vampire movies. http://loudorangecat.com
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
Well, I am not sure it counts as a side job, as I don't have a job in the first place, but when I am not toiling at either school or theatre, I do lighting work for a local production company (owned and operated by some old friends). Being production work, it is very gig-oriented, but by the same token it is well suited to side work, as there are no long term commitments involved.
So, yeah, sound and lighting design and operation for small/medium productions.
Phus. Sysiphus.
...So make sure it's not turned off, then you're set!
I have a side project where we're writing a game, and another with an old college buddy just playing around with java3D and JINI.
For stuff that is not purely fun related, I repair, upgrade and troubleshoot peoples PCs, mostly for beer. Cheap for them, easy for me, and it lessens the "that neighbor is a freak" attitude.
I spend my spare time writing open source software.
When do you possibly find time for a side job? Isn't 60 - 80 hours a week away from your family enough?
Why on earth would I want a side job? I generally play golf, play around with home improvement projects, travel, etc, with my free time.
Why would I want to take that time away for a side job?
I guess my answer to your questions is, uh, either "nothing" or "spend money made at my single job" depending on the time of year.
I'm in the process of establishing a vineyard and will be studying medicine as of next year. I reckon that covers all my bases in case of a reversal in the IT industry.
Your attitude is infectious...
got a pt job at a local chain book retailer to fill in the $ gaps and get a discount. i can learn the alphabet, AND buy cheap books! weee!
but blue collar junk
I actually have been a Club DJ for the last 7 years, along with my IT day job.
I have found that a LOT of IT people in my area (Madison, WI) are involved in electronic music in some way... either through production or performance.
Since I have moved here, I have held a residency every Friday Night for the last 5 years at a local club for mixing 80's... other nights I will play techno and what not - but 80's brings in the bank... and is my thing to do every friday.
It actually has provided me enough in the past to quit my day job for a period while I looked for better work.
Not to mention, I don't have to buy drinks, and it is essentially like getting paid to go out and socialize.
i mostly do programming / it work, but i also bartend at a local club on weekends.
i like it cuz it actually gets me out in front of people and keeps me from completely becoming a troll . . .
I was educated as graphic designer and learned myself webdesign before the web became mainstream. I did this for various ad-agencies for 6 years and went freelance after that. IT always had my interest, however the (back then) beta-requirements were too high for me. But IT always was there on the background, and on all my jobs I have always been involved in IT decisions and/or systems administration in some way.
My current IT sidejob involves fighting spam at a Dutch anti-spam organisation. But my money still comes from graphic and/or webdesign.
I proofread books, both treeware and e-books for three different publishers, including doing scan-and-proof of old books for electronic republication. It's a great way to relax and put my computer skills to use without having to dive into the details of the bits-and-bytes after hours.
I deliver pizza as a side job. Only a couple nights per week, and a few hours per night. Get $$$, and find loads of WiFi hotspots.
Some companies (I'm not sure how widespread this is) put a clause in your employment terms or make you sign a contract that forbids you from doing any kind of "side job" related to your real job except for yourself and immediate family.
My last employer did this; they basically said "sign this or you're fired." Since Nevada is a right to work state, they were free to do so for whatever reason they felt like as long as it didn't conflict with a federal law.
this is my sig
Being reasonably technical it was kind of a natural progression to get stuck into digital cameras a couple of years ago.
;
:) But I like the results after a wedding.
I now work Mon-Friday as a Network Engineer for a ISP (as I have done for quite a few years now), and do wedding photography on weekends.
I tell ya, we complain about putting up with "lusers" and stuff like that but let me assure you that
1) Hell hath no fury like a bride and her mother on a wedding day
2) To do a wedding properly is serious work. On Saturdays wedding I was up at 6am, out of the house by 7am - a 1hr drive to my business partners house where we check all the gear, load all the studio lighting, reflectors, ladder, camera bags, laptops, 30" LCD (for showing photos at the reception) into the car. We then go to the brides house at 10:30am, do the photos there and then drive over 1hr to the actual wedding venue, do the stuff there and then go to the reception which was only 10mins away thankfully. The reception finished 11pm, and I was back home at about 1:30am. A long day, and on top of all that it was extremely hot, about 35c (Australia). And I then had to get up at 7am to photograph a christening.
It makes my IT job seem fairly cosy in comparison
I have a full-time software development job during normal working hours, but I work part-time in a bike shop (usually only on the weekends or holidays).
Most of the time, I do minor repairs and assembly on new bikes, also safety checks for test rides. Sometimes I help customers on the sales floor. Either way, it's totally rewarding, and gives me a huge sense of satisfaction (unlike spending time at the office writing email, sitting in meetings, writing reports, etc.). Also, it's really nice to be around people who are relaxed and not on some big fscking power-trip while trying to climb the corporate ladder.
I'm a wh0re.
:|
opps, no, wait a minute. Thats my IT job
I preach for money. (many churches look to seminary students or former seminary student to do fill in preaching - they call it pulpit supply - when a pastor is on vacation) I've been tempted to put together a business card with that side job on it, "Serving God and mammon since 1997." Also, I work in a children's home. The overnight shift at the home allows me to work online during downtime. And then sometimes I do the freelance gig too. Who doesn't?
yes. that's all I'm going to say in all comments from now on.
The gray market for services has grown consistently since I moved out to the bay area. Since the dot-com flame-out and the massive spending binges have ended, it's easier to hire someone for some quick "consulting" work than to employee people full time. A lot of people I know do on-the-side consulting for a few dollars here and there. Mostly IT stuff: companies small enough to not be able to pay someone full time but big enough to need someone to call on when they are in trouble. Lots of "checking the CEO's laptop" type jobs.
You have to be careful with this kind of work, though. As the name implies, the gray market is somewhere between the black market (totally illegal) and the normal market (regulated by industry and government). Some companies will 1099 you and report what they paid you, some companies won't. It is illegal, AFAIK, to receive money for work and not report it as income.
The money can be good, but if you are unlucky enough to be caught, the back taxes can be quite expensive.
Jeff
I know I'm not a typical programmer, but I used to deliver newspapers in addition to having a full time job. I put the papers on people's welcome mats instead of just tossing them from a moving van. The pay was lousy (2c per 20c paper plus tips), but I enjoyed it.
As for less stable side jobs: build PVRs, build dashboard computers, small site sysadmin, 3 card monte, etcetera . . . .
Yes, this is off-topic, and you can mod me down if you want, but I just wanted to say: I love your sig; I always thought 'HTTP_REFERER' should have been spelled with a double R.
Standing at the very edge of my imagination, I peered into the inky void and realised -- I couldn't think up a new sig.
Most of my IT side jobs stay within my field of work. I'm a network engineer for a software company, but on the side I develop web applications (php/perl w/ mysql) for various friends and family. It brings in some decent income. You might want to take a look at elance.com, but it's hard to grab any work off of there because a lot of foreign sources use that website. Find some webdesign friends that need some extra programming. -Dan
Cleaning up Spyware from friends and family's PCs (as well as friends of friends, friends of family etc etc etc), reinstalling Windows and all associated programs (FF, Spybot, oo.o etc) when things are too borked too salvage. Setting up small home networks. Freelance website development. Generic 'computer stuff'... allsorts of junk.
There's mischief and malarkies but no queers or yids or darkies within this bastard's carnival, this vicious cabaret.
Consulting... what better way to get paid 3x - 4x of what you make for doing the exact same thing. :)
------
"And may your days be long upon the earth."
I hack into servers and blackmail their owners. :)
I hire blue-collars for odd-jobs, pay them cash and then call the IRS. ;-)
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
By day I work for IBM as an engineer. By night, I'm an investigator for my wife's private investigations company http://www.travisinvestigations.com/ . I get to help spy on cheating wives and husbands, catch people in insurance fraud and other such things. Probably the part I enjoy the most is when I get to make use of new electronic tools like covert GPS tracking devices etc... What I dislike are the long nights surveiling some cheating spouse or watching someone to see if they are poor parents in custody cases. Of course I also take care of the company computers (mostly Macs believe it or not).
prostitition.
Just joined the Army National Guard, going to be a Chinese Linguist/Interrogator. Training is two years long, so I'll be doing CS stuff from a dorm room for a while. Looking forward to leaving college and "fixing other people's computer" behind for a while...
Fixing my sister's comuter, for pennies :,-( :,-( :,-(
Fixing my parents computer, for food
Fixing my girlfriends computer, or else!
It's got flexible hours and the pay is performance based.
Right now I am trying to get a job as a waiter at a local sports bar on the weekends :-)
...using technologies that my main employers won't use - a bit of money and a better cv
You know what I miss? Leeches.
At the local vocational school. Linux+, Fundamentals of UNIX, and Webserver development. Its a great paycheck and it keeps your skills sharp.
By building assets with the money you earn in your IT job, you can actually make a decent enough amount of money to not have to worry about bills anymore. So basically, my IT job is just a tool to get me $ to make $.
Someone is writing those trojans, viruses, spyware, et. al.
Help end the use of Sigs. Tomorrow
eBay, Web Design, Build computers, and recently, re-sell web space. Individually, not very consistant, but together, I get enough play money to afford my (expensive) gadgets.
At a ski lodge? Where does that happen (decent compensation)?
In order to de-stress from computer-related work, I took up gardening/landscaping about ten years ago and got quite good at it and now run a small company that gets quite a bit of work throughout the summer. Unfortunately, there's not too much landscaping work being done in Canada over the Winter :-) so I rely on IT stuff for my bread and butter and gardening during the summer to pay for jam!
I program website and I do reviews for companies that send me their stuff (www.justechn.com).
JusTech'n - Where Technology comes home
...are what I do on the side. Being a college student, I jump at any opportunity I can find to supplement my part-time income. Most of the time it's house calls for older people who would much rather use a typewriter and a fax machine. On a few occassions, I've nailed a few jobs doing training on things like taking pictures from a camera and uploaded them to a website or how to use a scanner. Even at half the price the local shops charge, I'm able to make enough to fund my broadband and webhosting with just enough left over for a coke and a candy bar. I'm curious to know what everyone else does on the side. I'm always looking for new ideas.
Just do what schoool board members in Tennessee do... make moonshine. Remember to avoid the tax-man, though...
As much as I try to get away from the keyboard when I'm not at work, it seems as I'm always asked by friends and family to fix their computer(s). Depending on the problem, anywhere from a case of beer to $100 is the fee. I typically charge on the low-end ($20/hr) and they usually pay me a nice bonus because its still cheaper than taking it to a computer shop. I recently got $20 to setup my friends WiFi card in her notebook.
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
I wouldn't normally think of this, but I was just at my parents' house for Thanksgiving and one of their pipes sprung a leak, resulting in a puddle in the basement. (It's lucky I was there, actually, since my parents don't go to the basement with any regularity. The guest room is in the basement, however, and I noticed the puddle before it became a flood.) They tried to find a plumber the day after Thanksgiving, and all they could find was someone who wanted $240/hour for emergency service. Fortunately, I was able to patch it temporarily with some rubber and a hose clamp.
It got me thinking, though, that I could do cut-rate (only $150/hour!) emergency plumbing and significantly improve my income. I wouldn't even have to be that good, just good enough to patch things until a real plumber was available for reasonable rates. Mostly idle thinking, but...
The moment they know you're in I.T. everyone in your family, and all your mother's friends, want you to fix their PCs.
I've found that in my location at least (Calgary, Canada), being an one-man computer guy can actually be quite profitable, since computer shops charge way too much for system repairs and most people don't have a friend that can do it.
When I first came here, nobody seemed to want my unix admin skills, yet I also had a healthy amount of helpdesk-type experience, so I decided to go solo and haven't looked back. Forget the mainstream, I'm making loads with just so-called "side" work.
Of course it's against corporate policy. But while managament makes the rules, they don't know how to enforce it because us uber-geeks know how to get around all of the firewalls and network-monitoring. :-)
Seriously, I daytrade stocks and futures at the office. Been doing okay. Once I'm making more doing that compared to my IT job, I'm quitting.
Just click the link in my sig... :)
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
I took a break from IT work in 1999 to persue a career in sound reinforcement (ie making music loud at concerts) as well as some studio work. It was a good deal of fun and had many rewards, but after four years I detemined that IT provided certain benefits that I needed and returned to it.
I continue to work doing audio work on the side, averaging about 16 hours/week, although at this point I view it as a profitable hobby. All of the money I make gets put back into my business, so it's not something I do for money per say.
Getting out and away from computers provides me with a tremendous amount of stress refief that makes the workweek more palatable. I enjoy sysadmining and I enjoy programming, but there's a much different feel from doing something creating such as working in the arts. There's a certain reward that you get from pulling off a major event that hundreds or thousands of people get immediate enjoyment from that IT doesn't provide. Pushing up the faders as the first power chord hits the crowd and they go wild - there's nothing else like it for me. I'm just grateful that I have the opportunity to do it and get paid for it.
Even though it's hard work, doing something completely different than office work destresses me. I've been far happier working 40 hours in the office and 40 hours on the road than I am when I'm doing just 60 hours in the office.
Of course, the side perc of getting paid to go to a resort 1/4 weekends a year isn't too bad either...
More IT work, neighbors with viruses/spyware, simple cleanup == quik $$$.
Upgrades to friends families computers, good for free hardware, they don't usually want the old stuff, good for building a NAT server though.
Building full systems, good for quik $$$$, or a I'll do it if you buy X part, or game X for me.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
it's nice to build things for friends. gets your out in the garage dealing with physical objects, not code.
i can make a few bucks for a shoe rack, or quite a bit for a coffee table. until i get some fancy tools, i'm stuck with fairly simple designs. but the simple tools force you to be creative, and resourceful.
wood-working is truely object oriented.
Sell teeshirts that say " NO, I will not fix your computer for you"
(at least for free)
annnoying friends and family members
For side work, I have a couple of small business customers -- a real estate brokerage with 3 employees and an online presence, a law office with four employees, and a desktop publishing firm run out of some guy's basement -- who hire me to clean a virus here or put in a new server there or something similar. I charge $30-60 an hour, and it usually puts an extra hundred bucks or so in my pocket for a saturday afternoon.
Usually, IT jobs pay well enough that you don't need "side work". They're can also be so mentally draining that you end up too tired to do anything else at the end of the day anyway. Jobs that are mostly physical labor are actually less tiring, which is why working on the side is usually found in blue collar families.
I'm in a similar situation as the submitter, actually, except I came from a blue collar family, went white collar, then when I met my wife, who is from a very blue collar family, I remembered my old roots. Soon as the debt's paid off I'm getting the hell out of the cubicle world. Then maybe PCs and programming will be fun again.
I eat babies.
of my girlfriend...
There are only so many suckers, don't go telling people who are likely to be good at poker where our suckers are! You're giving away our money man!
Erm, I mean, this is a horrible idea, all of the IT people I know lose lots and lots of money playing poker online.
paintball
I work for a bookstore in my area on Sundays as a side job. Thats about as close as I can come to claiming a side job. I work too many hours during the week to hold 2 jobs during the week. Working for 8 hours on Sundays allows me to get books at 30% off, borrow 2 books every 2 weeks, and gives me 50 or so dollars to play with for buying said books.
Basically I am getting paid to browse books, get access to new releases before they are out, and I work from 10 am to 6. Not too shabby.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
The speaker was, for the first time in his pathetic life, speechless. No one had ever challenged him on the issue of Tibet.
Many companies insist that if you work in IT for them, you must report any and all side work to your supervisor, whereupon you will not be permitted to do the side-work if it as seen in any way as competitive.
My brother did side work doing perl and SQL programming for websites. He has also done other small coding jobs. Additionally, his "side job" while he was working for one company was to go to school and complete a Masters Degree program. Your skills get rusty if you don't keep up and getting a Masters got him into a nicer position -- until AO-Hell bought and destroyed the company he was in.
I have purchased a fair amount of shareware from people who have IT jobs and then do a little development on the side at home. One says that the money he makes off his shareware will go to his son's education (great idea, as his son is still in diapers presently).
Then there are times when one just wants to go to sleep when one gets home. I think everyone's been there.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
I make tasty beer.
I'm not blue-collar, nor do I think "side-jobs" are blue-collar only. It's a shame you didn't have more exposure to the "real world" while younger.
As a Computer Engineer working as a world-wide manager for the largest CPU company in the world, you'd think I'd be among those who'd get along fine without the extra work and effort of side jobs - but why be lazy?
I co-own three companys on the side, 2 real estate related for which I do web design/webmastering, and one robotics design group. It's fun to make a little extra money on one's hobbies and explore the possibilites of cutting ties with the big company that owns my life....
All of my SO's friends and relatives know that I'm into IT. So whenever one of them has a problem, they come to me. If it is something that will take more than an hour, I charge them.
When a local computer shop tells them $95/hr with a one hour MINIMUM, paying me $60 sounds a lot more reasonable.
For $60 they get a free antivirus program (Avast or AVG), Ad Aware, Spybot S & D, a scandisking, a defrag, updated drivers for all of their hardware, up to date patches for their games, and whatever else they "need" to get their computer running smoothly again.
It's an equitable solution, everyone wins.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Is by not spending any...
A penny saved, is a penny earned!
100% Insightful
Since IT work is so stable now, I've chosen another stable field for side work. I am a steel worker. I make iron and steel machinery and parts.
In case you didn't get it, that is sarcastic. American IT jobs are moving overseas just like steel work did. And guess what? It ain't coming back.
I haven't found any decent programming work in over a year. I'm squeaking by on hourly hack work.
But, on the side for real, I do steel work. Go figure. Glutton for punishment I guess.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
Not sell out my body, if thats what your thinking...
Many of us expand our skills by taking on small contract/project work in skillsets that are outside our comfort zone. I learned PHP/MySQL this way, by taking on a php project for a modest amount of money. Over the years, I've used this method to learn .Net, Java, PHP, JavaScript and countless other technologies. We all agree that the language isn't as important as a geek who is willing to learn, so one great way to do that is with "Side Work".
Some of my best work has been on side projects, because often you don't have the time constraints that you have in your day job and you can experiment with more high-risk/high-payout things. Side work has also been more rewarding, as well. I've done web projects for schools of family members, my home owner's association, and my mom's church. Again with volunteer side projects, you can even DICTATE what technology (or just fail to specify) you'll be using. The home owner's association wants a nice website? Sure, I'll do it for free, but it will be in Java, and hosted on XServes. Why? Because that's what I want to learn today.
I've always enjoyed my side projects. Some of them have earned me some fantastic money. Some of them have taught me important skills and lessons. Remember that it is your time, so do something useful with it. I always pass the side projects through the 2 year old filter. "Will they take time away from my 2 year old?" For me, that is the most important question. If I can do them after his bedtime, and they are worthwhile because I'm either learning something I want to, or contributing to something I want to (or both), then I'll take it on.
I invest on the side. It's relatively easy to make money with your money if you do it right. Plus it doesn't require you to sacrafice all your free time.
Go here for teh [sic] funny.
Turn tricks. Great cash; compatible hours.
I myself am working on a startup company that I intend to launch next year. Sure it may not make money the first year but if it can support itself then I'll be happy.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
What Do People in the IT Field Do for Side Jobs?
You could always whore yourself out to 50 fat chicks for $1000....
Red Bull gave me wings and I flew into the ceiling fan.
Is it really a job or is it a calling and public serivce?
Fight Spammers!
-college radio techno DJ
-audio production for my aunt's voiceover lesson business
-extra pair o' hands for a technical production company
-mkb
1-3 books per year for 150 to 300 hours total. I do it to flush out my resume and to force myself to learn things that I probably won't learn as part of my full-time gig. The extra money helps too.
Teach private tennis lessons on the side
Every spare minute I'm not at work I come home and administrate http://www.freegratisproducts.com/. Thanks to the wonderful community on this site I've already received over $2000 worth of free stuff.
I think we have a really good thing going on that site. Check it out and let me know what you think.
In "real" life, I'm an IT Director for a small private college and love it.
On the side:
I haven't taught in a number of years, but I used to teach adult ed computer classes for a local community college and school district. I enjoyed it a lot.
For the last several years, I've been writing articles for TechRepublic - up to about 250 published at last count - and I find it highly enjoyable. Being paid is a serious motivating factor to stay current with what's going on. I'm also writing a book for O'Reilly at present.
I'm also a father (1 here, 1 on the way, and 2 nephews that live with us) and husband, so keeping going can be hard, but I like the pace.
I direct, tech/light design, and act in plays -- sometimes for money, sometimes as part of a community effort. I also have worked in various capacities in the film and TV production industries when opportunity and time allowed.
I find that my 2nd "job" is something which uses my brain completely differently than my IT job. It also uses my whole person differently -- my social interactions, how I problem solve situations, my overview of the inherent structure (or lack thereof) involved in the performing arts world are VERY different from my tech support life. Perhaps because theatre is more my passion than computers, I find putting on a show more spritiually rewarding. And it makes my IT day-job that much more tolerable.
So I guess I'd answer this way -- choose a 2nd job that aligns with your passions, but is different enough from your day job to keep things interesting. The benefits are obvious (I hope) and they might just outweigh the biggest drawback which is sometimes you don't make as much money as you'd like.
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
Work with Premiere, Dreamweaver, flash and photoshop to make short movies. Win prizes .. etc...
I really do know KungFu
I've built some web sites, done some software/hardware consultation, etc. Oh, and I take pictures, but that doesn't really bring in any cash.
It can be hard to do work on the side when you're a developer, though. Many (most?) jobs work you like a slave, so you don't have much energy/brain left when you crawl home from work long after dark. If you're lucky enough to have a job that has regular hours (or unlucky enough to be laid off), freelancing can be very exciting.
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
A few years back I made contact with someone who went on to start his own business, so now I do some work for him at night, around my 9-6 day job and having a family. Kinda tough at times...
Damien
web programmer by night. css, xul, javascript. anything i can do to pull in an extra buck and enrich my knowledge and experience at the same time, really.
The real sticky part is making sure your customers pay by the job... otherwise you'll end up providing indefinite support for any computer you repair, set up, work on, etc. It's amazing how some people think that once you touch a network or a machine you're bound to provide free service for it forever. I often wonder if these people pay their car mechanics once and then expect all future automobile service, maintenance, and upgrades for free.
Whatever you do, just make sure that you let customers know that they pay you by the job or the visit. Otherwise they have to put you on salary.
-- Gargonia
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn.
What other non-IT folk hang around /.?
:)
I'm just a blue-coller guy (machinist/cnc programmer), but have been into computers since my Vic-20. And I have a sub-6 digit uid
While cleaning malware off a neighbors computer and setting up his dsl/wifi stuff this weekend (skills that totally amazed him), I was asked again why I don't get a real job doing IT stuff. I had to explain that just because I know how to change my own oil, I don't want to work at JiffyLube.
Wake up.
Let's see...I've had three general categories of Side Jobs since I started in the IT field about five years ago:
Bike Shop - as one of the geekiest sports out there, cycling has been a long-held fascination of mine. Have held dual-role jobs spinning wrench and doing sales work at a trio of shops.
Outdoor Gear - worked at everyone's favorite co-op for a few months. I'd consider this an outgrowth of the cycling thing.
Computer Retail - this is my current gig, and I enjoy it quite a bit.
blog |
In my off hours, I lurk on chat rooms for a government agency.
Its putting me through school. My on-campus job limits my hours and pays me next to nothing for decent quality web stuff, but other people will pay decent money for a great job. If your a good programmer/artist, go for it. I'd say that nearly a third of my income comes in the form of random websites.
I've found that the university is a great place to do web dev stuff because almost everyone has some sort of idea or project they are working on. Do some good work, and people will refer you like crazy.
Besides, it's great practice for work you'll likely do later on (that is, if you really like web development).
My day job is for a small business school. My main side job is teaching an online class or two each semester. As long as I keep working toward my masters degree, I can pocket a little extra cash in exchange for around 15 extra hours a week. Not glamorous, but its not out wandering the countryside fixing people's computers. This way I get to be at home and still make a little extra money, so I'm not a total stranger to my daughter.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
I teach in the business programs at a local university, and occassionally take-on short-term web / sysadmin projects for small businesses in my community. Both round off the rough edges of doing mostly techie tasks in a larger environment for my "day job", and continuously broaden my perspective for working with / for others regardless of situation.
I figure the time committment and energy required to juggle in this fashion will eventually kill me, but, hey, there are worse ways to go...
I used to track my stock options, but I guess I'll have to find something that pays now...
I don't have time for side jobs. I am an IT guy so I am too busy working fast food like jobs trying to keep my bills payed. The only free time I have I spend complaining about how there "are no IT jobs available" so I have no time for these so called side jobs
Obama is a twitter sock puppet
There is a great niche between the local Sylvan store and students' equally-struggling friends - not great $$$, but it is rewarding to know that one is helping stem the growing flood of illiteracy, innumeracy, and apathy in education.
Take the 90-Day Challenge! http://rwmurker.bodybyvi.com/
I'm an AIX Systems Administrator and trained IBM pSeries hardware technician (network guru, etc) by day. At night I buy, refurbish, and resell IBM RS/6000s and pSeries machines on eBay. Having a side business is great and allows me tax advantages that, as just a W-2 wage earner, I can't get.
My wife certainly doesn't mind the extra income; it has helped us pay off our cars and make extra payments on our house. Nice to be out of debt and have an actual savings account!
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
Actually, working IT is my side job. My IT job lets me choose my own hours, so I can get work done whenever I'm not Acting. It's kind of an odd combination, but it makes me happy.
--Nycto
I work at a National Lab in my day job. I write software "on the side". It is not a business yet, but I hope that it will become one someday. The software is targeted at a narrow application area: finance and electronic market trading (e.g., stocks).
Also, book collecting.
-dameron
1. Post to slashdot
2. ?
3. Secondary income, er, profit!
Being a gigalo is the best sidejob. Some women just love men with a pocket protector.
IT is what I do for money. The things I am more interested in than IT don't pay enough money to support me at the level to which I'm accustomed. I make short films and advocate for building public skateparks. If I could do those things for the same money, I'd leave IT in a minute.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
If you have enough skill to mow a lawn, due that on Saturdays. I paid a kid $10/cut to push a lawn mower around 500 square feet. In my spare time, I work on motorcycles, weld, fix car bodies (not bondo), repair small electronics and appliances, make tamales, everything except deal with computers. Your side jobs will be limited entirely by your skill. If all you can do is use a computer, then your kind of screwed unless you can do some web sites, small networks, custom programming or pc repairs. Your side jobs will also be controlled by "conflict of interest" with whats go on for work. If you build web sites for a living and build one outside of work, then that would be just cause for terminating you if your employer finds out. InfusionX
It's all about RTFM.
As the senior web developer (not exactly IT I know) I don't really have time. There is a reasonable expectation of being "on-call". I can scarce imagine an IT professional that's not on-call to deal with the problems that /will/ happen.
It's nice to have something to do on the side but I think "side job" is a bit too strong. Hobby is more likely. I personaly find that I hardly have time to clean my garage to make room for my pool table. Occationaly I work on a personal development project but again, hobby.
I am invisble, and you can't see me.
I occasionally teach school and Under Grad kids math and the sciences.
It's fun, and if you charge a reasonable rate, about $15-$20 an hour, parents would much rather have you teach their kid than send them to Sylvan where it costs upwards of $40 an hour.
First of all, I'd try to get a side job that didn't involve staring at a computer screen for another 6 hours after I got home. Prevent the eye twitch! I mean, dear GOD make it stop! So if it were me, I'd get a job outside. Day labor, landscaping, pool cleaning etc. If you're not into fresh air, maybe try developing some halfway decent Linux games. Tuxracer gets old.
What the hell was I supposed to be doing? I was going to do something, and now I'm on
...like fries with that?
I'm a humanities geek - I do translations Finnish-English-Finnish. For example, I've translated for a journal of military medicine and done brochures for the chemical industry.
My other SIG is a Sauer.
That's how a lot of Free Software gets written. Go home, code up something useful, stick it on SourceForge, put it on your resume. You get a line on your resume, the world gets (hopefully) good code. Or help out on some existing project as a bug fixer, documentation person, fringe features (or mainline features if you're that good), etc.
Just because you don't get an immediate paycheck for it doesn't mean it's not worthwhile.
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
My IT job got outcourced to some third world country......( India, Romania, Yugoslavia )not sure which. So now I drive a Milk Truck...... hey, it pays the bills.
I have 3 side jobs.
1) I repair my familys/friends computers. I don't usually charge, and when I do, I usually don't ask for money. Cookies will do.
2) Auto Mechanic. I'll do just about anything they ask, because mechanic shops fucking rip you off. A rebuild alternator at autozone is $50 and an hour of my time. Try $300 at a shop. outrageous! I know the mechanic has a wife and kids to feed, but come on, that is just rediculous. I also will do their shocks, belts, oil changes, air filter, etc. I won't swap out a transmission or anything like that, but if its something I can do in a few hours, sure no problem.
3) i used to deliver pizza. I quit recently though. Its not as glamourous as it seems. donino's is minimum wage plus $1 for gas per delivery. And most people don't tip, so its hard to make that much money. Plus when you aren't making deliveries, you are ringing up orders, making pizzas, fokding boxes, taking pizza out of the oven, dealing with an asshole manager, etc.
got any questions, just ask me.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
or better yet, rape dollars.
Contract data recovery work and (also contracted) rennovation of some otherwise antiquated code (for controlling a highly specialized piece of hardware) are both items I've done as side jobs during the last few years.
Before that, quite a lot more... but then, I was telecommuting, so I had a lot of flexibility to get my primary job's work done after regular business hours.
Your in IT.
hmmm, what to do for side job.
IT you moron. I Work full time and run a small business on the side. I usually make more money from my part time side work, but my job keeps me with access to lots of IT goodness, which stops me from leaving. It's not that hard to work out.
Daniel
I ran a small ISP for 10 years, finally driven out of business by Southwestern Bell and it's deceptive and monopolistic practices related to DSL and ISPs in general. We even won a settlement from them when we started a class action Monopolistic Trade Practices suit, but it wasn't enough to keep us going very much longer. This business never did make me much money but I had the best Internet connection in town :) I still have fibre to SWB's CO in my study. Make a great house for someone into Web Cams :)
I also have done some consulting for local colleges and large businesses, mainly when someone there knows I have the skills to get something working quickly.
embezzlement
(in case my boss is watching, I'm j/k)
(if he's not, contact me for more info.)
What's that smell? Ah, that's my karma burning...
Overtime - I make 1.5 times as much as I do at my regular job. I work 12 hr days. If I cover a shift, it pays the same as working 18 hrs at my normal pay.
Maybe you shouldn't be in the IT industry then. When you have a passion for something you tend to enjoy doing it when ever the opportunity is available. I cannot imagine an artist saying I cannot wait to quit painting or drawing...
Just my 2 cents.
If you have any skill with the written word, try picking up a technical writing contract. It is unlikely you will land a full book deal on your first time out, but contributing writer jobs are obtainable with a little persistance. The nice thing about writing is that you set your own work schedule and work from home... it is the ultimate telecommuting job. As long as you don't agree to any overly aggressive deadlines, it works out really well as a 'side job'.
Cheers,
The Bolachek Journals
yes, i work on the side for... WAL-MART
... hmm... dunno anything else.. oh well.
i know.. how can i do such a dasterdly(sp) thing but... i get great stock deals, full benefits, and
Check it out, it works http://www.
I was under the impression that over 1/2 of the IT workers in America were musically inclined....! - Having been a musician since age 11, and 'tinkering' with computers since the first Apple II computers, I found myself sucked into a "real" corporate job much later in life (family needs, monetary rewards, etc.), but never gave up the music performing/recording gigs while in the corporate vortex. - In fact, I recently left my well-paying corporate IT job (because of the drain of having to maintain a relationship with a poor excuse of an upper manager) and have been blissfully re-connecting with my musician self. - Perhaps I will get some IT side-work (as long as it doesn't involve working on those silly MS-OS-Intel machines!) Rock on!
I just ponder my useless existence.
KARMA POLICE ARREST THIS MAN HE TALKS IN MATHS- radiohead
Gigolo ;)
Its amazing that a full suspension carbon mountain bike with 4 pot hydraulic disk brakes is just a little more sexy than my work where I have 100 HP Proliant DL380's running Linux. ;-)
Slashdotters who are not into MTB's should have a look at the K2 Bike's that used to come with cpu enabled dampers. The processor would calculate the spring hit rate as the shock compressed over a bum and then using a piezo actuator inside the damper in the shock, control the damping oil flow in the rebound action of the shock. very very cool stuff.
Why is this insightful? I doubt the last thing a plumber wants to do when he gets home is unclog his sister's toilet, nor does the mechanic want to talk to his neighbor about that tapping sound his car started making. People generally take side jobs because they need the money. I don't really want to clean megs of spyware off a family members' computer, but if they want to slip me some cash I'll be right over.
"Panhandle" not found
What the hell?
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
I was educated as a engineering physicist, and put myself through engineering school programming (Pascal on micros, in the 70's), having picked it up in high school.
Needless to say that I did both my Masters and Phd thesis in computational physics, staying as far away from FORTRAN as possible (touching it only with mixed-language programming, and then only through C, M4, sh and, after it was invented, C++) and doing as much of my own unix systems administration as necessary -- and taking two years beteween my MSc and PhD to work just as a sysadmin.
After my 5th postdoc -- underpaid, overworked: so some f-ing faculty member can steal your best work and then say "oh to keep your job you have to write ANOTHER proposal (while I publish the work that came out of your last proposal heh heh heh)" -- I figured out that programming in the so-called real world paid twice the money for half the hours and about a quarter of the intellectual energy expended: and for which I was GROSSLY overqualified.
One small fly in the ointment: as a female, no matter WHAT was on my CV, people just assumed that I was somebody's glorified secretary that figured out how to write SQL queries from Access or some pathetic shit like that, and should be ordered around by guys with half my technical background. What a hoot! Dot-com himbos, I call them. Billerica Blow-Dries. Buncha Lightweight Blowhards if you ask me. Had to ditch a few of those "real world" jobs before finding one where I'm employed to do what I'd already spent 20 years already doing. Duhhhhh....WRITING CODE? D'ya THINK?
I try pretty hard not to do much in the way of solving friends' and relatives' computer problems. I'll listen politely to a short complaint, and 90% of the time recommend getting away from IE and/or Outlook, and/or getting Spybot and an AV program. Of the rest, I normally point them elsewhere, or just remind them that I am not really a Windows person. My brother takes care of my mom (he is a Windows jock, and lives a lot closer) or I'd help her out. Everyone else is self-sufficient, or goes elsewhere. I do try to help out at church on occasion, but it's such a horrid hodegpodge of randomly-hacked and duct taped Windows and Mac systems that usually I'm no help. If they ever switch to *nix, though... 8^)
I do have a couple of friends I trade services or things with. But generally even if I ask a friend such as a plumber to come work on something, I'd rather just pay him, and him have the option of saying, "Nah, just call the office, I wanna go see my family at night." I hate presuming on friendship.
BUT... I repair and build vacuum tube guitar amps on the side. I haven't actually made money in any given year, yet, but I'm close. Cranking out power chords and such at full volume can be very cathartic, too!
I've taught math and computer science part time at two different universities.
Does not pay? Sometimes it does, actually. Like when it helps you get a better job, or a better pay...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
i am currently 23 yrs old, i have been a IT admin for a data imaging lab for about 4 years, and i was previously IS admin for an oil equipment company for about 3 years. Through that entire time i have also been a cook at a local pizza shop :). fun fun, making pizzas has always helped me get rid of stress, and boy do i need that :). stupid sony laserdisc jukebox ..
Unless you like the fat, pasty look, I'd recommend a physical job, such as a warehouse job. Not only do you get exercise, but you get to NOT use your brain for a while. It's very refreshing and rewarding. I knew a Oracle DBA once who was a "thrower" or a baggage handler at a local airport. He loved it. A job like that provides a nice balance, while at the same time, eliminates the need for paying a gym out the nose.
I don't respond to AC's.
On the side I maintain pretty much all the Subway restaurants in the town where I live. That and many smaller businesses: - IT Expertise and support for SubShop2000 (*shudders*) - Video Surviellance Installations - Alarm System Installations - Sound system installations. Then I also teach piano on the weekends to little kids which requires a tonne of patience!!! I also do web page development (which gets backburnered alot because of my lack of love for it), have a full time job and a girlfriend. Did I mention I have no life ;-)
Teaching is one of the most amazing ways to stay current on technology. The need to prep for class and lookup answers to students questions is only one aspect of it. Many students come with a lot of experience of their own in fields I know nothing about. I can ask them questions and get answers.
:)
Teaching at a Junior College pays decently per hour if you are part time and have a 2 unit class that meets 8 or 9 hours a week.
If I amnot teaching, then I am studying. Next semester I only have one 2 unit class to teach. So I'll take a 3.5 unit Cisco Security class in the Cisco Academy series (We're a regional traing center). It won't get me a full CCSP like the other classes got me CCNA and CCNP, but it does cover Router Fiewalls, some VPN, PIX, and hardening routers. Plus it allows me to review all the CCNP stuff I've forgotten (I'm actually the MCSE instructor at this JC).
Oh and the TOYS! We have 2 7000 series router, 50 2500/2600/1700 routers, maybe 30+ various 2900 3550, 4006, and 6000 series Chasis switches to play with!
Maybe someday I'll have enough Cisco knowledge people will stop offering me nightmare Microsoft jobs and start offering me more interesting Cisco jobs. Until then my knowledge of the hardware infrastructure has kept offers coming in and my pay incrreasing 25% at a time from job to job for the last few years.
PS, you can learn more about a subject by teaching it than by studenting it
Maybe I am not the greedy type, but I make enough with my day job to avoid having a side job for extra cash. I don't have cutting edge stuff, but I don't limp along with 10 year old technology either. Most of my friends are in the same situation.
:)
Now I do work on other people's PC's from time to time for free. Spyware removal, Hard Drive recovery, system rebuilds, wireless networks, whatever they need. I rarely get paid for it. The only time I got "paid" for it was in teh form of a Starbucks gift card. That was cool, but I don't expect to be paid for what I do.
Besides I have enough to do around the house (shelves to build, sink to install, rooms to paint, curtains to hang) to keep me busy enough to prevent looking for side jobs.
If I were to start a side job, I'd go into audio/video hook ups, VCR programming, remote control programming, etc. No pesky viruses to mess up your hard work.
You can lose something that is loose, so tighten the loose item so you don't lose it.
I've worked as a per-diem EMT, although it's mostly a volunteer endeavor for me. I also know a handful of other EMT/IT folks. The (probably false) story I've heard is that in the 80's and before, a lot of the IT folks were working in industries where you needed a security clearance (defense, aerospace), and they needed to have their own internal EMS teams as a consequence.
I referee youth and high school soccer matches on the side. It's easy to get into, runs on the weekend generally, pays pretty well and as a super added bonus, you get plenty of excercise. Perfect for those that spend long hours behind a desk...
"If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards."
Jared.
I'm really surprised not to see someone mention open source. I guess most of it isn't paid but bounties or small contracts exist. I guess there aren't very many of them (yet?)
Struggling to find a day everyone can make? WhenShallWe.com
Well of course, we chase after those lucrative free ipod deals!
(that, and on-call tech support)
Pimpin'
i used to have a side job of repairing musical instruments. i've always figured i'd wind up back doing that at some point, as it was extremely low-stress, i was producing something tangible, and the customers generally had a good idea of what they wanted. none of which is true in my current position (the stress could be debated somewhat, but i never gave up a weekend while fixing instruments).
what has been interesting to me is the mental processes that carry over between the two jobs.
i.e. as far as i have X tools and i need to get Y done with them, and also the process of making jigs and such and how that relates to writing small functions and scripts to get some procedure done.
i still mostly think like a repairman, though.
Well, yeah, has been happening well before I was even employed in the field, it was just assumed (Oh, he'll fix that).
:D
So, I have an Aunt in another state, and she wanted to upgrade her computer (she's online and likes to look at the pictures of our bub up there, email us etc.)... so what did we do? I chose a computer for her, have bought it over here... am in the process of setting it all up AND I'm doing some video tutorials about how it all works so I get minimum heartache. Then we'll send it over to her.
Also... I'm installing VNC on it, so I will be able to remote access it (she's on ADSL, so reasonable bandwidth there) and fix any niggly issues from here without the painful...
Me: "OK, what's on your screen now?"
Them: "Some box thingy with a message in it"
Me: "Uh huh... ok, so what does the message say?"
Them: "The Program XXX has um... encountered an error and er... will now shut down... um... error code 1...433X....3 um, dash, Seg-men-ta-tion fault at..."
Me: "OK, OK, I've got it..."
Etc. etc.
I just hope it's going to work that's all
I've just started my career as a professional web designer out of college (grad in 2003), and my day job is working at a web design firm in a fairly bottom-level design position. In my spare time, I do complete websites for friends, family, anyone who will pay me even a little. It's helping build my portfolio and making me better at my real job. I've already talked to my boss about conflicts, and he said as long as I don't work on my side projects at work, there's no problem. My side projects pay around $500-$1000 typically, where as sites we do at the office are typically much higher than that, so I'm not really stealing work. It does drive me a little nuts once in a while constantly thinking about the web, but for the most part I'm enjoying it.
in bed.
- Volunteer coach a youth football team in the fall - Volunteer coach a youth baseball team in the spring - Maintain websites for the above two organizations - Build websites for small businesses
Most small businesses I have seen were started by some guy who had a 40 hour/week job and then was an entrepenuer by night. Everyone has to work a "day job" to pay bills, but what you do in your free time defines you and your lifestyle as well.
Personally I play some games, work out (Ju-Jitsu, weights, used to do Kenpo, ride a bike), read about non-tech stuff. None of this will bring in money unless I semi-retire and teach martial arts, which is something I am actually pencilling in for 5-10 years from now. This makes me a worse admin/engineer/whatever, but it makes me a better person overall I believe. Certainly more sane and pleasant, not to mention thin.
So what are your goals and priorities? Most money possible? In that case you should spend your free time getting business-savvy since there is no salary limit on salesmen or business owners. Prefer a balanced life? In that case don't work 80 hours a week, go find a non-tech hobby and sacrifice the extra cash.
Unfortunately, being on pager duty prevents me from having a second job, unless it was an online job. Finding those has proven highly difficult. I'd sure dig the extra $$ if I could find a way though.
Im a personal trainer on the side, and boy do you not find those two fields collide often!
When I worked at REI, one of our best employees was a 40-something 6-figure programmer from one of the tech firms in San Jose. He worked two nights a week and Saturdays to support his canoeing habit.
Of course, at REI we got 30% off, and awsome prodeals.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
I've reviewed various computing books (most before publications, a few afterwards) for publishers. This can be anything from "Should this idea be taken forward and turned into an actual book?" to "Please read this fairly advanced copy and report technical errors."
Sometimes it's actually paid, other times I just get a free copy of the final book (or another book by the same publisher if the book in question doesn't end up being published).
It's not great money, but it's interesting work, and an outlet for my pedantry.
- Getting the cable/phone/catalog services they really wanted in the first place and paid for
- Refusing to pay for cable/phone/catalog services they never received
- Reducing the amount they have to pay for cable/phone/catalog services they foolishly signed up for without reading the fine print
Yes, for a small nominal fee, I am willing to spend time on the phone cajoling/pleading/browbeating the service rep(s) employed by the company of your choice into giving you what you wanted in the first place. I've secured myself and friends months of free cable/internet service. I've received free cable/dsl modems. I've wragled new transmissions out of warranty departments. I've gotten free pizzas. All for fun and profit. My credo, "If they won't pay for it in cash or product, they'll pay for it in phone time".I'm surprised not to see people mention open source. Most of it isn't paid but bounties or small contracts exist. I guess there aren't very many of them (yet?)
Struggling to find a day everyone can make? WhenShallWe.com
I don't really want to clean megs of spyware off a family members' computer, but if they want to slip me some cash I'll be right over.
Trouble is, many family members do not want to pay you to clean megs of spyware off their computer and straighten out lord knows what goofy symptoms it has. They want you to do it for free.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Seriously, if you're really IN Information Technology, and you don't suck at it... you don't really have time for a second job.
There's too much information to manage/learn/protect/recover/share/compile/report on/administer/etc....
(In deference to the truth, I was once *in* IT full-bore [1995-2003], and didn't have the bandwidth for a decent meal, much less a second job. Now that I'm only in a tertiary tech-support role in IT (with somewhat lower pay), I have several offline clients for whom I provide various architecture, administration, security, recovery and installation consulting services.
The trick, IMO, is to get good enough at being BURIED by a real IT job that, once you're not buried by it anymore, you can more easily branch out into working for yourself at the same time. The side cash is nice, and (again, if you don't suck), most customers will quickly pony up to my $115/hour rate for higher-level architecture/design work, not to mention my standard $75/hour troubleshooting/installation rate because they know they're getting at least that much value from the payments. Do that a few times a week, and you have instant play money for building up your *own* company!!)
Write a song or two a month, throw in the cover tunes, haul the Powerbook and a guitar down to the local coffee shop, play a few songs with the guitar case open, and viola! A few extra bucks that you can use to buy a six pack of beer to take home to do it all over again!
Self perpetuating, and always fun!
What more could you ask for in a side job??? Seriously?
But like the poster above, the last thing I want to do when I get home from working with computers all day is to touch another computer, even if it is something really cool. Every now and then I'll get hit with inspiration, and that is when I add cool new features to the cycling team database, or to my mail server, or my home jukebox, or whatever. The nice thing about it is that I can do it on MY TERMS. I refuse to do 'tech support' type work, however; even for family members. I didn't STOP using windows years ago just so that I could fix OTHER PEOPLE's problems with that PITA inflexible pile of crap.
I've gotten to a point where I just don't do it anymore... even for my parents. I (gently) told them when they asked that I really don't like doing that kind of work (I enjoy other aspects of IT), and that I don't want to spend holidays cleaning up computers. They understood and I moved on.
i do CD and DVD mastering. i find it alot like IT work as it mostly technical, but requires some artfulness.
.cig
No, seriously. Hit the tanning bed once a week, the gym three other nights, and you can rake in dough for looking pretty next to someone who's not. Assuming, of course, you can carry on a conversation without a keyboard...
One of my in-laws is a general contractor so I pick up some extra cash helping side barns, roof houses, do tiling, etc. It's a nice change of pace and pays OK.
The smartest man in the whole, wide world really don't know that much. - Mose Allison
Most IT dudes sling crack on the side.
At home, they're TOYS!
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
One side job that doesn't have the problem of clashing with office hours is writing. Over the past few years, I have co-authored two O'Reilly books: "SSH, The Secure Shell (The Definitive Guide)" and "The Linux Security Cookbook." In addition to a substantial second income, I have had several follow-on writing and consulting opportunities (white papers, articles, etc.). Of course, there's the question of whether you want to spend even more time sitting in front of a computer in your off hours...
I don't really have a side job, but I do spend about 15 hours/wk volunteering with the youth program at my church. It doesn't pay, at least not in money form. It's rewarding and I get to do all the fun activities I enjoyed when I was in Mid/Senior High. Plus, as an added bonus, I get to drive the big white van.
;)
I tell ya, a large white van with a cross on the side must be invisible to radar guns
"Failure is not an option, it's part of the standard package"
On average I do 2 or 3 small cabling jobs a year and for a few days of work I can make some fast cash. For an office of 10 people you've got ~30 cable runs or more depending on how much expansion they want to pay for. These kinds of jobs can usually be cranked out in 3 days or so, depending on size, and they are always afterhours.
How much you want to be involved is up to you. I usually only like putting down all the passive equipment: racks, patch panels, 110 blocks, cable, jacks, feeders, etc. I'll test the permanent lines, hand them the results and walk away (or charge them more for a lifetime warranty :). Sometimes I'll install a small switch and make some drops "hot" so they are ready for move-in. I'd advise to stick with the passive installs, much less complex.
Also I should add a disclaimer. There are licenses needed for this kind of work (at least in my area), specifically a low voltage contractor's license. You can obtain one with some studying and 1 test. Furthermore, to get into telephone rooms to run feeder to office suites, most building owners/maintenance will want to see a million-dollar liability insurance or something similar - in case you yank somebody's T1 down there or something.
Aside from that I'd recommend it. All the info you need is online and if you didn't know much about your network's physical layer you'd also gain from the experiance.
Once or twice, I've thought about setting up a "Computer Guy" shop for the apartment complex I live in. I'd limit work to only those who lived at the complex (which means no traveling everywhere) and maybe I could get the complex to post a sign up on our billboard or mailboxes or something. It'd be a few extra bucks here and there and people would have someone close to load their printer with paper and turn their monitors on ;) Maybe later...
I'm a systems engineer during the day and a longshoremen on the occasional weekend/night. I hate unions, but man, the money can't be beat.
Good luck to the rest of you bastards!
Bill
bamph
The last thing I want to do when I go home is...
...turn on a computer.
WTF? Who says you have to work? Play video games, listen to music, watch some videos, IM some friends, read a Ebook, or the million of other things to do on a computer.
Every top programmer I know does side projects at home. They code for the pure fun and thrill of developing new applications, many give back to OSS since they work for a Corp all day.
Also, I guess you ONLY post to Slashdot from work?
As a sideline, I like to do things that turn away from tech, and let me get my hands very dirty. I have hung drywall, redone basements after flooding, and any other general construction stuff.
I am also my sons denmaster in cubscouts.
Create like a god, command like a king, work like a slave. -Guy Kawasaki
But I'm what you'd call a jack-of-all-trades.
Currently I work on arcade games.
just ask the goatse.cx guy!
I can't get a "regular job" however little pop up jobs allow me to make a staggering $50.00 > $200.00 per month! as I repetitivly repeat the same instructions again and again to the same two or three friends.
I just give the money to my wife to buy groceries or pay bills.
I may take up wandering in public talking to the air and urinating in doorways, maybe I can bum "spare change" in the Safeway parking lot!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
This has been a nearly ideal side job for me. It allows me to stay current on topics and has a finite schedule that I can plan around (one evening every other week). Plus it looks good on the resume! Even with just a bachelor's degree you can often teach for the local community college. That is what I started with.
How about fluffers for gay pr0n films.
Wheel chocks for commercial airliners.
Target practice.
Eh, that's all I got...
--- Ban humanity.
Pimp'n beeotch!
When in Japan I loved going to Japanese Hot Spring resorts (Onsen). I even set up a website about them.
After moving back I brought the feeling with me by marketing this line of Onsen-inspired bath powders.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
I've never experienced any significant problems with clean installs of any of the several Linux flavors that I've installed. Personally (and what other kind would I think?), I think people that say this are full of shit, or have the IT skills of your basic Windows user.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
big pimpin and spendin' cheese
http://www.virtualassistantjobs.com/
Online works for me too.
Now all I need is a virtual hobby to go with it.
While it's obvious the original poster seemed more interested in IT-only side jobs, I think non-IT side jobs are worth a mention. I worked in room service in Las Vegas for a few years after college to help pay off my IT schooling. I finished paying it off just this last September so I promptly gave my two weeks notice.
Though honestly I do really miss it at times. My job is computers, my hobby is computers, it was nice to make some cash and spend my time on something other than sitting in front of a computer.
And up until my most recent IT job, I was making far more money doing room service.
"Excellence in Mediocrity"
Only joking....heh.
For money - well, I'm involved in web hosting. Building sites doesn't pay any more - not for me anyway - so I just do the hosting side. The money isn't great, but it's fun.
I also buy and sell stuff at garage sales. Hey, don't laugh! There's money to be made there if you know what you're doing ...
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
For years now, I have supplimented my primary income with illustration gigs. While I have reached the point where it's not necessary for me to pay the bills, I still do some work when the opportunity arises.
This all started with some determined slacking. In 1991, fresh out of high school, I spent a summer living at the beach supporting myself doing character sketches on the boardwalk. This later led me to start a t-shirt company that ran until I entered college a year later.
After college, I worked a contract for the District Court back in 1997 and did a sketch of the chief justice on the back of a memo pad that was discovered after I left. The chief media officer for the courts contacted my contracting company about six months later asking if I was the 'artist' and wanting to know about publishing rights.
My first big IT job was as a contractor for NetResponse, where I did a lot of graphic design work using Photoshop and Illustrator. While I was really a programmer and spent a lot of time convincing people my code was better than my creative skills, somehow I ended up making many, many banner ads while I worked there and drawing many, many little people to go into web sites.
I moved on to other technical positions but my name got around as a competent illustrator. I started getting calls from friends of friends looking for things to put in newsletters, brochures, business cards, etc. For a while it was about 30% of my income and helped to make ends meet.
M
" Having a passion for something, and wanting to work on other people's broken shit is hardly the same thing."
Exactly, That's why during the day I code and at night I play on my website and hack the living hell out of a known hardware platform. I find it balances out all I do during the day (I've always preferred hardware, but in my new position I rarely get a chance to fuc. . er . . . work with it).
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
... because everyone knows open-source spyware really whips the lama's ass
I thought about this very subject in years past and still believe that the Network/IT geek who knows how to do home wiring and networking the right way (do you know the difference between plenum and PVC Cat5? What type do you use for what application?) could easily find a niche job wiring new homes and already built homes. Sure lots of home buyers may not care with the advent of wireless, but many will soon regret it later -- i.e. it's a little more difficult to combine wireless for data and VoIP (like a home PBX system using Asterisk).
The problem is, finding the companies/people who are getting these contracts and convincing them to give you a job. Or you can go the independent route and start you own business. A 3000 sq. foot home should not take more than a weekend to do if it's still a shell and not drywalled. Homebuyers like expertise on planning and localizing the media and communication closet, etc. as well. Sure electricians can do the job, but do they know all the nuances of the emerging and current technologies for voice, cable, and computer communications? Do they know what a punchdown block is and how to set it up? I called an electrician to install a simple support and fixture for a heavy chandelier -- something I could have done a few hours but didn't have the time nor tools to do -- and it took him nearly a full day to have it installed (half of which was used consulting with a senior electrician on how to get it done). If I was willing to pay for that service, there will definitely be people willing to pay for wiring their homes.
Linux at home
I'm running a small game room near my home with gamecube and playstation. I bought a small container box and set up a small game cafe inside it. I modified those machines like vending machines and it costs a quarter dollar to play with a playstation for 5 minutes. A real good thing about the business is all I gotta do is open the door in the moring and close the door in the night. And according to south korean law, I don't need any license as long as I run the business with no more than 2 machines. Of course, south korean IRS even cannot know I'm making small bucks out of the business, which means no tax. Actually the business is not that profitable but anyway it's better than nothing. But after my retirement as a programmer, I think it might be what I'll happen to be doing for my living.
Your ego is Matrix!
Or more accurately, guitar player in a local band selling CDs on the web and online stores like iTunes. And of course not for money, but certainly for the potential of "making it" (and thus making money). But given how long we've been at it such a reality is looking increasingly unrealistic. Though we did make some decent $ a couple of years ago when we were touring.
Like most indie bands of our ilk and time period we just wanted to be as "famous" as Pavement and as long-lived as Superchunk.
Not only drinking beer, but brewing beer.
Very satisfying
My posts are definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.
Like most other IT geeks I know, I am always asked to provide free computer advice and repairs for friends. If it's a friend, I don't mind, but I have accepted payment from acquaintances and from other companies the few times I've performed consulting work for them. A few years ago my wife worked for a startup that was laying off its staff. After they cut loose the IT guy, they had e-mail problems, so they called me in for emergency support. I had no problem taking their money for my efforts, even though it was an Exchange system, and I was a GroupWise admin at the time. E-mail is e-mail, right? I'm sure my work had nothing to do with the company's eventual collapse a few months later.
Lousy minor setbacks! This world sucks! -- Homer Simpson
We do IT for our side jobs. We antivirus people's computers. We write software for hire. We setup networks. We do websites. We administer servers for small companies that can't afford to hire full time IT people.
The lucky one's (me included) find a couple paying customers who need help when their porn won't download properly. *grin* All for $80/hour, or better.
-- All That's Evil in the Geek Space
I'm good @ all sorts of jobs - I'll even give hand jobs in the corner....
That's "Aytch-Tee-Tee-Pee-Colon-Slash-Slash-Slashdot-Dot- Org".
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I got a realtor's license and help friends look for places as well as own a few rental properties. While it dosent pay as much as the TV guys would like you to belive, I do bring home a tidy sum every month.
Good Luck
I have a weekend job mucking out a local stable. The pay isn't great, but it's good exercise and I like working with horses.
I actually find it relaxing. The horses don't bitch, the boss only cares about getting the stables cleaned and I feel like something worthwhile has been accomplished.
Assassin. Travel, meet exotic people, kill them. Just like in the military only with better pay.
Besides doing database work for a few websites(as my main job), I work at a bar bouncing some nights and bartending others. I also use my experience from my years in the Navy and do handyman work (plumbing, light electrical, and some carpentry) for a few of the local businesses when they need me (and time permits). All in all I should say that at this time I make more money in my side jobs (especially tending bar) then I do in my full time work.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
I agree to a certain extent with this statement. I love computers, but when I get home all my computing time is fun time. No work, no money, nothing but personal enjoyment. So the question was side jobs... I'm a musician. I play in two bands and make some fun money that way. Whip
One thing you can do is temp elsewhere. A common thing to do is you work "X" hours (day or night) for your regular job, and then you sign up with any one of a number of IT temp firms, which then have you working one day (or night) for some other company doing something as simple as changing tapes to doing server management or taking part in nightly maintenance or upgrade projects.
Some firms don't need a 24/7 support staff. Others need extra people when they are doing disaster recovery tests or performing large scale upgrades to their infrastructure.
These types of companies seek extra people through these temping agencies, and hooking up with those companies can get you some sideline work.
If your regular job conflicts with when they need you, you can turn the job down based on your being needed elsewhere. If you make it clear to the temp agency upfront that you're using them just for extra pocket money, they will understand, and compensate for that if your resume is good enough.
If it's a one-day gig, you can always call in sick on that day on your regular job.
I do stuff like that, but I'm also teaching myself auto-body work, and welding. I intend to have a sideline business of doing auto-body. Or, it might be my main line of business when this IT thing totally dries up.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
... and I use IT as a side-job to that. It keeps me in bass strings and gin, so who am I to complain?
-Doc
Deuce
We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
To be fair that's in my subjective experience, of course, which means the UK sinxce 1995. Oh, and add a couple of fat doobies to the vodka ;)
IT Sales and Apple Certified 10AM-7PM, 9PM-2to3AM - Bartender at the major music venue here in town. Best of both worlds.
Can you ping me now? Gooood! | Manhappenin.Net - Things to do
Before spamming Slashdot, not that there hasn't been tons of shameless plugs before.
Actually a bath with the bath powders after a long coding session really relaxes those tense shoulders.
Your girlfriend/wife will appreciate them too.
God, there goes my Excellent Karma....
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
I'm a photographer/video editor. If you think I.T. has shitty job security, let me just say "Ha, Ha, Ha..."
So in between Photo assginments and editing work, I take all the skills that are required to keep a Final Cut Pro rig happy, and use them for "normal" IT work (fixing small networks, setting up small labs for schools ect).
At this point I can hear a few *nix admins laughing. Well at the same time the FCP boys are nodding along. A Final Cut Pro system takes a strange mix of creative, technical, and voodoo skill to run. Animal (or tofu) sacrifices are not un-commen.
I find a few weeks between "creative" jobs doing "grunt level" IT work is jsut the thing for letting ones brain rest just by working in a diffrent mode. Of course the real reason is that there are just too many good pho-togs in this dam town :)
Well sort of... Airsoft
I do a bit of Tutoring and Surveillance besides my IT job.
- carpentry and plumbing for hire.
- writing a few magazine articles (Dragon Magazine, Fine Homebuilding, other random things).
- playing poker (well, OK, penny stakes: my biggest win has been $2 for an entire night...)
- running a online videorental business Technical Video Rental ("like Netflix for geeks")
The last one is actually threatening to turn into a full-time job: I started with a very small customer base 18 months ago, but growth has been 20% per month, compounding...(yeah, I know, exponential functions never last). I'm spending more and more time ordering inventory, working on a new mySQL backend, working on the web site redesign (I know, it sucks right now), etc.I find all of this pretty ironic: what I *want* to be doing is getting back to devel work to implement a client-side ecommerce tool I'm hacking on...
Pimp the wife... She likes it, good money too.
When I'm not programming, I raise range-fed chickens for their eggs, which get sold locally. In the spring, I'm considering also getting in to organically raised turkeys, ducks, and chickens for their meat...but there is some debate still on whether or not I have it in me to slaughter my own animals.
When I'm not doing IT work, I want my "side work" to be as far away from tech as I can get it.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
I own and operate a cybercafe on the side. By "operate" I mean I'm there one or two nights a week. It makes a decent amount of side income, but I am unsure if my own full-time business is/was worth the work.
I think if I was doing something that was just partial-time, more "on demand", such as being an electrician or plumber, I'd be a lot happier. Those jobs come along as they come along, time is allotted as required, and that's it. With a full time business, it's a LOT more scheduled time and responsibility.
randal
Yes, but don't tell my manager!
That's okay with me, since I expect a similar amount of loyalty from them.
http://leewen.unfranchise.com with http://www.marketamerica.com no it's not a scam, and yes I know it's not for everyone, but it works for me.
In my spare time I'm the VP for Business Development for Masten Space Systems. Its what keeps me sane....
Interesting...I'm a carpenter by trade. I've been learning and loving Linux since late '98. Nowadays I occasionally get a side job relating to that avocation. I remember how shocked I was the first time someone voluntarily paid me 50 bucks for installing and configuring SuSE on his laptop. Tomorrow I'm to go setup cups and samba at a former customer's home, that'll be free (beer and chow), but they paid me several thousand dollars for new kitchen cabinets ;-)
After the economy tanked. I was unemployed for over two years, and now I do warehouse work for a temp agency. I wouldn't by any stretch call this "refreshing". Especially with the up and down, of both when you work, how long you work, and the amount you get paid.
I started out as a network administrator, then a programmer, then a Unix administrator, then a systems analyst and then I started a side job as a writer. And, eventually, I moved all the way over to writing fulltime about technology.
Now, tech. work is what I do on the sdie.
Steven
My parents deal with their own problems first, then I fix whatever is left.
My sisters get their advice from my parents, and seldom direct from me.
(They are older than me and have never gotten over the fact I know something they don't. They will accept the same advice from our parents that they won't accept from me.)
I get to hear how much spyware was removed from a PC every few weeks or so. THankfully, it isn't my computer, and I can just sit back and chuckle.
It's a sucky job.
But it's easy, no heavy lifiting.
It fits my schedule (around school and my day job).
It pays okay.
Only problems.
1: The truck stop is owned by Jesus freaks (very two-faced Jesus freaks), so we have to listen to the Christian/Country rock all the time. GACK!
2: Smelly fscking truck drivers (some of these guys make a vocation of stinking as badly as possible). Class three atrocities under the Geneva Conventions.
3: Stupid truck drivers. The guys who, no matter WHAT idiocy falls out of their mouth (and an awful lot does, not just chew-laden spittle, teeth, and leavings from their last meal), they continue on, regardless of evidence to the contrary.
(90% of the guys who come through the truck stop are neither 2 nor 3. However, the remaining 10% are one or both.
They keep me on because I'm dependable, and I'm the only one who can actually use the SCO Unix back-end to the POS registers (without having to call the vendor).
If I could find a real IT job to sideline at, I'd drop this one in a heartbeat.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
My wife and I are both geeks. Both of us do AI work and manage a couple of computer networks. We are also both hard core horse geeks. In her case, she makes some money teaching riders on the side. I spend my time training the horses.
The irony of it is given the mindnumbing nature of the math I have to slog through on a regular basis, the relaxation of the barn (dodging flying hooves, etc...) actually helps me to relax. The net result is an increase in productivity in my day job when I end up producing algorithms while wearing poop on my boots. Go figure.
"Laugh Quietly- tomorrow is your turn to be rong."
I opperate a small outfitting company on the Provo river. When I was laid off last summer (2003) I paid the bills by guiding. I average about $30.00 an hour when guiding..... but it can be several days between trips.
Fly Fish? Participate in our forum
I live in a small rural town in Australia so my "work-on-the-side" is probably a little different to most others here on /. My main job is running my own one-man web dev biz (not so strange) but I also do the odd bit of farm work for a couple of friends which includes: drenching and vaccinating sheep/cattle, drafting sheep/cattle, fencing, and cruzing the paddocks in a $100,000 airconditioned CASE tractor with a plough or seed drill dragging along behind.
I suppose it's slightly off-topic, but as a "side job" I'm a volunteer paramedic with my local rescue squad. I don't get paid in money, but it's an extraordinarily worthwhile way to spend my time. I see it as being paid in karma, although our sometimes our "firehouse humor" seems to balance out that karmic gain. My regular duty shift requires between 60 and 80 hours per month, and I often put in more than that. If I had to, I could easily get a job as a paid paramedic with a private ambulance company (hello, layoff insurance), but my IT job (software engineer) pays well enough. Another local rescue squad sometimes pays people to work casually, but even for a medic the pay is pretty poor -- along the lines of $8/hr, last I checked.
pr0n you idiots! What woman can resist my well formed physique? Years of sitting on my ass, drinking Jolt, snorting up rails of Ritalin, eating Al Pastor burritos for breakfast, and feasting on entire anchovy, pepperoni and jalapeno pizzas, chased with a 12 pack of Heinekens for dinner.
...all is true except the parts about making money and actually having a website, but someday I will! And then I will get all the free kimchee I deserve!
I kick back, flip on the camera and start doing my thing to pr0n! Chicks love it. Check out www.nakedtechiedorks.com and see for yourself. I made over $34,000 just last month!
I also tutor high school students in math, and I occasionally do work as a ninja for hire.
An easy way to get into modern dance is to do Contact Improvisation. That's how I started. Guido von Rossum, who wrote python does it too.
I also take old old old drawings (many of which are done by hand) and turn them into CAD files at $20 an hour (which is such a rip-off, 30$ is the average for such menial work). Lots of real estate companies, especially people with rental buildings and munti-unit developments, need this done and have no idea how to do it.
Since most of my new family is blue-collar (really, the white-collar members of my SO's family still do farmwork in their free time) I also have some blue-collar side-jobs. I wrangle horses, plant and pick veggies, and help build stuff all around Pritchard township. Thats also a good way to meet people who needs stuff designed (see side-job number one!)
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
I think your under estimating how much time either will take good luck
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I'm sure the last thing a TV repairman wants to do when he gets home is watch TV.
My side job is studying new things that will make me better at my primary job. If you don't learn new skills, then eventually you will be replaced like any piece of outdated equipment. So, if you have a career that you like and want to advance in it, then do something that will give you a reason for advancement.
"Oh dear, she's stuck in an infinite loop and he's an idiot" -Prof. Farnsworth (Futurama)
I consult/help out at a buddy's shop. It's a great stress relief from the computer job, and something I know well, having been a mechanic for 10 years before getting into the IT world. The money's not great, but the job's fun. We're known for making fun of customers to their faces, in a good-natured way. We're also among the cheapest shops, both of us having worked in dealerships for a few years and never wanting to soak the customer that way again. I also build my own wacky stuff, like this: www.rotomoto.com/jeep/lsidedetail.jpg A '73 postal jeep with the top cut off and a '98 Camaro engine/trans/computer etc.
I don't really have a side job. Instead, I go out and help build houses for Habitat for Humanity. I'm a computer nerd by trade but I'm a carpenter by heart. I love to build things and building for those who otherwise would never own a home is very rewarding. I also do the occasional church raising out in the rural areas.
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
err... how will that improve my web dev skills?
I find that a lot of people are doing eBay as side jobs.
... it also brings people to eBay that really don't have enough time to dedicate to it. ebay is either an all or nothing business if you ask me. I find that the people that the people that do it in their spare time poorly pack things, overcharge for shipping (making up wild excuses for the shipping and handling charges), and often don't respond when issues or questions arise.
While this brings a lot of cool items to ebay with great descriptions (I sometimes use ebay descriptions for knowledge and research on products - not just buying)
I have also noticed that some items seem to be "from work" and may be "lifted" "from work" - particularly cables and routing equipment.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
I do linux gigs on the side. It's all been word of mouth "Hey, I heard you do linux, is that right?" from people who know people who know of a need for some linux skills - They need a vpn/firewall, a new mail server, or to migrate their webservers from windows to linux, etc, etc. Almost all of the word of mouth customers have become permanent customers, and they call me when they need something done. A few of the customers (a shipping company, a finance company) have become regular customers who have me work remotely several hours a week, and the $500-$1500 per month extra from working from home does come in handy.
Because I am my own employee and can make my own hours, I drive a School Bus as my side job. I find it works well because of the split between shifts allows me to talk to customers during the day and yet, I am also available during off hours.
My side job is as adjunct faculty at my state's university. Most universities have an 'off-site campus' or similar, where they teach evening classes for adults and/or 'regular' students. I find this to be a lot of fun and it pays pretty good. I get about $290.00 per credit taught per month. I usually teach 3 or 6 credits per semester, covering topics such as Intro/Advanced Linux, Windows XP, network security, etc.
Ronald said nothing. He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions.
Well, my "side-job" is what I did before I got into IT 10 years ago...Photography http://www.brianjacksonphoto.com/, mostly sports photography http://www.actionathletics.com/.
:-)
I shoot some random editorial assignments for magazines, newspapers and other clients, but have been focusing recently on my sports photography. Weddings are doable, but I'm going to shoot them like the photojournalist I was
I'm also contemplating selling the digital workflow software that I wrote for Action Athletics. The application sorts, renames, does simple color adjustments, rotates, watermarks, copyrights, inserts IPTC header information, and generates web pages of images from events. It can move through images fairly quickly (i.e. 100 images in 5 minutes). It's really designed for photographers who need to move through A LOT of images and prepare them for viewing onsite or online: event and wedding photographers.
Like most nerds, you probably want to or do buy quite a bit of software and/or hardware. So why not get a job at a computer or electronics retailer.
Thta's how I started in the bicycle business 15 some odd years ago.
I operate a web site or two.
http://www.singleswithscruples.com/ is my side line business.
actually I ONLY post to slashdot from work, since I have so many FUN things to do at home, seriously.
(in case the username wasn't obvious enough)
Since I can admin my own colo box (at another company, of course), porn webmastering is simple to add on...
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Hi, for those that have the IQ to work in IT and seemlesly playing poker as Visual Basic/Visual.Net can give hasardous answer too, I can suggest for those guys to look for Clinical test cobaye instead... In some contry like Canada, the last free land, that can offer I wide range of clinical test, as long you've got the time to spend here ! And for other who's working hard and don't want to fall on dependency of the "playing drug", fall aside, by playing chemistry in your kitchen... They've got a lot of "chemical process" to work here too !
Another activity I've done is write for an electronics magazine. There are various publications out there that **want**, and will pay for, submissions. Apart from getting your name in print, and a cheque, it also gets your name out there for people to read.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I sell guitars at a local music store. Besides my networking and server/systems administration duties for my main income, I work at my local music equipment store selling guitars, amps, etc...everything from clarinets to triangles. I've been playing guitar for about 7 years now, so music is my other obvious passion besides computers, if you can call computers a passion!
I work as the systems administrator @ a local clinic from 8-5. Then for about 20 hours a week, I also work at Best Buy. I personally love the job (most the time; christmas excluded), because the people are fun to work with and discount is beautiful. It's sort of my 'fun money' job, and helps feed my tech addictions.
It's also nice to see people come in and be genuinely impressed when they can talk to someone about hardware advice, and they know im not making stuff up just to make a buck for my employer. (we don't work on commission) Then of course, like everyone knows, i also work for my family and friends... and their friends... and thier bosses, and their kids, etc. God, i need some sleep.
I work at an Irish pub. I work every saturday and pull in over 100$ in tips and 80$ in hourly wage. When we have live entertainment its close to double in tips. Its roughly an extra 700$ a month. Pays for the beamer. :)
you get yourself a GF that's in your league. What are you doing messing around with the plumbers daughter??
I fix my brother's computer; he does my taxes.
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
Prosti tution!
All you have to do is look around. I can't count the number of business' that need networking 101 help.
:), and why moving files from various "servers" (people desktop PC's :) was laggy as hell. Fix: remake one old PC + hardware to bring it to decent memory and at _least_ raid-1 setup (Linux of course). For $200 in parts and $200 in my time you'll have 1) a system you'll never think about again, and 2) something "cheaper", yet more reliable than their Windows anything. A few hundred more to wire up the building and add a decent switch and three other local business' call whose owners eat at the same coffee shop. Word of mouth, if/when you're good :), is a _very_ powerful thing. I still don't have a listed number in my work life.
:)
:). Client contact is a powerful thing, and you're only doing yourself a favor by keeping current with various certifications that may interest you. I've yet to go through classes or seminars where there wasn't at least _one_ thing I walked away learning. Apply said knowledge.
... technically ya'all are my competition :)...
One business was running (20+ workstations) complete peer-to-peer wireless. No Internet, no router, no switches, no hub, just a bunch of Dell's -- some with XP Home, others with XP Pro, and of course 95 still in the mix, with wireless network cards in them. They couldn't understand why their Quickbook users kept getting bumped from the database (first off, it wasn't a multi-user license
You would be surprised how much help those poor people living in those multi-mullion dollar homes in various communities need networking 101 help. Wireless when applicable, absolutely killer X-Serve storage system(s) [serving the home theatre among other things] with Gigabit networking and the fun begins with people who want auto-sensing remote-control lighting, water, or blinds in the pool house. Those jobs are _always_ fun.
Microsoft borne virus', worms, trojans, spyware, hacks, tricks, and baffles are also just more $$$ to the pot. I love to hate Windows. The good clients learn what a Mac is, however.
Charge what you can and know that as a independent contracted professional you'll most likely be getting a 1099 (so be prepared to $ave to pay the tax man
In the US midwest mom & pop shops will range from $60-$90 for carry-in to $100-$200 on-site service. Now call Microsoft technical support and have credit card in hand to compare prices. What do _you_ make per hour at your regular job? What is fair to charge? What are you worth? I can only answer for myself (and won't here
Most people think I work in I.T. But, I work in a specialized field . . . telecom network design and implementation. Computers are a tool . . . not a profession.
:-)
But, just like my I.T. friends, the last thing I want to do is turn on a computer when I get home.
So, I work on radiant-floor heating, solar hot water, and high efficiency wood boiler designs. I hate being tied to a petroleum based economy just as much as the next eco-freak. I just chose to spend my free time actually making it happen.
You know, buying a house, fixing it, renting it...
I did learn to do quite a few things around the house though - digging basements, putting in new foundation, building frames, installing new roofs, shingles, electrical, plumbing, wood work.
What I really like to do now is wood work, here are some examples:
stairs
more stairs
door closeup
kitchen
kitchen later
You can't handle the truth.
well if they were passionate about it, then maybe they would seek plumbing opportunties around the house, or fix cars, or clean spyware etc. my guess is that they hate their job.
Fortunately I make enough money where that isnt a concern, but I do work enough hours, so that when I am not at work the last thing i want to do is ANYTHING for anyone else.
Screw you, I'm doing my own thing. Of course that makes my wife kinda mad sometimes when she wants to go shopping and I'm all surly cause I dont wanna go, Guess thats why I havent gotten any in a few weeks maybe its been months, with all this porn I lose track.
moo.
Beggar: "Will you fix my computer?"
/. (Still joking......guys.)))
You: "Have I ever asked you for a blowjob?"
Beggar: "WHAT?!"
You: "If you don't know me well enough to blow me, I don't know you well enough to fix your for computer nothing. Fixing computers is like giving blowjobs. It's something you either volunteer to do, or you get paid to do it."
You: *walk away*
Of course this method doesn't work with family members and may or may not work with members of the opposite sex depending on which way you swing; and of course a girl can't really receive a blowjob, but then girls don't know how to fix computers anyway. (That was a joke ladies, calm down. (Oh wait, girls don't read
Question everything
All I needed to get started helping home users and small businesses (like my dentist) was:
invoices
and
a CD from Microsoft
I also put together a boot CD to scan and clean virri
I charge $75 an hour to 'fix' windows PCs here in California using these two CDROMs and an invoice book.
If you want to be really nice give people a copy of The Open CD (it has good software for home and office users)
Try installing redhat on a box and having it suddenly refuse to continue because it insists it doesn't recognize the normal everyday nothing unusual about it CD drive it's being installed from. One should not be obligated to either surf linux sites for hours in search of a driver, or replace a physical drive, just to install an operating system.
As a side note, saying stuff like that is the fastest way for someone to get a linux "guru" to answer their question. If they just ask instead of being insulting, the "guru" says to RTFM or STFW (even if you've already done that and note it)... but if you insult the penguin and call it difficult, they get all hot and bothered and have to show you how stupid you are and how easy it is... and give you the answer you need.
Strange, but true.
For five years (until I got a different job with a conflicting schedule last year) I supplemented my income as an underpaid network administrator with a paper route. It actually paid more per hour than my "real" job did. Yeah, it was a little embarrassing at first (especially when people asked if I was helping my son/daughter), but it was regular exercise, and it put an extra $65/week (before taxes) into my pocket.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I play poker online as a side job. I've toyed around with it for quite some time, and got serious about it around a year ago. After lots of practice (ie. losing money), I've narrowed down where and when to play, and what games/limits best my skills. I've been making about $2k per month with around 10-12 hours of play per week.
I consult/contract for past employers.
I clean spyware and associated garbage off PCs. It's easy, with the right wallet of CDs. I've charged anywhere from $75 at the low-end to $200 at the high-end to sanitize machines. It's mostly word-of-mouth, too. The last time, I was paid $125 and it took me 20 minutes. After enduring months of pop-ups and slow performance, the victim was only too happy to shell out for my time. From what I've seen advertised, it seems like the average college student rate for this service is around $100 a pop.
...It's the women! They just cant help themselves. I can charge any rate, they keep on coming...
*AWAKES FROM DREAM*
What's that, some kind of new nice implementation I'm not aware of?
If you've got the stanima, I've found being a male porn star is quite lucrative. It doesn't take more than a couple hours a week, is entertaining, and easier than dating.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I think if I ever got a "get your submission un-rejected free" card, I would be a millionaire.
Repant. Thy end is sheer.
I'm a computer engineering student and am an IT consultant. When I'm not doing homework or fixing someone's network, I play with my FreeBSD or Cisco boxes and build the skills that the school doesn't teach, but will be valuable later on.
I bet that this is how many self employed programmers and network admins learn, by playing around with stuff in their off time. Very often the customer isn't willing to pay $$$ for all of our on-the-job training, so we are forced to learn it on our own.
I've done a little side work in the computer field, once for a social worker FOAF (now wife-OAF) who was setting up a computer lab in the neighborhood where she worked, once for a former client of a former employer who hired me to do a little extra development.
These days I've doing software for this site part-time, and my side jobs are my shiatsu and massage practice and karate program (which is actully showing potential of moving from an expensive hobby to at least breaking even this year). And I've been talking lately with some folks about doing a little website set-up and hosting.
But back before the PC revolution (yes, young'ns, there was a time before everyone had their own machine), in the late 70s/early 80s my father had a reasonably profitable side job running off mailing labels for organizations.
A church group or a local union chapter could get a discount by sorting their mail by zip code, so my father would get time on the computers at his day-job employer and run off a batch of sorted mailing labels. I remember helping him carry the boxes of punch cards, and getting to go into the machine room with its whirring tape drives, clattering line printer, heavy-duty A/C...ah, geek nostalgia.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I have been a programmer for years, but I've always been into drag racing too, when you drag race your car you break shit, its a know fact.
Now recently I got fed up with mechanics gouging me to fix and mod my car, not being able to do my own cam installs, or rebuild my bottom end, so I took up mechanic work. It has paid off quite a bit, not only do I love getting away from computers but as it turns out I could make quite a bit of money if there was ever a huge IT crunch and I had trouble finding a computer related job.
I like to spend Sunday afternoons at the neighborhood church dressed like a nun and sell crack to the the bible school kids.
I think with certain distributions that I cal "boutique", you can expect a fair number of issues like the one you describe. While Fedora is in many ways more "polished" than some, for a low stress install it is often best to go with something that is also being marketed commercially. I've installed RHEL3/AS a number of times with very few issues. Some of the BSDs (yes, yes, NOT Linux) are quite polished as well.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Everyone I know (including me) charges $75 an hour, but this is in New York City, where even the air costs more. If I feel like they can't afford it, I'll bust it down to $50/hr. Otherwise it is time taken away from my family. If they balk at the price I really don't care, they can get their nephew that thinks he knows everything to look at it. I also prefer mac housecalls because of the hardware regularity. You never know kind of mess you are getting yourself into on windows housecalls (95, 98, 200, xp ?), borked operating system install, the mysteries of pc calls go on and on. At work at least we have uniform hardware and can simply reimage a machine if more than 45 minutes of troubleshooting is required. I went to one guys house and his celeron took almost 8 full minutes to boot, and I had to reboot windows (imagine that) several times. On mac calls I just bring a rescue disk, a spare HD, and a bootable firewire drive, and can work on any machine back to a blue and white g3.
music lover since 1969
With an MS in CS, I've spent some free time teaching introductory CS at a local University.
With a BS, you may be able to teach at a Community College. Or, if you just know what you're doing, but even without credentials, you can volunteer to do computer literacy workshops for kids, seniors, etc.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
I am part of the tech crew for the Glory of Christmas show this year, presented at the Crystal Cathedral. http://www.crystalcathedral.org/
You can see my name in the program this year under Flight Operators (we fly the angels). It pays per show with a very flexible schedule. As a perk I get to hang out with the Angels, dancers, etc and am exempt from the Devotions and other religious cermonials. I am a Lutheran and not big on churches...especially money-centric evangelist churches.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
just more of the same...
except for family!
I personally get my name out to small Doctor's offices, realtors, and such that need simple things done (ie set up my internet connection or get this spyware off).
Photography!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
When you get really into computers and you have the smarts and time.. your realize its cheaper and more fun to make your own software.
BDSM is the same way.. when your really into it you make your own stuff learn a hobby save some cash.. DomDepot (Aka HomeDepot) can be a sadistic place for someone with a creative mind.
The More Knowledge you have the Luckier you Get- J.R. Ewing
Trouble is, many family members do not want to pay you to clean megs of spyware off their computer and straighten out lord knows what goofy symptoms it has. They want you to do it for free.
Ahh the joys of family. Does your mom charge you for Thanksgiving dinner? No, of course not. So we all get to "fix" our families pc's for free because it's what we do.
Oderint dum metuant
I have a hardware background so i worked as a contract broadcast engineer for a while and fixed transmitters and studio equipment. I get the feeling that those kind of cross skills are rare, but I did get a lot of free tickets to concerts! There is always something out there, but you do need to connect with the right folks and give them what they can afford. ay
I don't have a side-line - my 'main' job consumes 150% of my available effort and time... but back when I was at school things were different. When I was a teenager I used to 'deal' in second hand computer equipment. I cultivated sources of cheap faulty equipment, fixed it and sold it on. I made a killing by re-selling industrial dot matrix printers as 'dirt cheap' home printers; by re-cycling floppy drives from defunct proprietary workstations as home computer parts - and my real money spinner - buying broken PCW word processors (where the screen was dead); replacing a worn out potentiometer and selling them on at market rate (10-fold mark up!) It paid my driving lessons (and I took LOADS of lessons); it financed my first car and gave me a small emergency fund I took to University and blew on second-rate pints at the student union. I never turned down an opportunity - and I wasn't above fixing others PCs - hardware or software.
More recently I find I'm disinterested in "grunging" with this stuff. The money is still there (though you'd have to keep up with the times) and I'd love to meet someone who would be willing to take on the 'grey' jobs... I don't want to spend my free time fixing business PCs where some dip-weed has screwed up a second rate system some prat bought when they last ignored my advice... I'd love to say "Call X - he'll sort it out." - the money is sort-of good for someone who wants to exchange free time for cash... yet I can't find anyone I'd trust to be honest... so often end up sorting stuff gratis. For this work what you need is a network of contacts - one 'sorted job' will often lead to more... but this sideline needs an entrepreneurial flair... and it seems that the sort of technical competent people I'd commend either have the flair and top jobs leaving no spare work time - or no flair and remain in obscurity.
Ever contributed code to a big project, such as the Linux kernel, while employed full time? Where I work (and everywhere else, I imagne) I signed a document saying anything I invent, create, whatever, while I am on or off company time, is owned by the company. That means my employer owns the copyrights to this post. It also means any code I contribute to open source is actually owned by them, and can't be legally GPL'd.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
I read Slashdot. It's a job, innit?
I spend spare time running my own website, geekzone.co.nz... It's nice to be involved in the community some way.
So, a few weeks ago my wife asked me if I could clean up the computer of one of the other Girl Scout den-mothers. After listening to the job description, I said, "Let me get this right. You're asking me to go to the home of a 27-year-old divorcee who wants me to look at a computer full of porn while her kids aren't home. No problem!"
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
Well, I know one of the guys I work with is in a band for a sidejob, but then, sometimes I wonder if his job in computers here is his sidejob. As for me, being only 17 and working at the IT help desk at a multi million dollar corporation with 11 locations nationwide (thats alotta employees to support) I think this jobs plenty good enough for now. But umm..i guess my sidejob is high school. At least thats how I place the two.
Then don't turn it off when you leave.
3.243F6A8885A308D313
How many people in the IT industry can have side-jobs... I'm under an exclusivity clause.
My side business is http://www.WeaselBalls.com, we buy our weasel balls in bulk -- and pass the savings on TO YOU!!!
Hey, it's a Niche Market. Go to hell!
I work at best buy as side work. Amazingly it is great place to work, the discounts are insane, new videos cards with 100$+ off, tv's, digital cameras.. The prices are great, plus I get paid to play with a bunch of new toys.
You can cross out undesirable terms in a contract. Usually the hiring drone doesn't even blink an eye if they really want you to work there. They want the default case to be that they own you, if you don't take the time to read the document and disallow them from doing so.
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
You ain't from round here, are ya boi?
Lez getim
Cheers
Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"
I read craigslist, man.
but I'm a pimp :)
Cyberbite Networks - Web Hosting, Dedicated Servers & Colocati
1. Write some software in your free time
2. Open source it
3. ???
4. Profit !!!
Now, ain't that easy?
I know someone else has probably already said this, but..
I can't believe you charge your family members to click a couple of buttons in ad-aware for them. Granted, it may take a couple more button clicks to install the program and get it up to date. Do you charge per click? Do they get a discount on double-clicks?
Educating on and removing spyware.
I would never feel comfortable considering poker as a job, side or otherwise, regardless of the amount of income it generates (interestingly enough, the Canadian government agrees--playing poker is not a job and your winnings are not considered taxable income--they are "lottery winnings"--and casinos, lotteries and game shows already pay tax on the revenue they make from the losers). Casinos (online or otherwise) rely on there being more losers than winners in order to have a sustainable (duh). Given that big-time casinos offer high-rollers complementary-everything (valet parking, drinks, food, sometimes even accomodation) it is apparent that there a *great deal* more losers than winners.
If you enjoy gambling, by all means, have fun--just so long as you treat it as ENTERTAINMENT and set a budget of how much you can lose and QUIT when you reach that limit (or quit while you are ahead. Considering it as a JOB (ie. depending on the proceedings of gambling as your livelihood) is reckless and possibly immoral IMHO (your opinion may differ but I'm stating mine because gambling addiction has affected more than one person I know):
* It is reckless because by law of averages the time will come where it is your turn to pay the piper. If you rely on gambling income for your livelihood then you may put you and your family out on the street.
* It can be considered immoral to live of the proceeds of gambling because you are putting your families quality of life on the line (if you have a family you are supporting), and less directly you are profiting from the exploitation of others--every time you win big others have to lose (sometimes big). Some of these people are gambling addicts ruining their lives.
This is my personal opinion so I hope I do not offend too many people. I enjoy going to the Casino from time to time but I am by no means a big player (I've never let my losses exceed $100). In a way gambling is like sex--it is a great recreational activity but when it becomes a way of life it tends to lead towards exploitation and ruins lives.
As for what I do on the side...well my day job keeps me pretty occupied and my personal schedule is pretty full too, so there is little in the way of "side job" work right now. However, I still have a mostly-dormant side business which involves PC upgrading, repair, virus/worm/trojan removalfrom Win2k/XP machines, etc. I do not depend on this income for my livelihood (it would only by me the occasional dinner at a fancy restaurant anyways).
In the case of the virus removal, if it gets me a bit of extra spending money and that money is willingly given (and giveable) by the PC owner than I'll do it from time to time. Besides being unenjoyable work I would not like to make a living off of others peoples misfortunes. I think that if Windows requires so much security maintenance that people can actually make a living solely from that activity that Microsoft should be the one footing the bill, not the end users directly. I'd prefer to make my living as a developer, thanks.
...Military Reserves and physical security.
easy money...
i never turn on my computer when i come home
not even my mother turns on her computer... it is allready running
stop supporting microsoft with pirating their software!!!!!
Sometimes for family, which I usually do for free or a token amount (or as a wedding gift, which, when you factor in the typical expenses, comes out to be pretty generous). I don't do prints, though - I bring the gear, take the photos, edit, and give them a CD.
I'm a software developer for a major corporation, and on the weekends I DJ at a night club.
/my 0.02 USD
I even got to meet MC Hammer.
Oh, and I do more IT, by doing the club's website.
After that reply, did you still get to go?
-30-
I make a fair bit of side cash helping clueless people remove Spyware from their machines. It's usually a case of installing AdAware and SpyBot S&D and I'm done, it's all voodoo to them of course.
The pornographic pop-ads are of course because their "son" was last using the computer...
They all have these terms. Most people just don't read the contracts or don't understand them.
Built one-off low EMI data acquistion system for NASA (plus some govt jobs I'm not a liberty to describe).
Plumbing
Electrical (unlicensed but work with up to 440VAC 3phase, mostly installing CNC machine tools also do the interfaces to run old machines on newer computers)
Roofing
Carpentry
Auto repair
Buy and sell surplus unix systems and networking hardware.
Control system design.
International RF communications systems installation and emergency repair.
Multi-vendor systems integration (you'd be surprised how often the customer wants to mix vendors and none of the vendors will touch the job).
Instrumentation, including LASER remote sensing.
Broker 'systems' and 'stuff'.
Always looking for something 'different' to do. Will travel almost anywhere pay/risk is acceptable.
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
People in the IT field work full time when not doing IT work. They do technology related work (usually far below their skill set and qualifications) on weekends and after hours. During the day they have full time jobs doing just about anything else. If only I were living in India, I could do IT full time, and have a side job doing something else. Too bad that's not the case.
Some interesting comments - My above statement is somewhat of a blanket reactionist statement that I make fairly often.
In reality - I help my keep my grandparents computer running (They're in their 80s and do an amazing amount with their computer - but it's an incredible eye-opener in regards to the huge usability failings of computers these days.), hack on some old hardware setting up a home music server, and ripping my CDs to it. (Which I'm thinking of rsync'ing with the one at work.) Etc.
But if I have the time I'd rather be working on my photography hiking, or hanging out with my girlfriend and/or other friends.
It's all about balance - Work / Play (Not necessarily in that order!)
Ya, No matter how much time I spend working on computers during the day, I still find myself sitting in front of my computer every evening working on one of my hobby websites (http://FreeGratisProducts.com) or doing work for my own web development company (http://socal.jncissler.com) or something else along those lines. Both of those sites bring me in about an extra $125 a month and I enjoy doing them. Hopefully I can make those my main job sometime in the future :)... Nothing like loving what you do!
If you are expecting something here, I don't know what to tell you...
"Having a passion for something, and wanting to work on other people's broken shit is hardly the same thing."
EXACTLY! Well put indeed.
Artists that paint houses as a day job can't wait to go home and "quit painting".
Having a real job generally involves a large amount of meetings, company politics and doing work that you don't want to do. Like if someone higher up mandated you use some specific tool, or setup your network topology a certain way, or put some stupid feature in a software package. You usually end up having to do it, even though you think it's a stupid. And nobody can have a passion about that.
The point is, in generally, working in the IT industry isn't something you enjoy doing 100% of the time, unless you are at an exceptional company.
I love designing, writing and debugging software. But most of my time is spent managing documentation revisions, discussing status in meetings, implementing dumb ideas that aren't mine, etc. I don't hate my job, if I did I would quit, but I can't say that I have a passion for being a software engineer.
I but I do have a passion for coding. But after a long day at work I'm really too burnt out to even play games. I end up reading a book, cooking dinner or watching a movie. By about 10pm I'm finally rested enough to do something on the computer. But that does not leave me much time if I have to wake up by 8am.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
up 768 days, 18:20
...so I have a job (recently acquired) doing part-time theatre work. Lets me keep my regular, decently-paying, 45 hour per week job but also keep my fingers in the stuff that I used to really love doing, but had to give up to support my family (without working 80+ hours per week). Best of both worlds! Course I'm working more than 45 hours per week, but who's counting (aside from me)?
you know, the clear bra stuff. www.xpel.com
I was a Desktop Engineer for a consulting firm, and did home & small business computer support on the side. In 2003, I had to pay taxes as a business on the side work. This forced me to obtain a business license... When the side work brought in almost as much as my primary job just from work-of-mouth, I "retired" and started advertising. Now, the consulting firm wants me back, as a consultant, for a lot more money. :^)
My friends and family know the proper currency to ply me with - BEER. They have to have at least a six on ice for me, and they better be willing to fetch them for me while I work my magic.
Also, if it is a big job (have them describe their problem over the phone) I have them bring just the box to my place and I hook it up to a spare monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. That way I can peck at it here and there while I'm working on something else more important.
Vonnegut was right: Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been."
its fun, its easy and step 4: profit
lick the cancle button (at least thats what our Chinese QA says)
Yes, we have all been throgh the phase of not being able to come to a family gathering without being peppered with various things about why someones machine is doing bad things, told everyone about Windows Update and why someone's cold didn't come from a computer virus, but anti-virus is still nice to have.
Istead of seeing it all as freeloading, why not turn around and get favours back? A nice dinner every now and then, related to a plumber or lawyer, use their services back. But, this is all mundane. Why not use your spare time to contribute skills where it can do real good stuff?
This project on SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/care2002/ for eaxmple. They're creating an open source Hospital Management system. It is being heavly deplyed in the thirs world where hospitals can easily cover 200k people and still do everything by paper.
I use my own cash to travel to this hospital in Tanzania: http://haydom.no/. It is run literally in the bush, it is in the middle of nowhere, yet covers patients in an area the size of Texas, has 400 beds and the whole hospital now has managed to get basic things like e-mail, a working installation of the system above, and on my last trip a month back I got to use their satelite link for the most down to earth thing:
Having all this hi tech wiz-stuff around, satelite links, a small server with IMAP and a few PC's I was summoned to the X-Ray dept, told to bring my digital camera so that I could snap a picture of an x-ray of a small kids chest, take it online and mail it to a colleague back home to get assistance on the diagnosis. This kid had never seen a digital camera, had no idea what the internet was, and better yet, even senior personell was baffled by having a kid's x-ray in a mondern hospital within ten minutes for diganosis.
There are plenty projects that cover this kind of donation of time and work, why not give back where it can really matter? After all, when's the last time you got to play hero geek and literally save a life?
It is easy to pull in $55 - $75/hour, depending on the app. The brass ring are the people who will pay $95/hour plus for the skills they can find no where else. Generally with no hard time line (we're just happy you're getting it done).
Unfortunately, I have not been able to pull together enough to shed my full time mill stone, but it gets better each year. But for many of my clients, it is cheaper to pay me to keep it going than it is to give in to industry trends and fad technologies.
I started school and a new job at the same time and the job had a point based attendance policy, including unscheduled overtime. Because of that I quit school and decided to ditch the idea of an IT career. Might be the smartest thing I ever did. I can still satisfy my interests to whatever extent seems appropriate. Occasional side gigs as a musician is all the second job I need or want.
i worked at a pizzaria..and umm.. made pizza.. it was fun.. i would prefer it over any IT job if it paid more than $7 an hour..
*searches monster.com for pizza maker jobs start at $40k*
- Hi I'm Linus Torvalds and I pronounce Linux, Lih-nix..
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
Gambling, pimping, and selling dope.
i have a side business de-spywareing people's computers in the community (rates range from free ( my parents), beer (my friends), and $75/hour (everyone else)
I'm also an EMT, and even though i'm not paid, it provides a meaningful service to my community at large and makes me feel like i occasionally do something useful with my life.
filter: +3. Hey, look! all the trolls went away!
is that white-colar enough?
I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
Paraphrasing:
C'mon Sammy, sing us a song.
Jeez Arch, leave the man alone. How would you like it if someone came up to you and said, "Hey Archie, let's see you do some loadin' an liftin'."
What?
collector
WTF? Over?
Personally, I have a home network and use it as a hobby shop, but when I want to earn some dough, I teach.
I get out and teach dance that is. I also teach some IT stuff, but I mostly teach Lindy Hop. It's a lot of fun and a total departure from the daily grind of the IT world. Besides, it's probably the only way some of us IT guys are going to be able to hold a girl that close. *GRIN*
Plant a tree in a developing country.
And on the other hand you have people like myself that like to see how much use you can get out of aging hardware & enjoy the challenge. But then again, I don't maintain networks/computers for a living anymore.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Coming from a white collar family (teachers) I can say that we certainly DID have the idea of side jobs. My father had side jobs until he started making enough that he didn't need them anymore, and then he still a bit of landscaping in the neighborhood until the day he died. My mother quit teaching when she had children, but continued tutoring until not too long ago.
This isn't a blue collar versus white collar thing. All you need for a side job is the desire/need for a little bit more income, and the time to do it. I know many blue collar workers who don't have side jobs, and many white collar workers who do.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I take summers off and commercial fish in Alaska 4 months out of the year.
Okay, so I live in a weird part of the country. We have 4 world class ski resorts within 20 minutes of my front door: A Basin, Keystone, Breckenridge, Copper Mtn. Side jobs are extremely common up here. So what do I do for a side job? Last year I worked Competition Services for Breckenridge - we put on huge events, like X Games qualifiers. I've also worked in ski rental and tune shops.
Oh, and since my main job is telecom, I get asked to run cabling for friends. At various times I've had my entire refrigerator full of beer because of it.
----- obSig
Maybe he should. When I get home, I know that I loathe opening up a programming environment. I've thought about some various side projects and stuff, but I never follow through on them. The reason is that I get paid to program. I think it's fun, but I don't find recreation in it.
I also have quite a bit of IT knowledge: fixing up computers, abolishing ad-ware, fixing user accounts, training, getting things to "work..." I hate it when my aunt says to me, "Mike, I've got a problem with my computer. My scanner..." First off, I dislike the headache I get when trying to fix things, when I could be doing something fun (i.e. playing pool). Second, I hate that I feel an obligation to work because she's my aunt.
A good side job is what I had a couple of years ago. I was a barista in a coffee shop. I could relax, talk to the customers, shoot the breeze with my co-workers, and generally not think about computers at all. I came home tired, but happy. I was refreshed in the morning as well.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
When I go home, I breed and sell tropical fish for the pet industry. Price per fish is low, like a buck each, but considering each pair of parents has several hundred babies every ten days or so, having a few pairs around is good side money.
I'm a freelance musician who does IT to supplement the income during slow periods, but right now I'm still in school.
Do what you like to do, and find some way to make it a side job. How about teaching kids about computers while they are young enough to really figure them out? I'm doing side work teaching music to a bunch of middle school kids, and it pays about the same as some of my IT jobs.
Find a way to do what you like well, and someone, somewhere will want to pay you for it. In today's world of outsourcing, finding a niche is what its all about. when they physically need your services because you are the only, oh i duno, mac literate musician who is sociable enough to teach kids...
you are pretty much established as a go-to-guy.
I think you've got some issues, pal. I also do some auto mechanic stuff "on the side." I don't do it for the money (I'm pretty well paid in the IT profession on Wall Street)...I do it because I enjoy it. Maybe the other poster is the same.
Also, I suspect that you've got more in common with the "400+ employees at Walmart" if you feel the need to rag on someone for saying they're in a 200 person firm. Grow up.
t also means any code I contribute to open source is actually owned by them, and can't be legally GPL'd.
Yes it can, it just means that you need your employer's permission first, as they own the copyright, not you.
If you mean that you can't unilaterally GPL it, well, no, but you don't own the copyright; you can't choose to GPL my code, either. (Not quite the same thing, but you know what I mean)
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I manage an nBody model project. It's all a bit small scale now (i.e, we don't make any money) but it should eventually become big enough to interest people running large scale experiments, at which point it will hopefully start to pay off fiscally. In the meantime, it's a whole bunch of fun.
I used to spend all day at work dealing with screwed up Windows boxes.
;)
That's why I bought a mac for home
Lieutenant/EMT (part-time) on the local fire department.
A great way to work the stress out of your system and exercise those cobwebby things called muscles that atrophy when you just sit at the keyboard all day.
which, come to think of it, is remarkably similar to my day job (getting paid for bending over)
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Business process consulting...
Management consulting...
Network design...
Purchase order reviews...
Investigating communications bills or leases to save money...
Work construction - be the gofer guy... Hell, work with the electrician and pull something other than low-voltage wiring for a change...
I've worked at Home Depot - lots of fun. You get to drive fork lift trucks and other stuff, learn about *everything* and meet lots of very interesting people... It's $10 or less per hour, but it was great exercise, and lots of fun... Everyone I met was top notch (well, one or two exceptions but that's everywhere).
Shovel snow? Cut lawns? Push a vending cart?
Build web sites...
Drive cars across country for rental places that had a one-way rental...
Ghostwrite books...
Work as a DJ at parties...
Would you like fries with that?
The thing is to EXPLORE... You already know and have mastered IT - do something else and have some fun...You never know where it will lead
Renée Magritte (of "This in not a pipe" fame) went to his studio every morning after breakfast, then came home at the same time every day for dinner with the family, effectively treating the art as his dayjob.
Just because someone really likes doing something - even if they are passionate about it - people may well want to not do it all the time. Most scientists do not actually spend all their waking hours thinking about their work, most mucisians aren't always playing or thinking about music.
Most people, passionate or not, do want a life.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Steve Jobs side job is running Apple.
I have learned that until you are the one person keeping someone's computer alive, you never really completely control or own that person.
...
I would quote Grand Moff Tarkin here for effect, but any self respecting hacker is hearing the words in the back of his head long before he finishes reading what I wrote
Fear
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
This one really hit home. Over the holiday here in the states, friends confided that they had 3 jobs, not 2. One is CEO of a SW firm. He has a job at Mitre in addition to a job teaching evening classes at MIT. Another works as a researcher at Boston U, while keeping a job as a SW writer at a nother company. I had come to the conclusion that plumbing, roofing and electrical may be it for me, as I am a landlord as well as a SW writer. Lesson was - 3 jobs, max on diversity as well as non - outsourceability.
Hasn't anybody seen office space :)
Just write some software for the pay role server
Hopefully not for much longer, although I'd be sad to give up my other job, working at an animal rescue shelter. Still, I'm slightly better (and more interested in) IT as a career. Gotta go with #1.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
This is almost a hobby..
Buying used CD-ROM drives and plugging them in to see if A) they work and B) what's in them. I'd say one out of three has something in it. Very odd... Anyone want a copy of Disney's '102 Dalmations: Puppies To The Rescue'? No? Awww....
Everyone needs a hobby..
Aero
Please stop hurting America -- Jon Stewart
A ton of the guys that I have bounced with have been computer workers either looking to make some extra cash, or have a one or two night a week hiatus in a job that will actually get you laid.
I have to reply to your very incorrect post.
In a game of poker, you do not play the casino, but you play the other players. The casino makes money by taking a (small) percentage of the bet. While luck plays a factor, in the long run a good poker player comes out ahead.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
Spend some time learing how to invest. It takes significant efffort, but if you do it right you can gain far more than you could with a side job.
I am working for http://www.justsnipe.com/ during the day and some night shifts, bartending during the weekend night, doing email tech support, and reselling junk (computer stuff) on ebay on a spare time. Spare time!! ... I just wish there are 30 hours a day and 10 days a week.
I've been doing forex for almost a year. I put in $5k in March and I'm getting close to the point where I can contemplate quitting my day job and moving to Canada.
It doesn't take up a lot of time. It helps if you are a news junkie. I usually make the most money while I am sleeping.
It is gambling though, and isn't for the faint of heart. It is much easier to lose money than it is to make it.
Could always pick up a side job as an entrepreneur on Ebay, selling all of your obselete computer hardware so you can buy things that are more useful.
Step 1. Steal underwear ...
Step 2.
Step 3. Profit
Erin Go Bragh!
For my side job, I build my own Internet then generate hits to my own Google to make my own cash.
I then buy my own food grown in my own garden, except when I refuse to take my own check.
I've spent the past 13 years working on and off in a side business helping others with their computer and network needs. There are literally thousands of small (50 employees) businesses out there with no in-house IT help of any kind. They're usually great with whom to deal - it does require you to work at night and on weekends. I didn't mind it too much for most of those years because it always had lots of income for my family.
I never really had to worry about getting customers. Most small business owners would love an inexpensive local Geek to come in and set up their computers and nets...
A Passionate Independent Musician
not if you're just starting out, have a student loan, bought a new car (because you have to respond to calls at stupid hours in stupid places), want to save up for a house......
personally, being on call 1 week in 3 totally screws up being able to have a side job.
My daughter's sunday school teacher is a single mom with teenage boys. She doesn't have a lot of money, but a family member gave her a new computer last Christmas, and the phone company is selling DSL for only a few bucks more than AOHell. Knowing she can't afford to pay anyone to set it up, I agree to help her set it up, no charge.
A few months later, she's having trouble - can't log in to some site to sign up for a credit-card processing account so she can accept CC for her Mary Kay side business, and she asks for help. I go over one night after work, and one of her boys is doing his homework at the kitchen table, PC in the living room.
She shows me the error, and I immediately point out that CyberSitter or some similar censorware is blocking the site. "Yes, I installed that to help keep the porn off the computer." I pull up the logs, and it's FULL of porn sites being blocked at times when she was at work. He tried to blame it on spam and spyware, and I was non-committal, just wanted to get the thing working for her, but I think she had a little talk with him after I left.
Can you say "uncomfortable?"
P.S. Still can't figure out why cybershitter blocks a credit card merchant site, but I just told her to disable the software when she logged in to do CC stuff.
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
(1) home networking and PC trouble-shooting, also sometimes small businesses
(2) occasional IT contract work (web development, for example) for departments at work that don't have their own IT staff (outside of my regular work hours* and with my boss' OK)
(3) church musician/singer, sometimes preach too
*I am in a bargaining unit, so 40 hour weeks are the norm, even for IT technical staff.
Doug
Ad-Aware has just about totally stopped me from charging people I halfway like. When someone agrees to a. change to Mozilla or Firefox, and b. Install ad-Aware, and learn how to use it, I will usually help them not only with that, but fix a few other niggling little nuisances their PC suffers from. If they are blindly loyal to IE, they tend to get charged about 30 bucks an hour.
I only charge one relative, but he's a second cousin that is convinced he can make more money in the market if he has an even faster connection. He is currently using cable internet because they said it was up to 5 times faster than local DSL, ignoring that he can't get that speed during the hours the market trades, and when he heard that the cable speeds tend to be faster early in the morning (like 4 A.M.), he decided to start trading on forign exchanges, even though he knows next to nothing about the companies involved, because he's that convinced the extra speed somehow matters. He hears a distorted explanation of resetting MTU's in the Windows registry for faster access systems, from one of his clueless friends, and I get another call. Him, I charge for calls.
Who is John Cabal?
I don't really want to clean megs of spyware off a family members' computer, but if they want to slip me some cash I'll be right over.
take a tip from Billy Gates.
nobody get's something for free. bill charged his family and that is how he started microsoft.
Aunt Meggie can either give you $50 bucks or she can give the computer super center $120.00 to fix her computer.
It works great, and the first time they get real prices to have a computer repaired and it returned to them with everything erased they will gladly feed you, give you a beer and 50 bones in cash.
I stopped giving away my weekends and weeknights to relatives and friends years ago. give them a deep discount like my example, but do NOT give it away free.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This is a really stupid question, overall.
What kind of side jobs do IT people do? Uh, fix computers, maybe home networks? Programming?
DUH. Obviously your white collar (read: white bread) upbringing has left you more than just sheltered - you're fuckin retarded.
more IT, for companies without enough buget for my employers services
One year they clamped down and started only letting math/science people log in. I was sitting in the lab working one day, shortly after this policy was instituted. To give people fair warning, I wrote the following message on the white board:
PLEASE READ (<-- in HUGE letters)
There is a new policy in place where only people
on the ACLUsers list can login in this lab. You
are on this list if you are enrolled in a math or
science class in this building.
You could not possibly miss this sign. And yet, over the course of the few hours I was there, I saw countless people exhibit the following behavior:
- walk in the door
- glance momentarily at the sign (long enough to read "PLEASE READ", but no more)
- sit down at a computer
- try to log in
- look puzzled
- try a few more times
- try a different computer
- come over and ask me "is there something wrong with the computers in this lab?"
It was maddening! I wanted to smack them!It's tempting to conclude from this story (as I did at the time) that most people are just ignorant and lazy. I think that the more useful lesson is: you'll never get people to pay attention to something by asking them to. Writing "PLEASE READ" is a futile effort. You have to make them WANT to read the sign; people read things because they WANT to, not because they SHOULD.
A much better strategy would have been to change the heading from "PLEASE READ" to "CAN'T LOG IN?"
I'm a webdeveloper, and as a side job I do webdeveloping :-)
really.
Neighbor: I want to buy a new computer!
Me: Buy a Mac.
Neighbor: But...
Me: If you buy a Windows based PC you get one FREE call then I charge you 125USD/hr like I do all my clients. But if you buy a Mac you can call me anytime.
Neighbor: Well I saw this Dell.
Me: CHING! You owe me 125USD starting... now.
This
Just like if your brother's a plumber and you have a clogged toilet.
Why should your family pay you to do what you can do? They already did what they could for you, or you wouldn't be here.
Friends and acquaintances are a different story. However, the story's not much different whether a plumber or a computer guy tells it.
-Graham
) Intellectual control
) Your ability to have a life outside the large, faceless corporation
) The company's ability to profit for free
) Way of controlling white-collar thought crimes (No kidding, think about it)
And my favorite:
) BULLSHIT
Yes, you have the right to say "I refuse to sign this" and probably lose the job. But you also have a right to say "I'd like this modified."
Now, if you work for a company that says "sign it or leave", get the hell out. This is why I started my own company: http://loudorangecat.com
No one tells me what to do, let alone THINK.
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
When I can I work with my father-inlaw who is a Master Electrician and does electrical work on the weekends.
Or, just simple flatbackin'. You would not believe how many unsatisfied women over 65 there are out there. Many of them are better looking than my boss and not once have any of them ever stuck-it-up-my-ass when I wasn't looking. Gee... I wonder which one of my jobs is my side job now...
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
i do it. 'nuff said
Hivemind harvest in progress..
The only transistors in these things are in the electrical box -- the basic design dates from the early 1950s, after all. A single 1 horsepower electric motor and a buttload of belts drives the thing.
Pay is considerably less, but I was interested in bowling long before there was a personal computer worthy of the name. Plus, I get all the free bowling I can handle, so it works out.
No one tells me what to do, let alone THINK.
If you don't listen to what your customers tell you to do, you won't be in business long.
Howdy all. Definitely an interesting topic. I had the "pleasure" of working for corporate America for a financial services company several years ago. I was part of 150 in my department to be layed off due to cutbacks. So, I scrambled to find a job (difficult considering several thousand overall in our area were layed off) and finally ended up with a small newspaper publishing software company. But, I was working in a kennel scraping dogshit from the floor, landscaping and in a freezer wearing subzero suits.
:-)
I'm still working part-time as a librarian along with getting my niche website underway (650 uniques a day and climbing).
So, I guess I'm a blue collar "half breed."
Regards,
Kory
want a taste?
No... really... hand-make 'em and everything. :)
Good stress reliever (Picture a hunk of raw wood as your pointy-haired boss... here come the power tools!) but it puts a little money in my pocket too.
If you need a quick *holiday present, let me know!
"Of course I'm wrong... That's how I get to 'right'." - Gil Grissom
I am a web developer by day, and do the same thing by night, but for a lot more money. :)
I am so reporting you to the RSPCA, animal hater!
I work at a bar. Nerd by day, see beautiful girlies at night. Ahh.
- If you are a corporate entity (take your choice of your favorite flavor)
- If you are working as a sole proprietor (i.e. just doing a side business for yourself), and they pay you less than $500 annually.
If you are looking to work for straitlaced / above the board / "Do the Right thing" clients, keep the annual charges for those client under $500/client/annum and they probably won't even 1099 you.You will then be free to decide whether or not you want to report the income.
Let's consider: assuming a tax rate for a self-employed sole proprietor of 30%, if you plan to make more than $715/annum from the client, go ahead... since that is the break-even point between "receiving $499.99, not getting a 1099, and not reporting the income" and "getting a 1099 since it's more than $500, reporting the income, and paying FICA + income tax". Of course, the latter option is the legal option, haha.
This approach scales: imagine you have 15 clients that pay you just under $500 and none of them 1099 you. You would make $7500 if you didnt report that income. If you were 1099'd by each client (forced to report the income) you would have to make $10714.29 (total tax @ 30%) in order to bring home $7500 after tax.
Enjoy the untraceable money!
Programming and fixing friends' computers. Hello, McFly?
My side job is to outsource your side-jobs to India.
(Nobody mentioned India yet that I could find, so I felt compelled to add one.)
Table-ized A.I.
is the reply I give to most friends and relatives who ask me to clean up their computer messes.
For some, if they are willing, I will volunteer to install Linux. Of the many I have 'migrated' to Linux only one wanted to go back to Windows, and that was because her teenage daughter couldn't figure out how to use GAIM. (She was blonde.) All who have a Linux experience are amazed at how stable and fast their machine is, and how viruses don't seem to be a problem anymore. I smile.
My favourite was that about 8-10 years ago I used to work for a company that supported various K-12 schools in my final few years of schooling. Anyway, I was taking over the phones while someone was gone and received a call from *gasp* the sysadmin of my very own school. Knowing the guy would take a joke well:
[Me] *company* K12, *insert name here* speaking
[Him] My computer is freezing at the 'starting Windows' screen
[Me] Have you done anything to the computer recently? This is one of the network workstations?
[Him] Yes- I was just surfing the web
[Me] The only time I've ever seen this happening is when the customers were looking at gay porn. Would you happen to be doing that or should I file a problem report?
[Him] Ummm... I'm going to try a few things and I'll call you back if I'm still having the problem.
[Me] All right, thank you...
Hehe- Too classic.
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
At the present moment I teach an A+ Certification class at night. I enjoy doing it and don't feel bad for working 15+ hours a day since I don't have a family to care for. Oddly the teaching job pays more hourly than the day job. I do the odd contract job on occasion for a contracting company or on my own. This may include fixing Sally-down-the-street's computer, a small company to fix their slew of problems, to a server rollout for a Fortune 500 company. It gets me out of town to see new areas. In the past I worked at a restraunt and made some good money at it. It was fun meeting new people all the time and making them happy vs. crackhead end-lusers want to make their problem my problem. In the future I'll get liscened for massage therapy or the like. I've been told I missed my calling. One of my friends worked for UPS at night and another delievered papers the coin operated newpaper dispensers. I really don't need to work a sidejob, but being so young and not having a family makes it easy to work many hours to buy all the toys I want while I still can. I work hard durring the week so I can play hard durring the weekends and on vacations. Cheers.
Alright alright, I fess up. As a side job I subscribe billg@microsoft.com to various pr0n and spam lists.
IT people don't have side jobs, they have every friend and relative begging for free tech support. My family complains about me nonstop because I will not be a free source of tech support, and my friends either continue to ask for it, despite my actions of apathy towards their problems, or they have heard me bitch about it so much that they have learned to stop asking.
I don't get it, my old man was an electrician, he fixed minor problems for family and friends, and was always compensated. Expenses were paid, and usually something nice was done in return, not always money, but dinner, or a gift, or something. Why is it that the minute I ask for ANYTHING in return, I become the bad guy in the conversation. They can ask me to drive 45 miles through heavy fog, but refuse to give me even a dollar for gas?
When it comes to side jobs, I work exclusively in the private sector. Until people realize that I have a life I'd like to live, my time is not worthless, and I'm not always thinking about computers to the point that I have no problem fixing your stupid little outlook express problems whenever you want, it'll stay that way.
The only thing that is worse than being asked to donate your time for NOTHING, is the people that ask me for free hardware because I have so much of it laying around. You people need to just die. Last time I checked, I did pay money for that stuff.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
...I signed a document saying anything I invent, create, whatever, while I am on or off company time, is owned by the company.
Do you have any idea of the damage you cause when you do stupid things like that??? Jeez! You have no self respect. People who sign those kind of deals should be "working" on their knees. I bet you would buy all those steel girders that link Brooklyn with Manhattan. Shame on you.
Look for the foxfire books. You cant beat them. THyre a guid to simple country living, the first one has monshine making and other things. One of them has bear hunting, starting with making a muzzloading rifle from iron ore. THey cover pretty much everyhign you need to know to start out in life and live with nothing but an axe.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
I currently work as a full time system administrator.
I give back by working on some open source projects like mon.cgi (which I currently maintain). Indirectly it helps my work because we use it in my work environment and the work done is free and not owned by my company.
Also, I help out at Experts Exchange at times when I've got the time.
Check out Mon and Mon.cgi
Not kidding you in the least. I'm technically a non-exempt employee, so when I'm not at work, I'm either working from home or drunk. Sometimes both.
I'm posting this while taking a break from updating my resume, as my team lead just told me that the higher-ups were thinking about canning me, because I'm not a 9 to 5 person. Despite the fact that I work 50, 60, sometimes 70 hour weeks in an under-staffed, under-paid department, take calls at 2am in the morning, occasionally work 2 days straight without sleep, etc. As much as I realize that it helps to be there at 8:30 in the morning, I can't help but feel a little bitter that all my hard work isn't appreciated more. That and I'm so fucking burnt out at this miserable company-
Okay, that's enough bitching, where's a goddamn beer...
PC moderators can suck my White pierced, tattooed dick. If you think pride == hate, s/dick/Aryan meat mallet/g.
I'm tempted to do the same, but don't quite have the guts to do it. I've been acting and singing since I was 8, but didn't realise till my 3rd year of Uni (comp sci) how much I loved it.
Now, luckily I get the occasional paying job singing, acting or dancing, but not enough to justify making a run of it, but almost enough to keep me sane.
GENERAL PUBLIC SIGNATURE (GPS) Any replies (derivatives) of this post must also use the GPS
I work as a sign fabricator, when not doing computer related stuff.
Of course, I haven't been doing alot of computer work lately.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
...you won't need to stretch much either - since you're probably used to being fucked by HR in your day job.
;-)
cLive
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
If you have some talent in the area of music, go make use of it!
It is very fulfilling to go play guitar for an audience, or spin records at a club, after a long gruelling week of IT hell.
You don't even have to be that talented. DJing, for example, has very low barriers for entry. You may suck, but most people won't know the difference. DJing is a musical art just like any other, but you can learn more as you go. Pick up a used sound system and pimp yourself out for house parties. Charge at least $100-$200 for a gig. Remind them that you're bringing thousands of dollars worth of music (records, CDs, whatever) + a sound system worth X dollars.
Practice a lot! Make friends with other DJs. Generally we DJs are a very friendly bunch and not at all hesitant to offer some helpful tips for those just starting out. After you get pretty good and confident with your skills, take your house party show to a club -- clubs are great for lots of reasons... You generally won't have to bring your own equipment, just records/CDs. You will make between $50-$500 for a 1-4 hour set. You will generally get a VIP guest list so your friends don't have to pay or wait in line at the door. You will get a free bar tab or free drink tickets. And for those Slashdotters who aren't familiar with the fairer sex -- there is an endless supply of beautiful girls at these clubs, too.
I've made a ton of extra money this way over the last 5 years. It's pretty easy to earn $500/month without even trying hard. Plus it's always cash money, which is nice.
Side benefit: Being a musician is, without a doubt, the best way ever invented to meet women. It doesn't even matter if you're shy, the women will come to you while you're playing.
I do on-site PC service work for a living. While technically, yes, that means I have opportunity to do some work "on the side" as well, reality doesn't usually allow much of it.
For starters, I have to be careful there's no conflict of interest. (If I do side work for someone who knew they could have gotten the same service by calling in to my work, but is purposely trying to go through me directly to cut his costs, then that's a good way to lose my primary job. You never know who will tattle on you somewhere down the road for doing this sort of thing!)
I knew a few Union electricians in the same boat, though. They got asked if they could install an electrical panel or what-not, over the weekends, "on the side" - and they were really afraid to agree to it; the risk of losing their license over it just wasn't worth it.
I try to limit my side jobs fixing spyware, upgrading hardware, etc. to friends and relatives only (and only when they're actually compensating me for the work!). My boss isn't going to care if I got paid on Sunday to fix my buddy's PC, but he *is* going to care if it's some random person off the street.
Last week I posted a link on slashdot recommending some books from Amazon. Of course, I included my affiliate ID in the link so I would get some profit if somebody actually bought something. Well, the post got moderated +5 and I ended up making $40. Thanks slashdot!
Meh.
did you fuck her?
I grow my own vegetables (and soon fruit and eggs). While this does not make money, it certainly saves money. Long term I hope to be able to do IT part time, and sell high quality organic produce on a small scale.
It you have the room for it, I would certainly recommend it. The quality of home grown produce is far better than what you can buy in stores. It also means you don't have to go around looking for work and you can do it in your own time. It provides exercise and you are somehow encouraged to eat more vegies.
My day job is as a computer-security analyst.
i tyAssociates.com_ this_part_to_email _me
I'm not too active, but I put up a little site for myself and one or two associates to do consulting through. Our areas of interest include corporate intelligence.
The corporate-intelligence work involves searching for information on a company based on information available on-line. Depending on a client's needs, we can search English-language and localized foreign-language sites for information of interest to the client. This can concern information on the company's products or its perception. We only use on-line sources, and use absolutely no "covert" or non-open sources.
Keep in mind if you consult that you have to be careful to avoid conflicts-of-interest with your day-job, and not to violate your employment contract. It also helps to work with more than just e-mail. Get an 800-number, fax, and decent voice mail system. It helps if you can arrange to get a human answer the phone during your work-day hours.
It doesn't necessarily pay (or pay too much), but I also stay active and try to keep experimenting with different computing technologies, and presenting and publishing when I can. This also introduces me to more people in the field, and can also lead to more opportunities.
http://www.iamsam.com
http://www.NitzbergSecur
sam@iamsam.com___nospam__remove
I'm just damn glad I didn't choose to be a gynecologist really.
Imagine those guys doing side jobs for their families . . .
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
My agency http://dnr.wa.gov/base/fire.html sends me (and lots of other employees) out to fight wildfires during the season. I'm working as a sysadmin, after having been a firefighter for several seasons. Most people in the fire program have other jobs within the DNR. The best of both jobs eh?
In my IT work I have had several co-workers moonlight. Some for money and some not. Just because they are not paying you does not mean they are not jobs.
Below is a sample:
Professor at the local university
Patent Reader
EMT
Police Officer/Police Auxiliary
Chemical/Biological/Nuclear/Explosive Emergency Manager
Red Cross Committee Chair
It puts meetings in a new perspective when someone says there is a crisis/emergency/catastrophe and the first question out of someone's mouth is "Is everyone breathing?".
I also sell science fiction, fantasy, and horror books (mostly first editions, small press, etc.) on the side as Lame Excuse Books. This is also a way to feed my own science fiction first edition book-buying, just like junkies who are forced to become pushers to support their drug habit...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
On the side I sell VoIP, DSL, traditional local + long distance, and cell phone services for Champion Communications .
My current "big project" is - I have a new type of soap (patent pending) which I plan to sell to a niche market. I am also in the very early days of creating a direct-to-DVD movie.
I also do light computer consulting for neighbors and small businesses. My "day job" is CTO for a healthcare software company.
I work at a small software start-up in Osaka, Japan, so a lot of the side work I do is translation / teaching related. Teaching English privately (as opposed to at one of the big factory schools like ECC or Nova) can be especially lucrative. My small group lesson of four students earns me about 5300 yen an hour (8000 yen per 1.5 hour lesson).
Get used to it.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
I DJ on weekends. Its a fun job and I have a computer based system so I get to put my geek skills to use. There's usually a good meal and open bar and more than a few hot single women at a wedding reception. You probably won't have enough nerve to talk to any of the women, but sometimes they get really really drunk and come on to you. You read Slashdot, so it's not like you're busy on Saturday nights. If you're in the St. Louis area and this sounds interesting, feel free to drop me a line.
That sounds painful :o
When I am newly employed I submit a statement disclosing all the work I do outside of work hours that doesn't compete with anything I doing inside of working hours, and that it's my property. No one who has employed me (to date) has had a problem with that, and I doubt I would work for a company that did.
I suck cock.
LOTS of cock.
Personally poker is my side job. With good analytical skills you can do pretty will in low and moderate stakes poker. I'm no pro, so I don't expect to sit at the final table at the WSOP but it does bring in a little extra if you are patient and don't try and play in games above your skill level (which I am prone to do)
Perhaps, but in return for fixing my Uncle's computer he gave me a $3000 iron filter for my water. (it was broke, but he had the parts to fix it)
Its the family joke, Christmas at his house to fix the computer, Thanksgiving at ours to fix the water. Easter, birthday parties, graduation, and other family get togethers you count on either a water softener being rebuilt, or a computer being cleaned up.
When I'm not at my day job as a data analyst @ Western Digital, I'm touring, playing shows, and making music. Though i consider music my real job, I'm also extrmely passionate about IT work and it provides a good financial base from where I am launching my true career from.
Good for you.
Seriously.
After a hard day of abusing people in IT and treating them like shit. I go home and whack them for money. Hey it's a living.
In addition to what other posters have said, check out Centaur Forge. They've got tons of books and videos as well as anvils, hammers, forges and all kinds of other equipment necessary for all sorts of smithing.
I did residential on the side because it was easy. Got tired of the pager. Now I am a network app admin for a state agency. I work on pinballs on the side.... make decent money at it too...
If it's only a couple of clicks and they're willing to bring the computer to me (or I happen to be there) and they understand and accept the risks...no problem (1/2 joking).
Things that will get people off my "free" list:
- Asking frequently.
- Asking frequently because they decide to "maintain" their system in imaginative ways.
- Asking me to 3 hours commuting and working on their system then pooh poohing my recommendation to buy a new part because, at $40, its "too expensive".
- Especially if that part is a SOHO router.
I still don't really like to do it because there is always a risk that what appeared to be a minor problem could take days to fix. As an example, routine Windows maintenance should probably include running Windows Update. If WU kills the system however, guess who's on the hook? (hint: not Steve Ballmer)
While I have a full time job in the Information Security field, I occasionally consult for government-funded international medical research projects (working on one of the big three: tuberculosis, malaria, or AIDS). Apparently, it is very difficult to find qualified people who are willing to travel. I enjoy it immensely: Brilliant people, fantastic new foods, beautiful scenery. But it is also a humbling experience. We are extremely wealthy, and I think few of us truly realize the margin by which we are separated from the truly destitute.
I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
I think I'm a full time tech support for my mom and all of her friends. It doesn't pay much, but it's better than working the poll!
not to be a grammar nazi, but you set me up :)
hope you don't stay up too late poking your eyes out...
dizzy. tired.
--Always, I mean never..., No I mean always check your references.--
The speaker was, for the first time in his pathetic life, speechless. No one had ever challenged him on the issue of Tibet.
Given that it was the Communists who invaded Tibet in 1950, not the Nationalists, I'm not bloody surprised. Tibet declared its independence from China in 1913, and the newly formed Nationalist Government did nothing in response.
Of course, you wouldn't have even been allowed near a PRC diplomat, so I guess you tend to fight your battles where you can, against the people who are -- let's face it -- totally irrelevant to the matter at hand. Wake me up when the Nationalists take over in mainland China. Then you can start whinging about their treatment of Tibet.
:wq
I'm a contract Java programmer and work is spotty right now. I occasionally do volunteer work for non-profits, but they usually call me at odd hours and expect me to perform miracles on a shoe-string budget. Right now I'm helping my senior neighbors install and use their new PC. I'm moving at the end of the month and they bought a new machine and a store service contract (at my recommendation). They're paying me in free meals and beer.
I fixed a (non geek) friend's girlfriend's PC and she's asked me to help a few of her friends. I make it a point when I install things like Firefox to emphasize that I "customize it" with special features, so she when she bragged to her friends about her experience there was only one place to go to - ME. Another advantage is that if you're dating someone and she doesn't work out, either she won't bother you for tech support any more or she'll go out of her way to ensure that you remain good friends.
The best "side-job" I've found
I know some a creative mechanic who drives a "tweaked" car, an electrician with a fantastic christmas display, a chef who likes to throw dinner parties to show off, and a few carpenters with some really nice home interiors. If you're not happy using your skills outside of work, then you're probably not totally happy with your career. To me, that's difference between a career and a job.
I used to be in IT. Spent about 14 years in the field, in fact. The reason I left the field as a career is twofold: First, I made the mistake of overlapping work and hobby too far (I was living and breathing computer hardware and software day and night, and it eventually overwhelmed me).
Second, I discovered that I really prefer doing hands-on with actual hardware. I get a particular kick out of building equipment, then being able to point to it and say "I made that."
While it's true that this can easily be done in the world of programming, I just don't have the patience to sit in front of a screen for 8+ hours a day coding. In fact, I do as little code as possible these days, and most of that has to do with microcontrollers.
The only "IT" stuff I do now consists of keeping our home-based 'net presence and workstations running. My primary career is now civil service (state government), keeping the radios and other electronics for the WA State Patrol running.
My side business is along the same lines, but just different enough to keep me from burning out altogether. I specialize in conversion of commercial 2-way radios to amateur ("ham") service, and I also do memory and PLD device programming and mil-spec electrical connectors.
Keep the peace(es).
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
How do you install linux? I love to "hack" and am sure I can make lots of programs. Do they give you a cd and see if it boots up on your hardware? Thanks for indulging my curiousity.
:)
Now I just sit back and wait for the (4,interesting) to come my way too
Personally, I'd like to do porn. I actually looked into this because my city is a hub for the adult film industry.
From what I've read, it's pretty hard to get into porn unless you're willing to start with gay sex. Don't act so surprised! Nobody wants to do that shit, but there's money in it. The more appealing route, however, is to make friends with a rising porn star actress and "ride her coat tails" to success. Build a good rapport, be honest and trustworthy with her. If she insists on working with you, then you're in!
Porn can be a very lucrative industry provided you don't get addicted to hard drugs and blow all your money. Why the hell am I telling you my hard earned secrets, anyway?
One of the things I've missed from reading replies, and the topic itself, are the varied contexts of "side job." Permit me to illuminate the whole "side job" thing," in my limited experience.
First, many people take 'em for different reasons. I reject many offers because 1)My boss treats me pretty well (I won't compete) and 2)A lot of people who want side work want x-tra $aving$, so get mad when you tell 'em you can't save 'em as much as they thought because of some unforseen problem that a pro will need to resolve at pro pricing. What it comes down to is do you really want to work for someone that's willing to pay your boss full freight for the big stuff but want's to cut corners on a repair and THEN has the gall to bitch because it wasn't such a small, inexpensive job after all?
So, most people take the occasional side job for extra bucks, and want little hassle. They usually pick their jobs pretty well, which means if you were a jerk on the job (the howeowner) then chances are good that you'll get rejected. I've done it with tile and computer services. (I'm branching out to other endeavors--"Making $$ with my hobby!" [grin].)
Now the other side jobber is the one that's building a business. The honorable ones tend not to 'steal' their boss's customers. They might do some side work, even some large jobs, but the purpose (besides extra ching) is reputation building. Or, for you corporate entities, brand building. These people tend to contract outside of their boss's circle, also, to avoid ill will.
"one day" the side jobber will go out on his own. If the old boss was an asshole, or if the jobber is 'dishonorable' toward a decent guy, he might take a sizeable chunk of his former employer's clientele with him.
Or, if your old boss can't keep up (as what happened to me) one of your old boss's clients will run into you at the convienience store, tell you how terrible that guy has been and "will you please pick up some slack, i'll pay well."
In the end, those wanting to start their own business will more than likely come cheaper on 'side jobs', than a "regular" company because in the contracting business it's all about reputation. Unlike Software coding, brick and mortar builders are liable for their product, whether or not that liability is backed by legal threat. If my product fails my name goes on that asshole list. Enough failures will ruin my business.(Are you listening, Bill?)
Know what that means? A side job is still work! That's right, whenever you are committing time and effort for financial gain, you are working and sometimes that can interfere with your "other life." So, the saavy side jobber takes into account the cyclical nature of "crunch times." We'll turn down jobs we suspect will clash with our "reglular job.
[tip] For example, did you know the best time to seek someone like me for "side work" might be the time between New year's and Taxes? People hold off on major projects until after their taxes and holidays are reconciled, so a lot of guys are laid off until spring
The whole point of this post is two fold: to head of some misconceptions, mainly the implied one that "side work" is "easy Money." It's not, nor should it be. Above all else it should be rewarding, else why do it? If you can't make ends meet then maybe something else needs adjustment?
...And I really want to encourage people who work in I.T. -and especially those that evangelize open source and other I.P. issues- to get out there and and do something to bring it out to public life. There's a pile of cash to be made on situated programming
besides, you know what they say, right? "Fix a computer, it's fixed for a day. Teach the guy how to use it and it's fixed for life...well, almost.
... turn on a computer. I'd rather work in the family's wine store - alcohol at wholesale and a chance to meet affluent people who don't jabber on about computers. "Pretentious with a slight oaky taste..."
Now that's funny.
Hi,
i ndex.htm
A group of friends decided to make short movies. Everybody picked something they would like to do and went back to college to study it.
Very interesting and rewarding.. you get to meet
interesting people and see your work being shown
at the cinema.
You can see for yourself with "The ticket"
http://www.slimmarginsmedia.com/pages/1/
Cheers,
Aldo
Not spam and not popups, I mean building a content site, and having focused google ads, and other ads based on commission etc?
I actually do two different kinds of side jobs, and approach them from differnt angles. For IT-related side jobs, I use the barter system as much as possible, doing IT-related things in exchange for skills I don't have (for example, I recently rebuilt a box for a guy in exchange for him laying the carpet in my office... it was easy for both of us, and we both got what we wanted out of it). My non-IT side jobs center primarily around my alter-ego as a swimming coach. I coach after (and before) regular work hours at both the high school and masters levels, mostly for the enjoyment of it... the pocket change it pays (relative to IT) is also nice, though.
workers American slang at night.
I do network cabling on the side. Business partner does it full time. We are a local contractor that handles service calls for national contractors who service largeish companies like Wal*Mart, Best Buy, Lowes, etc.
:) But seriously, it allows for some nice overnight work where you can just bring the brain down to a nice, simple task that doesn't take too much effort. And it pays pretty well, too.
You haven't lived until you've seen Best Buy from 30 ft in the air on a scissor lift.
You get to sleep in until 8? I hate you.
My sig can beat up your sig.
http://rupertphotography.com/
http://fromthemorning.blogspot.com/
[FromTheMorning]
No, that's never been tried before. I think you might be a First Mover in your Market Space -- please remember me for some friends and family stock when the IPO goes down.
Ok, they get the PC riddled with spyware... ..so you clean it off.
2 days later, the scanner software goes on the blink. Guess who is going to get blamed? Yeah, probably you, the kind relative that cleaned up the PC but didn't touch the scanner software.
That's why I don't touch family PCs.
Look.. Tibet has nice photogenic monks that come off as worm-protecting good guys in disney movies. but the fact of the matter is that tibet was not some idyllic neverland - it was an autocratic theocracy of monks that ruled an impoverished peasant class and had infighting and murder galore.
Read http://www.american-buddha.com/friend.feud.1.htm (the Tibet Myth - sorry about the font - it is not my doing!).
get over your myths.
that said, even if the above web page were all BS (and it is NOT), the fact of the matter is that the chinese have ruled tibet for nearly 50 years now. tibet is effectively part of china. you may fight for independence for tibet just like you can fight for indepence of hawaii now (a state for roughly the same amount of time). more power to you if that's your thing (but i do suggest that you read the Tibet Myth web page first). but don't try to pretend like it's not one country now.
After I get home from a breezy day of trying to re-establish a VPN with some guy who knows jack about shit, I enjoy going to the gym and bodybuilding. Yup. I'm the only guy in the shop whose callouses comes from metal-on-skin contact. I enjoy the looks I get when I'm asked to read someone's Outlook problems, and they have to move their heads out of the way of my arms. What I disklike is the manner in which some users try to 'dumb-down' the problem for me. No matter how gently I explain why you don't need to setup offline syncronization for desktops, they can't get over thier own predjudices. Typified by the looks on their faces when I can jam out a message on their Blackberry faster than they can.
"Arbeit macht frei!"
See? That wasn't so hard, was it?
Ok. Let's do another one:
"Work hard. Be kind."
Well, that should be enough for the evening. Let's continue this indoctrination tomorrow, lest our minds be infected with deviant, nihilistic ideas!
Sincerely,
Luther Blissett
During my high school education + teachers strike, I had a couple of private tutors. One was a retired teacher, the other was a research assistant with MRI scanners. Their pay was between 10 and 20 pounds per hour ($15 to $30), depending on home or office visits. That was 20 years ago, so I guess the rates have increased bit.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
If you run your own company you can justify almost anything IT as being part of your job..
Non-IT things that generate cash would include:
Freelance translation
Producer for other company to help them design new product
However I am coming to the thinking that as there is a limit to the number of hours in a day, the best thing is probably to create an IT product of your own. Which I am designing now (but then it won't be a quote side job anymore)
Things I do on the side that are IT but not for pay:
Bug testing for oss projects (mainly HCI)
NPO support
websites for family
I have two "side jobs". The first is at my church. We get donated computers from many sources, make the best we can out of the parts, then give them to people/other churches so those less fortunate can get use out of them. Keeps usable stuff out of the landfill! The payoff you ask? A big smile and the feeling that by giving one person a computer to learn on, they may stay out of trouble and possibly launch a career. Plus you get a lot of good parts to make your home system really cruise! The second "side job" is home repair (not computers). I do floor tile, sheet rock, electrical, plumbing, general contractor type stuff, but for the elderly or home repair challenged. Mostly small jobs that the big boys won't even do. I can make an extra grand month cash and nobody is the wiser!
The faeries love these. You might try it!
Cleara
Welll...would you expect your brother to charge you if you kept throwing, say, Depends down your toilet and expected him to keep fixing it for free, despite the fact that he has repeatedly told you not to throw your goddamn incontinent diapers down the toilet? Especially since after you flushed the Depends down the toilet, you decided to flush a box of tampons and a couple of rolls of toilet paper too to see if that would clear it up?
That's what fixing my families' computers feels like anymore - they don't update their virus protection, they open anything that they get in their email, they don't plug their computers into surge protectors, and then they wonder why we dread their phone calls. Every time we make the drive to their house (nine hours away if the weather is good and my toddler is very cooperative, thirteen if the above conditions are not met), we end up working on their computers. We have friends down there that they could call that would gladly come work on their computers at the first sign of trouble for the price of a home-cooked meal, but they try to fix it themselves, hose it up even more (like doing a parallel install of an older version of Windows 98 just because someone gave them the disk, then not understanding why all their apps cease to work) and then wait until we travel home for a visit to tell us their computer isn't working, but fail to mention things like the parallel install or the lightning striking their house after they decided to put the surge protector on their washing machine instead of leaving it on the computer. They also fail to mention that it's not working before we start the drive down so that we can pack parts from the graveyard, so it ends up either costing us money to buy them parts or they complain about the cost of computer parts when we make them buy the replacements.
My attitude toward the whole thing would probably be helped if my mother didn't keep telling me how much she hates the computer I gave her for Christmas last year. All the hardware was failing on her old computer, so I gave her and her partner both refurbished computers for Christmas. All I hear is how much she hates the damned thing.
If I treated my plumber like that, he would never come to my house again, no matter how much I paid him.
OK, I can end my rant now. I would probably be calmer about it except that we just got back from a trip there - we were working on their computers until a half hour before we left to drive back.
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
you can also get involved in teaching or education. you don't have to make money, although you can, but it doesn't hurt to make an effort to do some good.
Then do what I ended up doing to my ingrate uncle who dropped off his machine at my house and didn't want to pay anything: Say "you'll get it back when I've fixed the problem" followed closely by "I'm really busy and might not be able to get it fixed for a while, unless I have another incentive". My rationale was that he would either pay up to have it fixed in a decent timeframe, or come and want it back: either way it would be out of my hair.
For family, I at least request that they bring it over so I can work on it where I can have all my resources available (and isolate the machine from the world so it can't infect my network or anyone else).
It was a spyware case, and I settled with him for $20 (half of what I'd usually charge) and he got the machine back in a couple of days rather than months.
"It is a good divine that follows his own instructions" - Portia, The Merchant of Venice
One of my Skydiving Instructors develops firmware for a small cable modem company. Work all week, then jump all weekend.
"Remember: A CRAY is the only computer that can run an endless loop in under 4 hours."
I trade shares for hobby and at the current rate that hobby will pay enough for me to quit by high paying day job (senior computer systems engineer in a defense company) in 3-5 years (I've been doing it for 2 years). This takes aabout an hour a week (value investing, not day trading).
I also went back to study phsychology and ended up as a qualified counsellor where a see a couple of clients a week to help keep me in touch with real humans. I also do some tutoring work for counselling students (which is all weekend and evenings). This takes a few hours a week plus 8-16 hours when I'm tutoring.
I write written scripts (have done two cartoon episodes for The Toons: Where are they now?) and am working on a self help book and a novel. Not to make money but because I like writing. This is usually only a 1-2 hrs a week (averaged over a year)
Because my day job in IT is so senior I don't get to do interesting technical/creative stuff I do little PC setup jobs for friends and write php/mysql apps for friends businesses (currently doing a 1.5TB image management and workflow system). This is about 10hrs a week at the moment.
I'm also developing some self help workshops which I hope to start running early next year. This takes 2-3 hrs a week (at the moment).
This is on top of my 50hr a week job, a wife and 4 children. I do as much extra stuff as I can after everyone else is in bed (eg 10pm onwards) and sleep about 5 hrs a night (with the occassional 10hr night to catch up).
The idea is to develop paying work that has a very high hourly rate so I can work less hours. The share trading is best, earning several hundred dollars an hour and in future for the same effort this will increase as profits are simpy reinvested and not consumed. Secondly the counselling is experience towards doing the workshops, where you can charge 30 ppl $200 for a weekend workshop (16hrs) to give a similar hourly rate (minus overheads and prep time).
Currently all this augments my income by about 30% (up from 10% last year) so I'm on track to retire within 5 years.
I also used to play in a band (did 3 albums) which was an aweful lot of fun but an aweful waste of time. Once kids came along that something had to give!
The best way to relax is playing with the kids, programming and writing (for me at least).
I still toss around ideas of high tech startups (I had one in the late 90s with angel funding but we never got to the big venture capital stage) but nothing is as assured as 1) value investing with shares, and 2) a 9-5 job.
If money and creating spare time weren't a concern I would probably just counsel people and write, but I wouldn't make a good living out of it (well, I might but it's unlikely - I'm not abuot to plan on an improbably income stream when I have a mortgage and kids!).
pithy comment
Heh, and you wouldnt believe the funny stories you can hear in the break room. :)
What goes around comes around, kid.
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
In cahoots with my partner, who's animal-crazy, we made PetRescue (Australia only).
:)
This site has been overwhelmingly successful in the little-over-3-months of operation so far, and we've since turned it into a non-profit organisation whose goal is to help rehome shelter animals in Australia, and provide education to the public.
Do I get a cent for this? No. But I *do* get a great feeling knowing that I'm personally helping animals find new homes, rather than being put to sleep.
Also, the attraction of your SO saying, "No no, I'll cook dinner/do the dishes/iron, you do some more programming on my website - can I get you another beer?" - yea, that's pretty great
Sometimes it is a nice break from IT stuff to build a fence, paint the house, make some cabinets, or do other work you might have spent money hiring out.
Don't laugh, "home improvement" is high on the list of many hobbies - and it can save you money for those times you are out of work - or vacations, or retirement. If you don't have it you don't have as many options.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
In my spare time, I'm attempting to get my Masters of Divinity and when the preacher goes on vacation or goes somewhere for continued education I get to fill in for that Sunday. It earns me about $100 per Sunday and really helps out with the bills for seminary. A lot of the parishoners really like the progressive edge I put on many of the sermons. No hell and damnation from me (except for multinationals like Monsanto).
I also teach a CS class at the college I work full time for each semester. My classes are usually not that big but we get to cover really fun stuff like DB design, Networking/Internetworking, System Administration Skills, etc. And it's always nice to see that check at the end of the semester.
-- Slackware Geek
Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy. - Robert Heinlein
Talk about pretending. Last I checked Hawaii wasn't invaded and ball-stomped by the USA to become a state.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
With the small town I'm in, they need all the help they can get.
So, by day(and night) I'm a not so mild mannered computer geek; while by night (and day) I run into burning buildings.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
to be honest, i could probably live happily without touching a box at all outside of my 9-5. i do however do a great deal of side work, mainly web scripting for people that want dynamic sites to do whatever. i also do onsite computer/networking work for $50/hr using only word of mouth for advertising. my side work yearly income is somewhere around 15k so far this year, so im not doing too bad. and no, i was smart enough to NOT sign any non-competes...
I go to nut houses's and see how the sane people live. Then I come home and make jewelry...true story !! Really
Danger Will Robinson! You are now entering a condescending Unix user zone!
If there were a moderation choice for "Sick and Wrong," I'd be all over you. Nasty! :-)
Dear Mr Bush,
s /ch.html) - "mainland China" - who asserted sovereignty over Tibet, not Taiwan, (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos /tw.html), which is an island off the south east coast of PRC. Thank you for the clarification. We must have overlooked the invasion of the mainland while we were looking for those pesky weapons of mass destruction.
We, the authors of the CIA World Fact Book, were under the mistaken belief that it was the People's Republic Of China (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geo
We've got a small favor to ask - can you state that Palestine and Israel are in fact several thousand miles apart, and thereby ending one Middle East conflict? Oh, and the Department of Defence would like to know if you could move Iraq and Afganistan to a more temperate climate, and prefeably to somewhere where the transport costs are lower.
We have also liaised with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taiwan pn your behalf, and report that the translation the speaker was looking for in that awkward silence was "idiot."
Thanks.
what won't I do for a little side money?
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
When I'm not slinging software, I cook at a local restaurant. It balances me out and makes me very popular in the office when i bring goodies in for the office parties.
I'm here for the experience, not the Hyperbole.
I spend my winter months making extra money as a professional ski patroller at Eldora Mountain Resort in Nederland, Colorado. The summer time I have traditionally worked in Forestry as a wildland sawyer. The sawyering ended this past year with a back injury, so I'm having to concentrate more on my IT skills.
Sounds weird eh? But in ca-naa-dee-a, you have to be able to be flexable. I cut wires at work and then cut trees at work, they're along the same lines...kinda
: : brnadwashed : :
it's nice to have something tangible at the end of the day, instead of just moving around ones and zeros. an analog ying to my digital yang. er, wait, that doesn't sound quite right.
if your hypasensativ
e to erurs?
Male Gigalo.... but the benefits suck.
most mucisians aren't always playing or thinking about music
Spoken like someone who doesn't know many musicians. No, I don't spend all my time doing something music related, but most of the time I am.
That said, being a musician is a lot different from working in an office.
Help I'm a rock.
My weekend hobby is being a gearhead.
I used to rebuild car/motorcycle/marine/industrial engines for a living... and my personal car ran like crap.
Mainly cause I knew exactly what the problem was, and how serious it would be if I didn't fix it..
I'll have to say as a system admin, I now rarely check my email on the weekend and my car runs like a champ. I spend almost every weekend tweaking something to my liking, or on a junkyard hunt to pimp a friend's ride.
What really sucks, is the more people know I can fix both computers and cars, the less weekends I get to myself!
The more I know, the stupider I need to act!
Things the I.T. department hears all the time, the proctologist never does:
....makes me want to fire up the mp3 player and replay 'colo-rectal-surgeon' all over again. Think of it in terms of I.T.
Ya know, things have been running a bit slow lately. I don't think things are going as well or as quickly as they should. Do you think you could maybe grab the gloves and come on over and take a look? Maybe you can get things going a little bit faster for me?
.... transvestigations ....
Bitter and proud of it.
while you're at it, learn a little bit about the history of hawaii. while the situations are of course different, there are quite a large number of parallels to Tibet. Unarguable is that the overthrow of Liliuokalani was illegal and unwanted by the native populace, and that hawaiian culture has become a tourist shell of its former self in the aftermath.
Don't let my talk about hawaii distract from the main point, though, which is that the free tibet movement is much sizzle, little steak. Look, I am no fan of the Chinese Communists, but to claim that Tibet was ideal or even significantly better before they moved in simply does not mesh with reality.
Well, I hold down several. Fulltime at O-CuK (s'Marci here by the way), then freelance live sound engineer for StarSound PA Hire, organise live music festivals, run my own recording studio, bit of HVAC here n there for the prommi owners, and webhosting.
:(
The IT industry alone just can't sustain me n my family
I contribute to QuipWire along with fellow programmers. It's nice to have an outlet.
QuipWire.com
In addition, I do coding work on the side, graphic art...and sometimes even construction.
So what? I clean up my families and friends computers whenever they need it. The only condition? I do it on my time, it could take weeks, it could take days I don't really care I'll just get around to it when I feel like it.
If they want an imediate fix they can pay someone for it.
it means compile and link a system of SW components.
I get paid to do that.
2nd most profitable thing I do is also "build"
I have made some money doing small commercial space
renovations but I have saved serious money
designing, building and improving my own house. General contractors mark up the cost 20%...I put that in my pocket. Electrical contractors mark up the job 40%...I put that in my pocket. Too bad I cant get a plumber's licence.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Got my license 7 years ago. I moonlight sometimes in a local warehouse. Also nice to know it's a way I could get money if this IT thing ever totally falls through.
All's true that is mistrusted
I spam. JK.
Of course he is speechless. You should at least get your international facts right before going out and embrassing yourself.
It is China who is contesting over Tibet... NOT Taiwan.
That's for me perfectly OK: no work at home. But then the flipside is that at work there should be no browsing of Expedia, calling the plumber, booking the dentist, solving your parking ticket, etc. I'm 100% fine with that, and spend your evening time on your music, etc. Myself, I'm different, when that's most efficient, I will solve private issues also at work. But then I don't mind to finish a report, write a proposal, check my business email or whatever work related stuff after 8 PM.
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
Especially around the holidays when I see more of them, I have constant side work.
*DrugCheese rants*
Although technically not IT, i do serve as the sys admin at my local volunteer ambulance and work as a medic and driver there as well. but mostly i work as a bartender. As a MS student if i never got out of the lab and interacted with some real people, I probably would have thrown myself down a flight of stairs long ago.
My side job is purposefully different from my work. I referee ice hockey and inline hockey. The pay is pretty decent, $10 to $50+ for a one hour game, depending on the level of play, league, and location. Plus, you get some exercise, meet new people outside of IT/CS, and get to teach new players how to play the game.
Up front costs do stink a little if you start from scratch, $200-$300 is typical for all new gear and 1st year registration. But that's deductible, and if you referee a few games per month, you're back in the black pretty quickly.
I have also performed freelance home computer services, but playing & refereeing hockey have generally been more fun and better for my % body fat.
I started writing book reviews for a library association magazine. I hope to branch out further in that field in the near future and even write a book of my own soon.
Once you tell people you are work with computers, you become their personal computer technician when their Windows machines get clogged up by spyware. You could just charge for it.
Erm, you mean like slipping Mom a few extra scrips for antibiotics and narcotics that has like 99 refills?
i tattoo and pierce for side work.
"PLEASE READ (-- in HUGE letters)"
Heh. No kidding. I once sysop'ed on a BBS. The old, dial-up kind, not the new, web kind. When "ANSI graphics" meant "colored text". Anyway, we had this one popular game, with a couple different variations, and some non-obvious rules. So we gave it a menu screen all its own, with a "Read Me" kind of option set apart at the top of the menu. It was labeled something like "Important information about this game". Next to that, in blinking-yellow-on-black text, was the phrase "Read This!!!".
At least once a month, I would answer a tech support request with the form letter:
You need to read the "Important information" file on that game's menu. It's the option with the blinking yellow "Read This" next to it.
It's amazing how people have brains which are so much more capable then these dumb computers, and yet still manage to be dumber then the computers.
*sigh*
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Although I spend my days writing software for a telco, I also run a development company on the side. I have contractors doing most of the work, allowing me to focus some spare time on open source projects. It ain't much, but better to paticipate some than not at all.
I may or may not sell ecstasy, shrooms, acid, and designer phenethylamines and tryptamines.
My family would have to pay me to show up for thanksgiving or christmas or what have you. Actually, scratch that, they don't have enough money to make it bearable.
Ok, I feel inadequate. How much for those counseling services?
Quack, quack.
I agree with you. That's why I was up at 3:30am this morning logged into our VPN and upgrading a system off the clock. So there is a trade off. But for me, I like to keep work and private life as seperate as possible.
I'm a high school football official. Ya I already said that.
By day I do good. By night I do evil.
At least you've got some balance there.
I have learned that until you are the one person keeping someone's computer alive, you never really completely control or own that person.
I think I'll keep that one as the quote of the month for slashdot.
I'm a keyboard player, have some music out on the radio and XM. Been playing for about 20 years or so and love it. Not much time to play lately with all of the side programming projects I have on the go.
my geeklog
One way to get out of it is to go to your employer and tell them that you want to increase your skillset by doing some work for a non-profit organization, and that you want to make sure the non-profit isn't exposed to any additinal legal problems. Use that as an excuse to modify the contract, you can even sweeten it by telling your employer that you are willing to assign them non-exclusive rights to your code upon request. Not many employers will give you a hastle about doing community volunteer work. That way, you have a couple of outs:
1) As long as they don't request it, you don't have to assign them anything (and even if they do make the request, the rights are "non-exclusive").
2) If the contract is worded to allow you to do volunteer your time to non-profits, then keep in mind that the FSF is a registered non-profit.
I recently developed an appreciation for photography. I picked up a nice Nikon D70 and an Alien bees lighting system. A few beers persuaded my friends to set up a small studio on one of my garages. Now, I do photography for local escorts and exotic dancers in and around my area.
I find it to be both creative and rewarding.
Maybe that's because you have never checked. Hawii was invaded and "ball-stomped" by the USA to become a state.
I have played music (primarily piano) since I was a kid, but over the past 6-7 years, it has proven to be an enjoyable side job/second income. I play out several times a week .. I know many other musicians so during crunch times, I can sub out to someone else. I've actually been surprised at the number of other IT guys who are fantastic musicians.
Oh give me a break! I DO Meta Moderate SlashDot and I do it A LOT! :-) And it most certainly does feel like a second job! (Although the pay isn't all that great) :-P
:-) I finally got my wife to agree that I needed my own static IP address (instead of trying to set things up at some other site), got my router set up, webserver (Apache! via Linux) set up, and am beginning to get everything ready for the launch date (I can only say soon presently). Anyway, if the Troll patrol requires a sensible response here is one. Most of my other time is spent helping out on various OSS projects under other names as well as volunteering to help out a lot of other people I call friends. (Especially the over 70 crowd whom a lot of people seem to have decided to abandon.)
Ok! If you want a sensible reply - I'm working on my own RPG game (soon to be at www.sim1.us <-plug!) as well as a couple of other programs I've been working on for a year or two (in my copious amounts of time).
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
Well I consider it a trade of sorts....
:-)
For example, my Dad is a lawyer and a damn good one. I fix his computer for free no questions asked. When some big bad corporate bully comes picking on me for no apparent reason (aka a big overcharge on a bill or a denied insurance claim), I turn my dad on them, think of it as an M1A1 Abrams handling the big bad bully...in the end it all works out I think
...in bed
It doesn't really provide a lot of income, but occasionally on weekends I work as a monorail driver at Disney World. Not many more things in life are as cool as getting paid to play with a 70-ton electric train set. :-) It's not all driving - there's a lot of platform work, and dealing with the tourists can sometimes be a PITA, but in general I enjoy it, especially come summertime when the scantily-clad Brazilian girls start visiting the parks...
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
oh yes, because the middle east conflict would instantly be over if the US decided they are seperate countries.
It doesn't hurt to attempt negotiation. When I started talking to the company that I work for now I noticed a clause that I didn't care for. They wanted EVERY thing I did while being employed by the company to be their property. Naturally, that just didn't sit well with me. So I asked if it would be reasonable for the contract to be changed to treat projects I worked on during my own time using my own resources and wasn't work-related as my own and to keep stuff I work on expressly for work using company resources to be property of the company. They agreed to this and it's in my contract now. I'll probably pay the company if I need to use any of their resources to insulate myself from any conflicts with this. I'll see how it goes. Just remember that negotiation is always an option. They might just respect you for it.
I prefer a void in conversation to a vacuous one.
Dinner, a good long talk with me grandma, the customary "slip me some money if ya want" line, ect. The main thing is to learn to fix problems properly. Everyone in my family runs win2k with a firewall, 2 virus scanners and 3 adware scanners, with instructions to remove anything as it identifies, update once a week, scan every few days, ect. They've all got win2k cd's, instructions on how to install it, ect ect ect. I get a question, out of the 10 or so people in my family, about once every 2 weeks. Some are simple; "hey, how do I copy n' paste again?". Others are them reading errors to me over the phone. Written instructions are awesome, and if they lose it, you can scold them.
The worst thing is system builds. God does not like giving me working hardware, stores, shipped, don't matter. Sometimes hardware errors border on bizzare; I had a bios halfway kill the I/O alingment on a harddisk drive, needed a low level format. The thing would boot, it'd work fine, it'd stre and retrieve data, then bsod the box. Then there's a deluge of questions: what's this sound? That the new bigass fan...
Candy-Coated Knowledge
I used to use a single box for everything at home. Pentium 133, with 128MB of ram. It was my jukebox, firewall, mailserver, database server, web server, etc. Worked fine, but I didn't like having a single point of failure.
These days, that box *was* my mail server (just now replaced it with a P2 550), and I have a separate firewall, and 'everything else' server (PIII ... forget the speed). The 'everything else' box is hooked to the tv, and has web browsing, Xine, Xmms, and such. (I'm too lazy to build a real mythtv box :) In addition it is doing dhcp, mysql, apache, etc.
Right now, I am using a P75 with 16MB of ram as a smoothwall firewall (that will be the P133's new function), and of course the other two servers I mentioned.
So, yeah, I know what you mean about older hardware. It's great being able to use it. Heck the stuff I have is way overpowered for the amount of work it has to do (watching videos being the exception).
I also own a Toshiba Libretto...now that thing is 'low power'. I have it overclocked to 266MHz, and it can play Mpeg-1 videos pretty well. It runs firefox respectably too. The real bottlenecks seem to be the non-DMA drive in it, and the 64MByte memory limit. But it is a great little box to use as a car jukebox, wireless stumbler, photo repository, and browser when I need it. I put a 20Gig drive in it, and partitioned the LVM so that I can still hibernate it (the bios dumps hibernation right at the 4 Gig mark).
Manho.
I'm a biology professor/scientist by day, and an IT specialist "on the side", but the IT stuff is often more fun and more remunerative.
I contract full-time (IE i sit around waiting for someone to phone me with work) For side work i run my own computer repair business, hey it's what i know best! And as an added extra i bought a Masonic Temple and am renovating it to be my house, so i need to do everything as i'm on a tight budget, i know something about the building trade as i grew up in a working family, building, bar work and generally get your Sh1T dirty work!, my next big project is electrical wiring in the place, not my most favorite of subjects, i don't like the idea of getting a shock!!! So in answer whatever it takes to get a buck my son!
You mean- that's not the way it works???!!??
For a while I was a trail guide on the weekends. I would spend 8 hours in the saddle taking out tourists in a very beautiful forest (Kids, don't try this at home! I'm a trained professional!).
:(
I didn't do it for the money. In fact, I normally gave my tips to the other trail guides since my regular tech job paid extremely well while the income for the full time trail guides was rather meager. I did it to get away from computers, get some saddle time, and for the exercise (yes, horseback riding is good exercise).
Unfortunately, I've since moved too far from the trails to go there regularly and I can no longer afford to lease a horse due to the tech crash (I was laid off). So now my saddle sits in the living room gathering dust (all serious riders own their own saddles).
-- Will program for bandwidth
I was a physician on the side. Geek work came to rule my life from Windows NT, 2000, Server 2003 to Linux, Unix, and even Mac OSX. Graphics to security, I did it all. And best of all I got paid and didn't have to file an insurance claim and wait months to be paid, have claims denied, asked for reports, and had to deal with different rules. Of course every operating system and even program had different rules. But there was the possibility of open source - no open source with insurance company rulz.... one big black box.
Now, with out-sourcing overseas - it is back to being a physician again....but of course the internet draws me back here......
Depends on whether that "Won't Agree" is on the contract itself, or the non-compete/non-disclosure/invention-release side agreement. If it's all one big contract, Mr. Won't probably has a problem. However, at my last couple jobs it's been lots of separate codicils to the main contract.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
My girlfriend's dad is a highly skilled plumber - he was hired at the nuclear power plant for some special work there. He definitely knows what he's doing.
Nonetheless, when the pipes freeze or a toilet clogs, he, without fail, always calls someone else to do it.
nm
I'm a western man living in Beijing. Westerners are often used here as foreign experts in TV commercials to lend some additional semblance of credibility to the product pitch. I have played a doctor, an Australian scientist, and suit & tie businessmen. Products have included breast enlargement kits, hi-tech underwear, and chinese herbal medicine (the Strong Bones Particles of Six Flavors). Usually I just have to mouth some words because they'll do a voiceover in Chinese later, but occasionally I have to speak - and translate very bad English into something a real person might actually say. Its not very lucrative but it is diverting.
The way I.T. pays, it is the side job. My main gig is cleaning septic tanks, grease traps, and medical waste recepticals; they haven't figured out how to outsource these to Bangalore yet. After hours, I maintain a realtime embedded operating system for interplanetary probes, which allows me a little extra cash.
I help people setup aquariums. It's more a hobby.
1. consult
2. confuse
3. continue
Get your torrents...
Looks like you do everyting
It's not only a hobby, but sometimes it even pays for Xmas presents :) I wish I could do it full time, but it would require a substantial amount of contract work to build life-size sculptures and mosiacs.
Eric Harshbarger is one lucky dude.
1. Do something for money
2. Keep your books (income/expenses)
3. File an Form SE, Schedule C and add to your 1040.
Done.
I require them to make a $25 donation to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. They can use the receipt in email as proof.
That way they don't feel like I'm just trying to make a buck off them, and I feel more inspired to actually do a decent job of solving their problem. Plus it help out a good cause.
Mind you- I don't consider some basic stuff as "above and beyond".. Eg: configuring outlook for someones IMAP server &etc. Cleaning off adware / viruses definitely warrants a donation- and a short lesson in "what not do to on the Internet."
Designing communications systems is one thing but taking pics of a model wearing a 'Real Boobs Rock' Tee is way more fun. Scroll down at http://www.mavericks.co.nz/mavericks/index.php?mai n_page=product_info&products_id=134 to see the results.
We use Zen Cart software and sell mainly offensive Tees and some geeks ones at http://www.mavericks.co.nz/. Don't make much money but it's fun !
WARNING: Please do not visit site if your are easily offended !
Surprised to not see a mention of selling Everquest items / chars on Ebay.
then do something like mcdonalds as the sidejob if you really want that. or do stuff that doesn't involve actually turning on the computer like hw installations and such. or hell, learn to be a plumber - but you must have had your reasons already before to choose computers as the career.. if you didn't have any other reasons than "well, it seems trendy and stable" then you're kind of already lost the battle of enjoying it.
generally though, if you do stuff you have expertise on you'll have bigger chances of raising more money - and if you're a computer expert of some kind it generally involves computers in one way or another. and for me still at least what matters more in the 'annoying' grader is _what_ i'm doing on the computer, not purely if i'm _on_ a computer, but then again I use it for work as well as the main means of always available home entertainment(games, tv, whatever).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Fortunately my IT job is with the state, which allows me state hours and state benefits, not to mention state job security--woo hoo! I have a few regular clients who enlist my IT services on an irregular basis, which earns me about double my usual wage.
But my fun job is mixing live sound for bands, nightclubs, and sound companies. I've always been a wire and sound nut, and with a steady IT job, I can actually make my pin money by playing with knobs and faders. So, (warning: shameless plug ahead) if you're in the Madison, WI / Milwaukee / Chicago / Minneapolis area and are looking for somebody to do sound competently, please look me up at http://www.sound-wire.com/.
Things the I.T. department hears all the time, the proctologist never does:
hehe, I always wonder where proctologists come from, because who in their right mind would choose a career where you would be constantly required to peer at and finger poke the arseholes of strangers?
Good lord, they must be even more demented than dentists!
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
This got me to thinking. What do people in the IT field do for side jobs?
So let me get this strait: You have free time?
Ya right. Your just like the rest of us white collard engineers and you have no free time. In the hoplessness and despair of your situation you post a seemingly innocent 'Ask Slashdot' hoping to get pointers as if "No, its not for me, I just wondered what you all did".
But really, you have free time?
Assuming its true, then I would recommend anything that has nothing to do with your current occupation, otherwise you will simply be working a double shift, just with different locale, and you will burn out all that much quicker.
Have you ever thought about bartending?
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
I agree.
I know if I had a guitar (particularly an acustic) I would make time to play it dispite knowing my skills in it would never be outstanding. It's still enjoyable and a nice release of whatever's in me at the time.
My computer can't always do that for me. It's a tool I work on all day, but I still find things to do on it in the evening: some of it (*cough*) "work" and some (most) of it "play."
In the end, the nice part is: I get to daily go somewhere and get paid for something I enjoy.
I teach Chess. I get to meet people who tend to be in the IT field (networking), and I make a decent hourly wage. What could be better?
Email me at paolodm*at*umd.edu if you are interested.
I have my father convinced PEBKAC is a legitmate computer virus.
Him: "Uh, you wanna come over and take a look at my PC."
Me: "Why? Whats Up?"
Him: "I think I have another PEBKAC on my PC again."
Me: "Were you looking at email from people you didnt know and opening attachments?"
Him: "I can't remember. Just come over and take a look"
Me: "Sounds like a PEBKAC issue."
Him: "That is what I'm thinking too."
who in their right mind would choose a career where you would be constantly required to peer at and finger poke the arseholes of strangers?
And strangers' is worse than friends' and family's in what way?
Is your girlfriend's name Lisa by any chance? I think I know this family.
A side job? I dont understand.. But I work at EA.
Slartibartfast:"Is that your robot?"
Marvin:"No, I'm mine."
I referee amateur ice hockey when I'm not doing support and helping the developers. It's a great way to work out, be a part of the sport I love, and get paid! I worked 176 games last year, and made enough to get myself some toys I'd been wanting (new laptop, etc.)
What really sucks, is the more people know I can fix both computers and cars, the less weekends I get to myself!
Since you're an AC, you'll probably never read this. And since I'm an AC, I'll probably never see your response.
But I think I KNOW you man! You work at a web hosting company in the midwest and have been trying to learn to airbrush!
I know it's you!
For a side job, I used to teach seniors how to use their computers
:)
I would have come over to their house for about 2-3 hours every other weekend. I was paid $20/hr to teach 2 seniors how to use Windows, Word, and how to get online and avoid getting viruses / spyware.
They were very pleasant to work with and it made me feel good helping them learn how to use their computer.
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
yes, it's true, I am a "scum sucking bottom feeder." lol. I'm currently attending as a student and also working half-time in the school's IT dept. developing the school website at a below-market but not unreasonable hourly rate. It's a nice, stable monthly check that basically takes care of my expenses other than tuition. On the side, I do more profitable misc. projects for people who need websites done or other design work. When I get in a check from those projects I just treat it like bonus money and end up spending it on hardware, clothes, car stuff, even dress shoes. A law professor at school saw my biz card on my office door and hired me to do her new edition book cover. Other professors who self-publish are interested as well. There's no substitute for word of mouth, but craigslist gigs section is a good place to start. Unfortunately almost all of those are "I was hoping to get it done for free" (i.e. clueless) people posting. Many of us in this thread are probably at the point where we can turn down projects that aren't "just right" since we're not depending on that money to subsist.
if you have a stable 9-5 and some knowledge of web dev, try hiring a couple of college students part time to do larger side projects that you find. After saving some moderate amount of money you can get into property management (borrow to buy an apartment building, then pay the loan with the rent money from tenants), or even open your own dive bar in a college town (my dream). All the skills you get in the side businesses help in your regular job too-- managing people or money, getting things done, handling problems, and so on. The great thing about running small businesses is that everything you make is yours, and you can make a lot of extra cash in the right business. The great thing about law school is it's fairly empowering. You know how to solve big problems.
I think the absolute worst tech support aside from AOL or Dell has got to be college/graduate school computer help. Often the law students are from fairly privileged families where the standard op. procedure was to call a contractor to fix every little problem at home rather than trying to get things done themselves. So you have a lot of people coming in FRANTIC and DEMANDING that you fix their computer problems right that second. I would say "sorry, drop-in tech support hours are wednesdays 3:30-5" and the typical response is "but it's an EMERGENCY!!!!" yeah. I've never heard that one before. asshole. I have nothing but contempt for the vast majority of my classmates. Yes, these people will soon be the ones you despise oh-so-justifiably. It's nice to have that quiet confidence of being able to fix things yourself, which is one attribute of a successful lawyer. So I got that going for me, which is nice.
Some people at school made the jump from IT to law school thinking they'd be "marketable" to the intellectual property law firms that run rackets in IP litigation. They're probably right, but I'm not sure if they'll be able to look in the mirror at the end of the day. Those places often require a CS/E degree. Many private law schools have a night program, so maybe you can do your IT day job and attend law school at night, though it does take 4 years....
... selling my body?
Its not hard to teach one or two IT seminars a month, I teach a class on php/mysql in LA at rgb computing, it keeps me on my toes because students constantly come with new questions.
During the festive season I try to get work at one of the many festivals going on around the country... I've done lighting and stage work at Global Carnival and this year I'm working as a bar cashier at the Woodford Folk Festival... usually only earn a ticket and camping... but it's a good way to get to see lots of great acts for not much... I also do the usual tech support for the family and friends in exchange for beer or food :)
I work part time as a paramedic. I agree with most posters, after 50-60 hours a week of startup grind the last thing I want to do is IT or programming for someone else. What little spare energy I have goes into my personal bits for myself.
Being a paramedic is everything IT is not - lot's of people interaction, some physical labor, outside time. It's also personally rewarding in a way that programming isn't. I've never been applauded for my work as a programmer, something I have had happen a few times as a medic. I've also never been offered a blow job as a programmer, but I have been a few times as a medic. As a married and ethical man I do not require applause nor accept the blow jobs but as a human being and a terminal male I appreciate the consideration present in both.
I originally became a medic because a bit of volunteering as an EMT showed me I loved the work and I thought that (as my plans were at the time) that the medic job would provide a salary baseline and benefits when consulting wore thin. Well - the bubble burst and I'm an employee again but I keep up the medic because it's a perfect escape from the office and if things really go south it's one job I know they _can't_ ship to India.
The wages are not great but when you can work a 24 hour shift and get paid 24 hours for one calendar day it does add up even for a few days a month enough for even an overpaid technoweenie like me to notice.
After 15 years in the development trenches I would love to work full time as a medic and have the energy to expend my skills part time on programming but then I couldn't afford a new GeForce 6600 or flying as often. I also like not sweating that I'm getting the $4 latte instead of the $1.25 cup of joe, something most full time medics have to worry about.
At some point I may make the trade of money versus time for lifestyle as we achieve certain financial goals, but for now it works as is.
Actually, I do spend a GREAT deal of my time thinking about music. Being a grad student has all but eliminated my music practice time, but I still find my mind perpetually flooded by some sort of beat or melody, and I'm always tapping my hands and fingers to whatever internal beat I've got in my head. Maybe I'm just neurotic.
As an aside, I too earn my bread by programming, and yet I find myself inexplicably drawn to sitting at the god-forsaken boxes for nearly every waking hour of my life (lately because of research papers and the like). In this case, I think my passion towards computers is a passionate hatred. Grad school sucks.
I was up at 3:30am this morning logged into our VPN and upgrading a system >
:-) And I can imagine that when you are sysadmin at SCO, you don't want to touch any computer anymore in the evening....
OK, OK, I know it: You must be working for SCO, starting early to get that decament from the site.
Sorry, couldn't resist, nothing personal, and you work of course completely somewhere else.
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
We write our own software, give it away for free and just live for all the users who give you good reviews and occasionally pity donations. http://www.merkinawards.com/passwordprotection/
I work as a boy toy for lonely women of all ages.
Looks like it is time to replace your Personality Module. You are a bit to clingy, guess I better replace your fuser to
The OP is claiming that Taiwan treats Tibet as part of China.
S/he was questioning the Taiwanese politician about this policy of Taiwan's.
Maybe not, but it would certainly help if they were SEPERATED countries.
Wow, it sucks to work there. All I had to sign was a paper saying that what I created on the clock and with their resources was theirs (which is perfectly reasonable IMHO).
And even with that, I have been able to get some things open sourced.
I would never take a job that claimed ownership on everything I do unless they are paying me for everything I do (hourly that works out to about 16 hour days, I'll take that overtime)
Finkployd
gardening? legal work? carpentry? painting? massage?
After a day of IT, plus the nights and weekends of "voluteer" work, I would think some real work would be in order.
Then don't do it. Hopefully no one has a gun to your head.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
My side job is writing/directing/producing independent film (my production company). Actually, I maxed out my credit cards making my last film, and so my day job as a web developer is actually supporting my film-making, but hopefully in the future it will start paying for itself. I love to program, but right hemisphere of my brain needs its playtime too! Actually, I've found that my computer science background carries over well to screenwriting: each scene is a module with pre-conditions and post-conditions.
I do two types of side jobs. One the exorcism of individuals and of properties which includes items, pets, house, buildings, grounds (above and below).
This includes negative thoughtforms, negative energies, negative entities, and about 200 other things.
I charge $20 per person or property. I get emails from people all over the world for this type of work.
As an example, one individual was in a state mental institute for three months and on heavy medication for schizophrenia... I did a clearing on him as he was possessed by hundreds of entities and now his life is normal, living a typical life without meds.
Secondly I work directly with individuals to assist them in working through emotional issues. It is not hynotherapy, rather the individual goes into an altered state of consciousness and they are shown via a movie in their mind.. just as if it is a daydream only the client has total consciousness as it is occurring. The movie lets them see and sense the truth and the issue falls away.
As an example, a person may have a fear of dogs and be shown in the movie that a memory is present of being killed by a pack of wolves in the distant past. Whether this is a past life, a shared embedded memory, or a pseudo lifetime in not known nor is it important to know exactly for the healing takes place regardless.
Typically a session lasts 3 hours and I charge $200 per session.
Many individuals believe that all physical illness with the body are emotionally or mentally created. I have seen some very remarkable physical healing take place once the emotional issue is resolved.
I find that I am doing less and less computer related things and assisting humanity more in these ways.
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
's not like that.
I remember an interesting story in Kim Stanley Robinson's "The Martians" that was autobiographical in nature, where he talked about the book, complaining about how he was very much past ready for it to be done.
In "The Salmon of Doubt," Douglas Adams talked about the weird sort of things he would do in order to avoid sitting down and actually writing.
Neither of them are the sort of people whom I would say "shouldn't be in the field of writing."
As an interesting aside, I'm writing this solely to avoid finishing up my homework for my programming languages class.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Excellent point!
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
IT at school, go to school, the work at blockbuster as a manager part time for the free rentals. Woohoo :)
see sig. see sig run. run sig run.
S/he was questioning the Taiwanese politician about this policy of Taiwan's.
Then he might as well have stood up during the Cartoon Council and demanded that the Mayor of Toon Town explain his fiefdom's assertion that Tibet is part of the PRC, for all the relevance it has. Who the fuck cares what Taiwan thinks of Tibet, since their position on the subject is unlikely to get the PRC troops out. Really, he seems rather smug for having accomplished something so pointless. But (as with so many activists) he seems to be more concerned with looking like he cares than actually doing anything useful.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Myself and pretty much all of my IT friends all seem to play in one band or another.
Oh, wait.. you said *make money* on the side... forget it!
TODO: come up with a clever sig
Wow, you sure fight the good fight, doncha'! I bet the PRC, who doesn't even acknowledge that Taiwan is a sovreign nation, is one step closer to leaving Tibet now that you've confronted the Taiwanese MFA!
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Currently, we are being blamed for many things that are going wrong with our corporate XP rollout. We have nothing to do with desktops. Nada!
This has been achieved by one of our staff sending out *one* broadcast email explaining how a particular hardware procurement issue was nothing to do with us, and explaining who to contact. Because this was (I now presume) the only informative email on the XP rollout, we started getting more questions about it. The more vigorously we denied having anything thing to do with the XP rollout, the more questions we got.
People never read email or signs, they just file away the contact details so they have someone to vent spleen on.
All very Python or Dilbert or something. Sigh...
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Way back when, I decided to join the Army National Guard. I thought it would be fun to have a non-comupter related 'side job'. I was a tanker (M1 series tanks). It's a lot of fun, you can learn a lot of essential skills. Unfortunately... I've been away from my job for over a year already, and I've got another 4 months in Iraq before we even start to head home.
My skills are crumbling, I'm not able to keep up on new technology, basically I feel like the world is passing me by. Be very careful before you join the military. It seems like a good idea, but remember that they can call you up for something like this. (By the way, being a linguist, or a cook, or a CS guy won't help. They will shove you into an infantry slot just because you are a warm body.)
Nathan Brazil?
My early training was in robotics and AI. I served short apprenticeships with both a tool and die machinist and a blacksmith...
When the coding jobs are scarse (mainly because I refuse to get a security clearance) I turn to machine operation, prototype machining, and smithing for fun and profit.
I do the following as "side jobs":
Build PC's (duh)
Rave DJ
Install Custom Car Audio (my profession for 6 years while in college and beyond)
Produce tracks for local rappers
Soon I'll add voiceover/vocal acting and recording artist whenever I actually get up offa my duff to get into them.
Actually, IT IS my side job nowadays. I left IT a few months ago to work as an account executive for a mortgage lender. The competition for jobs is entirely too tough and there aren't enough jobs left unless I want to move the family to India...
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
If only I had mod points, this would get +1
I refuse to do 'tech support' type work, however; even for family members.
I couldn't agree with you more. I spend all day having to fix broken computers, troubleshoot the network, listen to arrogant bitchy lusers, etc. When I am not at work and someone asks me to take a look at their computer I reach for my gun.
I liken it to this. Say you are a cook who loves to cook but you are stuck with a shitty cooks job at Dennys. You get off work and go to a friends house only to hear your friend say "bake me a pie!" That is no different than when I get off work and go to a friends house and they say "fix my computer!"
I do web designs for outside clients, and also get some money off ads in my blog (not much right now, but steadily improving).
Overcaffeinated. Angry geeks.
"I'm just damn glad I didn't choose to be a gynecologist really."
Could be worse. You could be an organ donor.
... lots and lots of pot.
Anyway, my wife is getting me this T-shirt for christmas. We'll see who's cleaning up the spyware after dinner then... :-)
John
I used to work tech support at one of the rare well-managed, worker-respecting tech support places, and fairly frequently we'd get calls about things we don't support. Standard procedure was to refer them to the consulting companies we had deals with. Because of these contracts, our users got good deals from them, but only for major projects, since they'd typically have minimum fees that would be rather exorbitant for the small odd jobs they often needed. We'd often get calls back asking if anyone wanted to drop by for a half hour after work and do whatever the odd job in question was for $30 or so. Our manager actually encouraged this practice, since we were still supporting everything we were supposed to and honoring our contracts, and our users were getting the unsupported odd jobs done that were too small for formal consulting. This required our manager paying attention to make sure we were really doing our jobs properly and not trying to screw our customers, but I believe I already mentioned we had good management.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
"The extra pressure and strain is a good thing in that respect: it gets rid of people that don't do this out of love. "
Finally. Someone who's came up with a good excuse for the people working at EA.
"A few more years and we should be back to where demand exceeds supply just enough to give us more options."
It just will not be in the US of A. But keep up the hope.
Liking working in IT doesn't mean you necessarily like scraping the crudware out of relatives' computers. That's equivalent to saying Bruegel or da Vinci should be overjoyed to paint their brother's house because they're painters.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
The upside is I have 20 something girls shopping for clothes for me (I'm colour blind) and women in their 30s teaching me how to cook.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Not really! But all day long I fantasize that I'm going to RAM my Hard Drive in her USB until her memory leaks and ejects my Floppy.
" Or more accurately, guitar player in a local band selling CDs on the web and online stores like iTunes. And of course not for money, but certainly for the potential of "making it" (and thus making money). But given how long we've been at it such a reality is looking increasingly unrealistic. Though we did make some decent $ a couple of years ago when we were touring."
Hang in there. Those "old business models" will all fail, opening up the floodgates for the "new paradigm" for musicians everywere.*
*No that's not a poke at you. Just all those who come out of the woodwork, every time we have a RIAA/MPAA story.
I work construction, I have a Computer Consulting buisness, and I have contracts with the local Alternate Highschool providing tech support, and I also have a contract to fix the Highschool's driving simulator machines.
Why do so many Math majors confuse Halloween and Christmas? Because Oct 31 is Dec 25
To keep myself sane, I have a flock of wooly sheep and a herd of cows, some chickens, ducks, a barn of cats and some dogs.
I live, eat and breath technology as a self employed PC/Networking geek. My shop is in my home and the phone never stops ringing, so I have to have some place to get away to and "hide".
As much as I am tech, I have never had a PC butt me quite as hard as the Ram and trying to outrun a bull is an adreneline rush that you don't get in the shop, even when a unit goes up in flames!
Installing wireless LANs is my side job. For families sometimes, but mostly small businesses - large enough to want them but small enough not to have the in house skills. Wireless is stupidly complex from the point of view of most non-technical users (especially after they've read almost anything about security), so they're happy to pay me to take care of it for them.
ben_ the technologist and platform agnostic
Though I am not a laryer, I do know how to stay th' course. It is my belief that his actions, that is, his performing his side of the contract, will estop him from denying his agreement. Even if there is no mutual assent per se, a court would likely hold that both parties acted in reliance on the "contract" and the court would estop him from backing out. I'm not sure... this is more Ashcroft's deal, though with him resigning, I have to rely on other laryers to direct me. Or maybe Jeb.
I'm GeorgeWBorscht, and I approved this message.
The Taiwanese voluntarily made Taiwan dependent on mainland China and supports most of Beijing's geopolitical objectives: e.g. Tibet, Spratley Islands, Senkaku Islands, and others.
You tell me about Taiwanese hypocrisy. Let's terminate our relations with Taiwan immediately.
That's why during the day I code and at night I play on my website and hack the living hell out of a known hardware platform
Dare I to ask, when do you sleep?
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
I solved this problem using a very simple principle:
I don't fix computers unless someone specifically asks me to come over to fix the computers. If I'm asked to look at a problem I do, but if it takes more than five minutes to fix I simply say that I'll have to fix it on a separate occation.
Most people are to embarrased to ask me over just for the computer, and when someone actually does I can be prepared (mentally at least).
I took this to the point of telling my parents I won't come over at all if they try to pile their computer issues on me every time I show up. Things have been fine since.
.: Max Romantschuk
I find that after a long day of writing payroll software, I enjoy a night or weekend playing some live METAL!
http://www.endersgametheband.com/
(shameless plug)
- dAv
is worth 2 in the bush.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
What is this free time you speak of? You must tell us more....
i find it take playing around on my computer at home (coding/games/general geekery) to remind me why i enjoy using computers so much, why it was i got into it in the first place.
i have a developers job by day and to say the least it can be a little dry, just not problems i am enthused about tackling. so i feel the need to get involved with oss projects and do stuff on my own to have some fun with programming again.
but i don't want to go fix peoples computers i guess, especially when 99% of them are just malware/worm/virus ridden windows boxes.
"if i'd known it was harmless, i'd have killed it myself"
Since a white collar worker most of the time is paid higher than a blue collar worker, there's no real financial need for a side job (at least where I come from). What I do is write open source software because thats a lot of fun and is a good thing to be listed in the resume
It was an ID-ten-T error.
So you ask them to change the contract, or put specific exceptions in.
Also in some countries they can't not own the copyright on things you do out of company time using non of their resources even if you do sign a bit of paper, Germany for instance.
No contract can sign away your rights, a company does not own you, they employ you, and I for one would attempt to sue a company to oblivion if they tried to claim ownership of something which I created on my own time, using no company resources. I am not a company resource, I am myself.
Work in a vegan cafe.
Ummm... I think he was pointing out that as many in taiwan want independence it is a bit of a double standard to say tibet can't have it too.
But I mean, don't just ask him what he meant... start dissing him out. Stupid myopic american "put-down" culture.
"My attitude toward the whole thing would probably be helped if my mother didn't keep telling me how much she hates the computer I gave her for Christmas last year. All the hardware was failing on her old computer, so I gave her and her partner both refurbished computers for Christmas. All I hear is how much she hates the damned thing."
Hehe, I know what you mean. I had an ex-friend call me at three in the morning. Telling me his computer was broke.
Maybe you can get them a broadband connection. A thin client, and then they can't break anything.
"...or the lightning striking their house after they decided to put the surge protector on their washing machine instead of leaving it on the computer."
Whole house protection is the way to go, and it's not that expensive. Better too.
"If I treated my plumber like that, he would never come to my house again, no matter how much I paid him."
Hey! I'm not taking any more shit from you. Oh wait *flush*
I dj at several clubs, hip hop and downtempo mainly.
the pay sucks, but I'm used to that, and it comes with all the free drinks you can handle. A couple gigs a month pays for buying more records (yeah I got cds and mp3s, but nothing beats vinyl for hands on manipulation)
On extra good nights I get picked up on by drunken girls (and occasionally boys).
I also fix the computers at my girlfriend's work for cash under the table, which also goes to records...
CIA Industries - Running the world for fun and profit
In my Sociology 101 book I found some interesting facts.
When they are at home, blue collar workers don't do anything. They usually watch TV and do small tasks. Thats because their work is so physically hard that they are exhausted when they arrive at home.
White collar workers when at home usually do some hobby unrelated to their actual work. They do some sport or any other hobby.
Managers (or the upper class) usually do the same job when they come home. In a way they do the same job the whole day. That is because their work is not physically demanding so they can work the whole day.
Trolls are like broken clocks. They show the truth two times a day. The rest of the day they talk nonsense.
You wouldn't believe the number of people who, when I worked in nuclear reactor safety, wanted to talk to me about my work in leisure time.
It must be the sleep-deprivation: I was reading "What are people in the IT field doing for *Steve* Jobs?"
>Most people, passionate or not, do want a life.
What do you all mean when you use the term 'life' in these contexts?
Something like interfacing with other people with pointless chat, eating in a restaurant with other people, listening to music, dancing, doing sports, having sex, drinking alcohol, using drugs?
Getting out of the house/office is the key. I do some side jobs photographing events (dance performances, etc) or just landscapes. These jobs dont pay much, but at least cover the cost of photo equipment and upgrades. But the biggest advantage is that I get to be outside of the office/house and change the surroundings. Let my eyes rest, forget about quirks of Eclipse and InetlliJ, and at the end of the day enjoy the results. And to recover from missing the computer, I still have to clean/edit images in Photoshop...
I produce porn movies....
I'm not kidding.
Some of these I do for money, others for self amusement.
I'll let you decide which is which !
Just because I'm a computer tech / Oracle DBA / Unix Geek / Net Admin
for most of the week, doesn't mean that I can't have fun
doing something that doesn't involve a keyboard...
If a friends water line breaks -
Good excuse to rent a Back Hoe, and spend the
weekend playing "Tonka Toys" while tearing
up his front yard, to trace & replace his pipes.
If I've spent too much time smothered in computer code
lately, and feel the need for grease under my fingernails-
there's always something mechanical to be done
like replace those C.V. joints that have worn
out on the car, or change the timing belt,
or replace squeaking brake pads for a quick fix.
If the computers have REALLY gotten on my nerves
then it could result in a complete tear-down
and overhaul of both motorcycles, then new paint!
On the other hand, Carpentry can be a good relaxer
I'm in the middle of building custom kitchen
cabinets for my girlfriend's Mom's house, due
to aggrivation over Cisco "nOtwork" issues.
Just start with the dimensions, and make your
own plans, then uupp out the a table saw, and
combine with creativity & lumber- voila !
With hardly any notice, some of the best stress relief
and "group therapy" I've found, is Dance.
In particular, Contra Dance. See the web site
at www.contradance.org for a good example,
or photos at www.pbase.com/bobbennett/dance
Live bands, 200+ people, all ages from 17 to 70
and a new girl twirling into you arms every
60 seconds or more !
Of course, Swing, waltz, etc. are fun too -
Massage can be fun / theraputic for the masseuse
as well as the one being massaged.
a few years ago, I had been a licensed EMT
ambulance attendant - and later found that
the sam eknowlege of human anatomy was quite
usefull in giving theraputic massage. If you
visualize well, you can just about see all
of the muscles, joints, tendons, and nerves
that you are workign with & around. Go another
step, and you can relax the same muscles in
you own body that you are working through on
someone else's physique.
Hit & Run Home Building (Habitat for Humanity)
If you want to do something good with your spare
time, and work out any frustrations you may have
by pounding on something with a hammer, while
learning something new at the same time-
Then "Habitat" may be for YOU--
Join lots of other people, who take Saturday
and just go build houses for fun. The finished
homes are sold to low income families, who
can get a modest but new home, that included
some of the sweat equity and design of their own!
see: www.habitat.org with more details.
Inventing would have to be one of my favorite creative
hobbies. The ultimate "think outside the box"
brain buzz - where even the box may not yet exist!
Teach yourself to look at the puzzles, challanges,
and shortcomings of the every day world- and
see room for improvement. Decide how that can
be engineered, what is really practical instead
of just dreaming. What are the best design
options for structure, utility, cost, materials
ergonomics, flexibility, manufacturing, etc.
This can be a GROUP activity as well- finding
friends with MANY different backgrounds and talents,
to contribute more perspectives. Decide what
is needed, and how to make it happen !
And YES- my spare time STILL includes learning more
about computers. Extra features to use, new
languages, utilities, hardware, protocol
-- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero
> But I still fix their computers gratis,
> mostly out of pity.
I believe, this is the geeks' downfall and I hope it changes *real soon*: fixing computers for free for whatever reason. Because when others or maybe even yourself at some point want to do it as a (side) business....guess what! People don't want to pay for it! Cuz it's always been done for free, right? So stop doing this, everybody! It hurts *us* as a group. When I bring my car to the mechanic he doesn't do it for free either. So charge (reasonably) for your work and personal time you spend to improve other people's lives in the form of their computers. Barter system is OK too, since that too acknowledges your value.
Oh someone please mod the parent up +1 Funny: I've never had such a good laugh!
pretentious, ignorant and arrogant all in one tasty little posting. Are you by any chance in marketing?
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
I'm a musician. I make music. Some day I'll ditch IT business and concentrate music 100%.
Considering that China is ready to launch attacks on Taiwan as soon as they are given an excuse, the rejection of the One China policy by Taiwan would be very unwise.
How ironic that in going for the tired "Bush is ignorant about the world" sophomoric humor, you demonstrate your own ignorance about the world.
The poster you were responding to is correct in what he said about *Taiwan*. While fighting back the attempts of the mainland to extend their tyranny over them, they yet wholeheartedly approve of Chinese tyranny over Tibet.
The Taiwanese and the Mainland Chinese, you and Bush, your use of "idiot", ah, the ironies are rich....
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
Nonetheless, when the pipes freeze or a toilet clogs, he, without fail, always calls someone else to do it.
Your point being that highly skilled and sucessful people get paid well and can afford to pay other people to do crap jobs, right?
In this world nothing is certain but death, taxes and flawed car analogies.
While I realy enjoy my job, I would not want to spend more time working with IT on the side. My jobs on the side are all ways none IT related. Play folk guitar, Call at Ceilidhs, it's nice to do a side job thats not your day job.
In Soviet Russia, computer turns you on...
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
... Those who can, do. Those who can't, write. Those who can't write, teach.
I teach.
Actually, the saying may have been the other way around (those who can't teach, write) but it sounds better in my case like this.
I also like spending time with my new born son! It doesn't pay much in monetary values but nothing compares to what I gain from that.
I tutor physics at A-level (last years of high-school); I take photographs (for qualifications and for money); I program to make digital art; I consult (software).
Posters recognized by their sig,
On the side, I volunteer my time to the human-rights movement. I do not earn cash, but I earn "good feelings" because I know that what I am doing is right
... well, y'know. ;)
On the side, I volunteer my time to my girlfriend. I do not earn cash, but I get "good feelings" because
your post says it all.
.
although i don't even touch my own computer(s) at home.
my job has grown from a hobby. I still like my job very much, but when i am at home i don't want to think about work.
Only problem i have is that it's difficult to say no
family always ask to fix there problems.
my latest workaround is saying that i have no time.
Oh I don't know, I hear there are some very good openings in proctology.
is such an ugly word. I prefer to call it "specialised small-run design and print services".
..... and have faith that the Old Bill will have easier and more profitable cases to solve.
Without wishing to give away too many techniques, inkjet and laser printers and the Internet have made things really easy for the smalltime forger. 'Cause everyone knows a computer printout must be real, right?
Just be sure and leave enough "air gaps" {like generic ink and dynamic IP addresses} so the trail will go stone cold whichever direction you approach it from
I'm a Loan-Shark Debt Collector. My reason is that a side job should be fun to. Speaking of which, 'Brian, i'm visiting you tomorrow with my bat to collect, just for your convenience, don't bother to gather the cash' ;)
Electricians and many of the vocations listed don't need side jobs unless it's for fun. There's good money as an electrician or a plumber. Often much more so than as an engineer.
After a while, it stopped being a term of insult and just became the term for them.
I think the shedding is nearly over. I've seen a lot of people quitting to do other things, and a lot of genuine folks enduring the bad wages because IT is what they want to do.
I am a plumber, was doing multi million dollar projects by the time is 26, got bored with it, so I became an "IT Guy", funny thing was I made more money as a plumber, now I'm a Estimator for a plumbing company, manage their Web, email, intra, and writing a custom database for internal use.
Now I can show up to your house and clean out your shit or clean out the shit in your computer....
I can handle shit.
Real and Virtual....
Like my daddy always said "....everyone needs to shit, world will always need plumbers."
When ever a buddy or family calls, I always need to find out what kinda "patience" I'm working on, Kinda hard to tell sometimes, they all use the same terms, "Damn thing won't work" , "I just use it" , followed by my question , what did you do before it happened? Kinda the same Logic for both huh?
In other words: because *you* signed a bad employment contract, ALL open source software is illegal.
I don't think so. Some people aren't stupid enough to sign such a thing if they also work on open source software. Try again, troll.
When my mother asks me to fix the computer, if i think its gona take more than an hour I take it to a mate of mine and pay him to do it.
Everyone is happy
Don't learn to spend less
Learn to earn more
Hmmmm... I couldnt disagree with you more. When my family needs computer help, I am more than happy to help them. Everyone has a skill that they can help others with, and mine is computers. I dont love doing the work, but I love the smile they get when they see that their computer is fixed.
I maintain the basic belief that everyone you know (for the most part) is good with something enough to help someone else out. That someone else does not need to be myself, but there are people that can help me as well. For instance, my Dad is really good with cars. When I have car trouble, he is quick to help me. My Mom, well, she carried me around for 3 years or so.
So, when it comes down to it, I like helping. I like being someone that my family can count on to help them, whether it be with computers, or to come get them when they get a flat tire, or to visit them in the hospital.
I understand not wanting to help just anyone with their computer, but your family? Get off your high horse. The chefs in my family cook holiday meals, and love to discuss food with me, a bumbling hobiest cook. When it comes to your family, you can be generous, or you can be stand-offish. I know where I want to be.
How on earth did you manage to inherit enough brains to even compose a post on /.? Talk about a miracle of genetics.
Here's a solution for you:
Buy them a Mac.
If viruses and spyware are the main headache, that should help.
get over your myths
Get over your own.
If Tibet was so miserable before the Chinese "liberated" them, why did the flood of refugees leaving Tibet occur AFTER "liberation"? Your myths are just Chinese propaganda used to excuse China's imperialism. Though the Tibetans had a theocracy, not a democracy, it was still based on things they believed in.
The Chinese invaders simply want to take their land, and are imprisoning, torturing, and killing anyone who tries to stop them. You must be so proud of them.
I speak Chinese, and I picked up a couple of People's Liberation Army soldiers on the road near Mt. Everest in Tibet recently. They were bragging about how they had just managed to capture some poor families trying to escape over the mountains. These soldiers were so proud at how they had hunted down these poor, half-frozen women and children. Real People's Heros.
I asked them if they didn't consider it ironic that they called themselves Jiefang Jun, the "People's Liberation" Army, yet their job was to prevent any hope of liberation. Their answer, not surprisingly, was the same Chinese propaganda coming out of you.
don't try to pretend like it's not one country now
Don't try to pretend it IS one country. It's two: China and Tibet, but Tibet is full of Chinese soldiers ready to imprison and torture anybody who dares say so, so I'll say it for them. If the Tibetans could vote, they would overwhelmingly vote to throw out the Chinese occupiers, but the "Chinese People's Government" doesn't even allow its own people to vote, much less people in neighboring countries that they have invaded.
Your argument that fifty years of occupation makes it one country didn't persuade the Chinese that Hong Kong was British, or that Taiwan after more than 50 years is now an independent country, so why should it make Tibet the property of the Chinese?
It doesn't, and it's not.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
I've commented before about the incompetence and paranoia at my former employer, and having a side job was another touchy subject around the office. Before I was a full-fledged Software Engineer, I was an Associate Software Engineer (no degree), and therefore wasn't earning my full potential. A friend owned a very small company and occasionally had more programming work than he could handle. He asked me to take on a fairly simple job that I completed over a weekend.
The following week, I was called into HR and reminded that I had signed a non-compete clause and that anything that I created was technically the property of . First, I asked who complained (she wasn't at liberty to say, but I knew who), and I said that my work had absolutely nothing to do with the product we manufactured. She said that it didn't matter and I had to sign a piece of paper explaining that if it happened again, I would be fired. However, on this form, there was a comments area that I filled out and explained exactly what the product did, who it was for, and the days that the work was performed on. After reading it, she realized how stupid the whole thing was and tore up the form in front of me to avoid future embarrassment.
------
There's a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can't get away.
My primary Job is front end desktop support for a major university. On the side I do graphic design, web design, and any other odd job I can get a hold of.
I am not an IT person, but rather an Electrical Engineer... I work at a bike shop part time for the hell of it.. the pay is shit, but the discounts are incredible, and it's great fun. The money I save is well worth the time, and I get to meet lots of people. No complaints here..
You know, not everyone got a "damn good lawyer" as parent.
I'd even guess, since he's a lawyer and all, that he even listens to you when you tell him not to click those "i love you" attachments and to stop using IE in favor of Firefox.
I usually succeeds to redirect such support subjects on to my big brother, so it isn't really a big problem for me. (although when I fail it is quite annoying) But my mom work with geriatric care and my dad write reviews, I do not see much personal use of those skills.
Sure it doesn't use any of my IT skills. But that is the beauty of it.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
You would know why. It sucks. You do it for money, not because you enjoy it. I work on computers because I enjoy it. The nice part is that I also get to make money doing it.
I've done some plumbing (personal, not professional) and let me tell you that it sucks. Little things I can fix but if it's something that will most likely take me all day, I'd probably call a plumber.
yay for living/working in the Metro DC area and getting up at 5:30am every day...
If you are expecting something here, I don't know what to tell you...
There is a difference between doing something and doing it whole-heartedly...
If you are expecting something here, I don't know what to tell you...
What else? De-hose people's clotted up Windows boxes, of course.
as seasonal help. Having no working knowledge of the type of "hardware" Lowe's sells, I ended up a cashier (the only male one in the store). It was a blast as I did not have to think about computers at all for 4 or so hours. My only worries was if it was going to be raining at closing time when we had to push all the carts in from the parking lot. It also got me out of the "free" computer repair service most of my family and friends think I run.
No, seriously. As more and more coding jobs are moved overseas (infrastructure and sysadmin people will still be needed here in the US) I don't see a very rosy future for myself as a software developer, without moving to Bangalore.
I really think it depends on the person. Personally, I'm on some computer for almost the entire day regardless of where I am (work / home). I agree with you that working on family's computers is terrible, but that doesn't mean that I have to stay away from computers all together. Most of the time on my home computers, I'm working on little side projects that I find interesting. I love the power of computers and solving problems via them, and I hope that never changes.
Until recently I worked as a logistic technician, (roadie) for cirque du soleil. a great way to spend a couple of years.
I also used to moonlight as a fire-eater. which after all this time is still the best hourly rate I ever managed...(>$125/hr.)
actually, I'm thinking of marketing the latter as a corporate team-building exercise, any takers?
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
if that's the case, why do you read /.? isn't this the joint for those of us who can barely stand to turn our machine's off !?
anyways, to keep this post on topic, on the side i design and create PHP/MySQL sites for organizations like regional hockey teams and the local elementary's PTO. it's fun, looks good on a resume, and brings in a little extra cash for a few of my other habits (like xbox, ps2, gamecube, diet coke, books... oh, and eating... sometimes eating...)
When needing a little extra cash I do in-home computer repair, but also find myself building decks, docks, and various other things for people that don't know how.
I also often end up working a few nights a week at a bar because I like the atmosphere of it all.
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
I moonlight doing random tech support stuff, and bartending.
The bartending in particular is a nice change from sitting at a computer all day long.
Topher
I run my own business combining what I do in my day job (Graphic design, Animation,Instructional Design) and my hobby (Drawing, Art, etc.) making e-cards, animations, websites, etc. Though I must admit it's gotten tougher since I started 10/hr days.
Just try to do what you like to do to make extra money.
Please tell me they left the electric carpet in place!
contrary to your belief, you do not occupy the moral high ground. You're just a used sap. How often does your car break down? Now how often do your parents f**k up their computer? You are getting the raw deal here.
I personally spend a lot of time as a porn star. A lot of my tech friends seem to be enamored by my side job but to me its all about the money. The best $7 an hour job I could find.
Most of my "side job" time is spent in leadership at my church, Horizon in Towson, MD. I give of my time in both a technical and non-technical capacity. I tweak the flash web-site (made by a truly talented web-designer), help administer the phpBB forums, lead a "Link Group" (aka: small group), sometimes create Power Points and Keynote files for Sunday, as well as just chilling with guys at Starbucks to stay connected with whats going on in their lives.
To a much lesser degree I throw Raves and occasionally DJ a middle school or high school dance.
Working the POS terminal at the Wendy's drive-thru window doesn't count as "working with computers all day long", ace. The fact that you know so little about Windows or the market in general is very telling, indeed.
.. and can you travel?
If people want their PC fixing they can
1) bring it to me
2) I'll fix it when I'm ready
If they don't want it fixed badly enough to bring it, I don't want to fix it that badly.
For widows I'll come out and fix it and close friends.
Once good friend bestowed some very nice chocolate truffles and an enormous tub of jelly bellies; needless to say he is top priority NOT because he "bought me", but because I know he appreciates it and won't take ne for granted.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
I went into the national guard infantry ... They give me a gun a case of ammo and tell me to shoot stuff once a month. Sometimes I even get explosives ... It's WONDERFUL to "accidentally" break the company equipment and the look on the bosses face when you say "yeah I had the cell phone on the backpack so that it was high enuff to get a signal - who knew it would get shot/fall into the mortor tube and fired a half mile/fall out of the chopper at 2000 feet/ etc." for some reason I am no longer on call with the company cellphone now.... :)
I'm told you are what you eat, does that mean I can be you by tomorrow with some A1?
Yeah, imagine being a proctologist with my asshole relatives!
Envy my 5 digit Slashdot User ID!
Well said. Surely your parents deserve your time and skills when they are needed.
I work 40hrs a week in tech support, and as much as I enjoy my line of work, I'm also a trained musician (drummer). So, in my spare time, I will play at clubs & bars and get paid if I need the cash.
I know many others that use their talents outside of IT make extra cash. Most of them are musicians.
thelikesofwhich.com
I guess you need to check again - when did you last check, 1886?
How often have your parents helped you out in the past? Surely they got 'the raw deal' for 15 or 16 years. Seems kind of selfish to refuse to help if you ask me.
Yah Go figure ... multiple years of IT Experience and I sling drinks from Thursday to Saturday
... nothing like being named "Sexiest Bartender In the South East"
But hey it has its benefits
*shrug*
My secondary job will soon be my only job. After that, I will have NO job. Why? Because I will retire from the rat race.
My primary job is doing the 8-5, M-F, working for someone else, software engineering. My secondary job is real estate investing. Right now, I make $82K/year in my primary job and ~$60K/year in my secondary job. However, my experience and networth is growing exponentially more in my secondary job than my primary job. I figure in 2.5 years, I will be making DOUBLE in real estate than I'm making in SWE. Its then that I'll cut the cord and become self-supporting.
I find it fascinating how all the egotistical a-holes where I work think they are so intelligent because they can muster a bunch of patents, yet in a few years, I'll be on my way to financial freedom, while they'll still be kissing the boss' backend to get a measely 5% raise - all the while hoping their 401(k) can stay above water long enough so they can retire when they hit 65.
I've observed that many companies are hostile to salaried workers (including most IT-staff) getting side jobs. This either takes the form of formal policies, or of line managers feeling that if "you have the extra time, you should work unpaid overtime in your regular job!". Has anyone else had problems with these policies?
I try to do something that requires no follow up work. House painting is a good one.
Some sites have micro-limit games, as small as 4 cents maximum bet. One of them is PokerStars, I'm not sure which others offer that low. The quality certainly isn't as good as the "real" games, but it's signifcantly better than the free games. And if you're beating the game by a ridiculous margin, you can save up the money you get from winning and have a bankroll for a slightly higher limit.
But anyway, Firefighter, yep. Turns out you only volunteer when you sign up, it's a second job after that. My dad was one too. Researcher / Computer whiz at Columbia University during the day, firefighter at night. It definitely helps wipe the Dilbert off the day and put things in perspective.
The difference between Volunteer and Career (paid) Firefighters: Volunteers make more money, career guys fight more fires.
Robotics... its a natural extension, I just love building things, and robotics combines my software experience with my love of making something concrete.
no kidding, I am an IT-potter!
nice side-line job, sell some stuff to your friend etc
...to young rich maidens in need :)
Plenty of writers (a type of artist) say that writing is hard work, and plenty of artists have quit when it wasn't fulfilling anymore. Tom Lehrer, for example, had lots of fun writing and performing some really great songs, and then went back to being a college professor.
But it's not just a question of losing one's muse or experiencing burnout. Too much of anything is too much. For example, by the time I get home from work, I don't want coffee anymore, I want beer.
Finally, I have other stuff to do than mess with a computer. When I want to balance my checkbook, so I can pay my bills, I don't want to debug the accounting program.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
...I'm a painter. I discovered I'm very good at it while painting a new building's interior yesterday.
After a few years working for people who thought that programming was just "cut & paste", I gave up on full time computer employment.
These days I work full time as a delivery driver for a roofing supplies firm.
Yeah the money isn't as good (but only just) but there are several advantages:
Exercise and plenty of it !
I get to start work at 7am (the it jobs I had didn't even open the office until 9am (I used to be found hanging around outside waiting to start)
I get to travel around and see different aspects of everyday life.( I recently spent a year travelling around the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore) Its amazing, all the really beautiful scenery, and friendly people out there.
I get to think while I drive. (So when I get home I can get straight on to coding a new idea)
One recent project has to do with driving standards and so with a cheap spycam addition to my sony dv camcorder, I catch all sorts of real life, stupid stunts on tape.
I actually still enjoy working with the computer, rather than being forced to be fighting with someone elses expectations.
Also, the money I earn can be spent on tech stuff, like wireless set ups, new machines, plus all the "free" OS stuff like linux, *bsd etc. I am the admin on four colo webservers, with a few (not hundreds) of paying customers, and I rent the servers myself.
I have a freeBSD webserver running off the adsl line at home, and have set up a FC2 desktop for my sisters kids, so they have no problems with spyware/viruses etc. I do all the updates remotely over ssh (auth via private key).
In short, its nice to have a "real life" and still get to work on things I enjoy doing.
I have yet to get hacked on any of my colo servers, and checking the logs / tripwire etc daily is not too time consuming.
Unless the money offered is at least twice my current income, then I'm happy being "blue collar" for now.
When I heard the call on my life to work in the ministry, my long time IT experience allowed me to start an IT Consulting company. Which, in turn provided me an income supplement. I guess that makes me a Jesus Geek?
Joshua 24:15
Between a family that's always on the go to somewhere, and all the reading I have to do in order to merely be falling behind *slowly*, when would I do side work?
If I did have the time, I'd be doing IT work, but concentrating on the interesting stuff I don't get enough of at my "day job". (More creating, less fixing.)
I STRONGLY disagree. I have had the same experience in both music, and IT. One can love the art, but begin to hate the bureaucracy that turns it into a viable money-making business. The pettiness in my department drove me away from my music major. Now that I am working IT, its kinda the same way. I even bought a few console systems so I could play games without having to figure out all the damn system crap. It's not that I can't. It's just that I don't want to. And it's not that I don't ever touch a pc at home. Sometimes I do, but the brilliance of those moments is that I don't have to.
"Maybe you shouldn't be in the IT industry then. When you have a passion for something you tend to enjoy doing it when ever the opportunity is available. I cannot imagine an artist saying I cannot wait to quit painting or drawing..."
I used to feel this way, then I got married. Therefore, I have learned to scale back my PC usage at home. I still long to program for 20 hours straight, but it just doesn't go well with married life.
If you work in the IT industry as a *Consultant* you shouldn't need a side job... I'm a whore at heart, I work hard for my employer, demand a good wage, and sleep well at night! (GRIN)
When I'm not doing my FT I.T. job.... I'm a Paramedic for the city EMS/911 service. Otherwise, I do private IT consulting when needed.
Well, let's see. I have two teenage boys, one is 'special needs'. I spend a lot of time helping with homework.
In my CST (Copious Spare Time) I also help out at church (Deacon, Board of Directors, sound system), fix and/or build Vacuum Tube Audio equiptment, run a business...
Lordy, no wonder I'm always tired.
In addition to IT:
I pastor a church part-time and I am a private teacher for Chemistry, Physics and Tournament Debate to a group of homeschoolers
My wife wants me to go on a side-job diet.
...exactly why I told the wife I was glad I wasn't a gynocologist.
Yep, I find a nice balance with my 9-6 IT job, and then coaching all-star cheerleading 4 nights a week
get a life you say? programming is my life.
So that's why everyone says that sociology is a waste of time!
I never understood why peons sitting at a desk all day feel superior to people doing physical or skilled work.
My neighbor is a plumber and makes twice what I do. (I'm not exactly struggling either) His wife can afford to stay home with the kids and he gives & receives favors so that his home improvements are free.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I teach a night class in "Microcomputer Applications in Business" (aka Micro$oft Office) for a local college.
I've grown sick and tired of fighting IT support services and unhappy users, not to mention that I'm too lazy to spend years and thousands of dollars learning IT development skills...so I'm learning to be a massage therapist instead. I can do it in the evenings and on the weekends and make a starting wage of $50 an hour. Inside of two years, assuming I develop a good reputation, I'll be making between $60 and $100 an hour and working 25 hours a week earning a living doing something I'm better at than IT support. From now on, the only support I'm doing for IT is upgrading my system to keep up with the current batch of software toys on the market.
"Courage is being afraid to do the Right Thing, and doing it anyway."
I install home theaters.
Thank you for the clarification.
Given the other replies to this post, how on earth does it still Score 4?
And modded as "Funny" - is that as in Homer "Funny but Stupid" Simpson?So, could do you think he would help with a little problem involving a certain corporation in Utah?
Dare I ask... what is PEBKAC?
Maybe if you took a job with an 8-hour day you could get your energy back sooner. Even if it's less pay, it might be worth it.
I have an 8-hour workday and a 40-minute commute. This gives me time with my kids, plus time to do chores and talk with my wife. A few nights a month I also get to work on ourdoings.com, my photoblog hosting site, and add features. I'm having fun with it.
I volunteer with the NYPD Auxiliary Police, and get a whopping $250/year.
Too bad the uniform expenses are about $400/year
Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair
I've got a mind like a steel trap - it's got an animal's foot stuck in it.
I find everything not related to my programming projects as a distraction. I've got a life... I just think it's distracting. Family, parties, and girls are great, they're just distracting.
If I could make the choice to be the best programmer in the world and have no social life as a trade, I would do it in a heart beat.
Removing spyware is blue collar in my book (albeit easy blue collar work), it's right on par with tearing apart printers, or myriad other jobs that involve 'computers', but not necessarily 'computing'.
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
The last thing you really want to do is come home and burn yourself out so not only do you no longer have an enjoyable hobby but you hate your job too..
Wisest is he who knows he does not know.
In case you're wondering, there's no money in it. Tuition goes to pay rent. Occasionally there's a little left over to have a weekend seminar or buy equipment. But then I guess profit would have just been a nice side-effect, that's not really why I do it.
"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face, it's just a goddamned piece of paper!" - George W. Bush Nov. 2005
Who the fuck cares what Taiwan thinks of Tibet
Yeah, who gives a fuck about Tibet anyway?
Until Bush decides Al-Qaeda's in there, or there's WMD, or they find Oil, Tibet will rank with Sierra Leone, Darfur, Zimbabwe and, that den of human rights abuse South Georgia in US foreign policy priorities.
Seems to me the original poster has done their bit for the Tibetan cause today just my posting on /.
BTW that's South Georgia, with the penguins. Not Georgia, with the KKK.I teach chess to kids in a couple of afternoon classes as well as private lessons. Less stress and more rewarding.
I do technical editing for tech books, and I do writing for tech books.
I want to make games.
- chrish
That was my motivation for wiping MS off the last machine at home some years ago. One evening as I was getting ready to clean up another MS mess, I though "why can't this be as easy and reliable as at work with Linux?" Since then I've also become a fan of OS X. I still do occasional support, just not for any MS product. That way I know there is very little chance of having to solve the same problem twice for that person.
Don't work for free for Chairman Bill this holiday season. It just encourages him to put out more broken, poorly interoperable products.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
affiliate marketing is the choice of my side business. I managed to generate some revenue without spending any.
-Mattman
http://OneBillion.blogspot.com
And how exactly did the grandparent post about gynocology make you think of your girlfriend's dad? Who is a plumber, no less?
On second thought, I don't want to know.
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
He's being serious.
First off, I have a friend who makes chainmail. If you make it as armour, you can sell it for X amount of dollars. If you sell it as BDSM gear, it's about X*1.5. He started off selling at renfairs, and now sells at BDSM gatherings. So you might find it funny, but that's just how the business goes. For whatever reason, BDSM people seem have a lot of cash.
Another point - I'm a BSEE and write Linux drivers and software for my employer. And the first thing I do when I get home to unwind is make armour. I'm in the SCA, and there is something absolutely theraputic about smith work.
In some ways it's the exact opposite of IT work. In other ways, identical. It always leaves you wishing you could just simply use a raising hammer and beat a misbehaving computer into shape.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I do a bit of web site design and hosting on the side, more than enough to keep me too close to the computer on my off hours.
To get away from that, I also make a bit doing, speaking, or teaching hypnosis. No worries about outsourcing there!
@HbFyo0$k8 tH!$
My time in IT has shown me the benefits of being a "Relaxation Therapist":
Better pay, grateful customers, my ass hurts less at the end of the day, and best of all, no risk of outsourcing!
Then I'd hear no end of "I bought this software to work on my Mac at home, why can't I install it on my PC at work? Why did you buy me something that doesn't fit with anything else?" No thanks...Plus, then I couldn't holler at them for not calling one of my tech support buddies there, because none of my friends there are Mac people (they were all smart and moved out of Oklahoma)
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
I work part time for my parents who run a small dairy farm, and I've started my own buisness doing computer repairs. I usually get several systems a month dropped off at my place for virus/spyware removal. Doesn't take that long (at least not that much of my time) and I get $50/machine to boot in safemode, run a virus scan, ad-aware, clean out any shit they miss by hand and crack the case open, and blow the dust out... Of course during summer there are the people who manage to blow out PSU's and modems during thunder storms which I usually make about $30 + parts repairing, and the old ladies who have no clue what they are doing and ask to show them the same simple things over every 2-3 weeks.
To be honest I really do not mind. It can be a little annoying when i am out of state and I get support calls, but that is what friends and family do. We support each other. I cannot tell you how many times I have needed help myself and someone has stepped up to help me without a single complaint.
The one thing I do find annoying is that this free support that we provide is the reason companies get away with such poor quality support services. No one I know calls support first. They call me first. In fact, they will call me to call their support for them, because I can understand the support people better. That is just sad.
Insert Generic Sig Here:
They're actually very smart, my mother has almost finished her masters in gerontology and occupational therapy, besides running a rehab unit at a hospital she also teaches yoga and occupational therapy courses, plus she's a practitioner at her church. She recently went to Honduras to help build and set up a hospital. She's just terrified (and possibly resentful) of computers, probably related to the fact that my father (her ex-husband) is a computer geek too.
She probably has some choice words to say about me and the way I treat my body - I get some form of tendinitis, bursitis, or a sprain every few months, and I am not good at following up on my physical therapy. Not everyone's smarts are with computers.
I wouldn't even have bothered with giving them computers except that my mom's partner is mildly technically savvy and does some web design for their church, and she likes to email and shop online. Plus, I don't spend money on mailing pictures out - if we take them ourselves, we put them on a server and send out a link, if we get them taken someplace that they can view and buy pictures online. It saves us at least $500 a year.
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
Well, aside from my regular Saturday Night Spam Run, I find Nigerian e-mail scams to be a very profitable side income...
I work in a bingo. I prefer not to turn on a computer when I have a chance. This is why I work in a bingo.
I do light auto repair on the side, mostly for friends and family. Maybe a car every month and a half or so. It takes a lot of the same problem solving skills, and hell it's mechanical stuff mostly so you can see the problem.
Oh I used to have this problem in the lab where I work in college.
Untill I start my signs up with Free Booze or somthing similar, and no one misses it..
I'm still in my first IT job out of college. Been here for a year and they still pay me very poorly. I have about $1000 on my credit cards and a modest car to pay off. I am still looking for a higher paying job but have also been considering a side job as well.
--- My dog ate my sig.
>Does your mom charge you for Thanksgiving dinner?
:P
No she does not. Now, since I was the one who purchased the dinner from the grocery store and prepared it, I would be rather offended if she did. So, to make sure I understand you, since I bought the meal, prepared it, and opened my house for the family, I get to "fix" their computers? I don't think I follow. Would you mind explaining a little more? Does it mean that if I let them do all of the work I get to "break" their computers or do they have to fix mine?
Very true... but at least you don't have to drive to their place to hear that!
Yeah. Works very, very well.
(Yeah, I'm astroturfing now, why do you ask?)
Hawaii became a state in 1959. We didn't suddenly go in there and take it over by military force that year as the parent alluded to.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
Please note that that cable provider is an exceedingly poor one.
While load-balancing is (more) necessary with cable than with DSL, it is certainly possible to have top DSL speeds available throughout your network, 24/7.
The price is giving up a bit of 'instant service', which doesn't serve the customers as much as it pleases them. Another ISP, upon learning that the cable modem can't broadcast strongly enough to get through to make a connection, changes the upper transmit limit on the modem. Customer online, and it'll likely work forever. My own ISP sends a mechanic 'round to fix the cable network so that the pre-chosen limits are actually sufficient.
It's an attitude that's important; forgo the quick fix and easy browniepoints, and do the more expensive work that saves you in the long term.
No doubt bad things happened in Hawaii due to westerners. Almost 100 years before they became a state. Did they get invaded in 1959 and forced at gunpoint to become a state? No, which was what it seemed the parent was getting at.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
Well my dad mostly does consumer law and besides he's not THAT good with the computer. "Linux...what's that?" However if SCO declares bankruptcy over this, my dad would be delighted to pick over the pieces :-)
...in bed
Heh, many many years ago I was a gas station attendant on the midnight-to-eight shift (I've got a colorful resume).
Around two AM big tanker trucks would roll in carrying untaxed, illegally transported fuel supplied by an organized crime family (who were, oddly enough, related to the station owner - go figure!) to fill up the underground tanks. The pumps were clearly marked with the logo of a major Texas oil company, so there were about seven crimes being simultaneously committed. But the local oil company rep was on the payroll, so whenever somebody reported us, he'd say he "investigated" and found no basis to the allegations.
Here's where the connection to your tale comes in: the truck drivers (and the station owner) insisted that I strong>sign for the deliveries!
My initials being DB, I used to sign "Daniel Boone" with great big Ds and Bs, using my off hand and purposely making my "a" different from the way I normally do.
25 years later, not busted yet.
DAMMIT ALL TO HELL MAN!
I did NOT need that image in my head at lunchtime!
Its a growing community, to be sure. I live in a small town in Maine, so although there are a lot of wanna be geeks and of course everyone's brother thinks they're a 'computer guy' the number of people who actually know what they're doing is astonishingly low.
Well, keep doing the good work. Live train, train train to live -- and all that.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
The obvious anser is to write and sell shareware. You won't make that much money, though.
Or, you could sell Linux CDs door to door. Good luck explaining what they do!
I've been interested in investing. Would you tell me a little more about your strategy? Do you have any recommended reading? I've been looking at The Motley Fool's site, which seems to have a pretty common-sense approach to investing. Any others you'd recommend?
"Eye halve a spelling chequer, It came with my pea sea, It plainly marques four my revue, Miss steaks eye kin knot sea"
I seriously doubt that lawyers go home and work on their own private lawyering in the evening just for fun.
Plumbers probably don't re-do their piping every few weeks for the novelty factor.
Trust me, a lot of people in the industry who are passionate and skilled at programming, go home and make a point of disconnecting to a certain extent. (Yes, I still use my home computers, but I don't want my recreation and my job to blend.)
You can be passionate about something and still make a point of moderating the amount you do it. Really, for many of us, it's a profession, and not necessarily an all encompassing obsession. And, believe it or not, many artists also force themselves to take a mental break away. Otherwise you'll either burn out or start making crap.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Dude,
You haven't been in the industry very long yet, now have you?
Talk to us in 15 years when you are habitually required to work 60 hours a week, sometimes for 21 hours straight and burned out. When you are not only doing your job, but the co-worker's (who had a completely different job description) who was fired 3 months ago, and still hasn't been replaced because the budget for the position has been cut.
Lets see how much boundless enthusiasm you have for sidework then...
I used to crave sidework, then I became important to my company because apparently I am the only one left who knows what he is doing.
I love programming, and administration, patching, endless audits, architecting applications, and networks, doing backups, and maintaining existing apps, just as much as the next guy.
Lets just say, that for some of us, our appetite for IT is whetted with our day job. If you had any idea what I am talking about you would not have posted what you posted.
I have to agree with the guy. For some of us, the last thing we want to do after a 10-21 hour day, is work on someone else's broken shit.
We like to spend a little time with our kids, bang the wife, you know, step away from the monitor once in a while. If you want to spend 24x7 in front of a monitor, more power to you.
One day you'll wake up, be 42, and wonder where the hell your life went. It will happen much faster than you realize. Until that happens, don't troll on people who say they've had enough when they are finally able to escape their day job briefly.
l8,
AC
>I never understood why peons sitting at a desk all day feel superior to people doing physical or skilled work.
I can explain this for you. Everyone feels that whatever sort of work they do is superior to the type of work everyone else does. White collar people feel superior to blue collar people because they are rough and uneducated, blue collar people feel superior to white collar people because they are soft and lazy and don't know how to change their own oil or catch fish. And sociologists feel superior to of all of them, because they think they are the only ones who understand the whole thing. And me, I chuckle at the inferiority of all of you with your week minds and simple thoughts.
Sleep? Hasn't anyone introduced you to caffiene?
You are must be Taiwanese. You are lying out of your ass.
While I'll agree with you that management isn't physically demanding, I need to point out that sometimes the work is mentally demanding, and that can wipe out someone just as much as a physical job would.
I've done both. I worked as an auto mechanic for years, and also did a brief stint in landscaping. Completely different energy drains and types of exhaustion, but don't discount mental exhaustion; this is why Sponge Bob was invented.
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
Unpaid overtime.
...the IRS hounds will be dogging you!
You quit the band, but you regularly post to Slashdot...
I'm interested too. m3 t00!
Some people don't work in a world where companies beat down their down to try to hire them. Some people can't take the chance of not signing a peice of paper and not having a job.
Until the job market picks up, I have to choose my battles. Putting food on my children's plate is more important than the ideals of the open source foundation.
Besides, you can't sign away what doesn't belong to you.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I spend some of my free time here http://www.yankeeairmuseum.org/ doing whatever IT-ish things happen to be happening. Since their original hanger just burned down (they saved the flyable collection thankfully), they've got a very clean slate to start with. On day you're pulling cable, the next day you're installing OpenOffice. Fun stuff.
(BTW: send cash. or aircraft parts. or anything. Anyone on slashdot got a spare tailwheel for a B-17G?)
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Sell phat l3wT to noobs on eBay
NT
Week minds? That's a laugh. The word you want is weak.
I don't maintain networks/computers for a living anymore.
That gay prostitute thing finally working out for you, GAYSYN?
Since music and computers are so much connected for a long time now I expected more posters to do the same. I'm a casual DJ for money and having a really good time. On the other hand it takes so much time that only the money remains as a means to decide which is my job and which is my side-job.
there's enough for everybody, let's share it
Judging from everyone I've met that works in the tech industry, I'd have to say do other computer work.
I have never worked for another company which has paid me enough to not have a side job. There have been times when I didn't have a side job, but that wasn't because I was getting paid enough.
The only time I felt I was being compensated enough not to have a side job was when I was a consultant. Unfortunately, the market for consulting shrank considerably in the last few years, so I had to get a regular job and two side jobs.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
i hate to nitpick, but it's just René - if you add the e at the end, it becomes a girls name.
Sleep? Hasn't anyone introduced you to caffiene?
Sure. I can't sleep without my evening mug of coffee.
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
"And me, I chuckle at the inferiority of all of you with your week minds and simple thoughts."
I guess I can feel superior now, since I don't share your "weekness".
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
And I am reading this to avoid doing a writing assignment about work :)
Use value investing, not day trading. Value investing is what Warren Buffet uses (or used to untill he had so much money he had to change his tactics). As I live in Australia I'm only investing on the Australian stock market so I read books that focus on this market which is a bit different to the US, though the same general rules apply.
Buffet uses techniques developed by Benjamin Graham. Graham wrote a book called the Intelligent Investor. This book is a bit old now but has been rewritten and copied and dumbed down many many times so any books you see that talk of the Intelligent Investor or Graham or Buffet or Value Investing are worth flipping through before you choose which to buy. Choose a practical book, because the theory is either superficially simple (all you need in the first place) or very complicated.
Value Investing is basically this: examine everything about a company *except* the share price - look at past profit, debt to equity and price to earnings ratios, dividends, growth, number of shares issued, cash etc atc and from this work out what the share price should be. If the calculated value is lower than the actual share price it might be a good buy. You can automate this process from publically available data going back a few years on each company. I use Excel (which can be made to download web data on timed imtervals too which is nice to auto update graphs etc) though a die hard friend does it all in Perl! You may get 50-200 companies. Now look at cuttofs for P/E, company value and hone it down some more. Then look at the market they're in, who's in charge, read the last few financial reports (qrtly, yrly) and any other news, lool at their web site, competitors etc. Finally choose maybe 10 or 12. Chances are half will do well, some will drift and some will go down (but usually not badly). Check back every week or so to see how it's going. Buffet has managed 22% annual return after tax for 30 yrs using this general method. Some people I know get 60%, some 20%. Either way I just reinvest every cent (ie just keep the shares, selling only when the number start to level off). Sometimes there's a real gem (one I chose in March this year has already gone up 220%!) and sometimes real bears. Overall, with the money spread over many different companies and industries this is a fairly safe and sure method. These big, well run copanies generally don't change fast, so you can spot a dog before it burns you too much. On the flip side you don't get meteoric rises usually. What you do get is much better than the Dow Jones though. Stick in a spreadsheet 20% annual gain over 10yrs then add in extra each year that you save from your day job, plus margin lending (ie borrowing up to perhaps 50% of the value in your stock to buy further stocks which gives a modest 33% debt) and you may be looking very good in the longer term.
This isn't a get rich quick scheme, it's slow plodding and a bit boring - none of the flashy day trading excitement (or stress!). I tried that and lost quite a bit and made not as much. I had good tutors who do it for a living but day trading was too intrusive into my daily work - I might be at a meeting or have a deadline on a report I had to write or was at the dentist or something and hence miss a falling price. Too stressfull! I want to get rich, not old before my time!
oh, another good place for info is Buffet's BerkshireHathaway web site where his letter to shareholders from previous years provides some informative insight into his thinking. You can do your own thing but it costs nothing to learn from someone who's done extremely well at what you want to do (every if it's just for a hobby).
The Motely Fool has some good info. It's popular enough that so many people will follow it's advice that that will start to impact share prices. The best way to invest is to do your own thing, not what everyone else is doing. Sure, others are out there doing value investing and similar calculations to you. You'd be surprised how many aren't.
Possibly (and I'll f
pithy comment
Does your mom charge you for Thanksgiving dinner? No, of course not. So we all get to "fix" our families pc's for free because it's what we do.
To escape from my neices, I sat down at my Dad's laptop. He had about 30 icons running in the taskbar. (weatherbug was the least troublesome). I knew I had to download some apps like AdAware and HackThis, etc...so I went to dial up. The computer tried dialing into some country in Africa. I mean, come on, ATT doesn't have any access numbers a bit closer?
I finally decided that my neices were easier to deal with...
Nonetheless, when the pipes freeze or a toilet clogs, he, without fail, always calls someone else to do it.
Maybe he should get an atomic toilet. I doubt they ever clog and it would keep the pipes warm too!
Maybe that's part of it, but it seems to me that the managerial profession tends to attract people who like to work all day. Work is their (relaxing?) hobby.
Invariably, people would ask "how do you get to the second floor", or "where are the stairs".
Some of these people had read the sign and either failed to comprehend it, or just didn't believe the word "STAIRS" or the arrow.
Putting moderation advice in your
may I suggest your dad probably *isnt* as stupid as you think? Its kind of, naieve to think that because you've lied to your dad he believes you. Parents are wise and subtle, and your dad could be swallowing his pride? and even aware that you're making fun of him? how hard would it be for him to googke pebkac?
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
http://www.panamax.com/news.cfm?sec=articles
It's usually installed by an electrician.
However a whole-house surge suppressor is only part of one's defensive strategy. Good grounds (very important), good layout, and individual surge protectors, were needed. It's not that expensive and it pays itself back over the years. Also since this is a new home, don't forget the other protective devices. e.g. cable, phone, GFCI, etc.
Oops. sorry, I guess we aren't allowed to be slightly satirical. Can you clarify what googke is? If you are calling me slang for a Vietnamese person. I really resent that.
http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/noplate.asp A little googling has found that someone in California has already (inadvertently) done this 25 years ago. Other possibly problematic vanity plates include: MISSING, NONE, EXEMPT, ERROR, VOID, EXPIRED, INVALID, TEMP, UNKNOWN, DELETE, SEIZED, IMPOUND, CTRL-X, think of any more?
My mom do not charge me for thanksgiving although I'm a college student, she do charge me for staying over at home during my break. Insightful isn't it? /. :)
At least I know my mom don;t read this site
May
Your web site doesn't tell anyone crap about what you can do for them except for vague references to video work.
Also, if you advocate using Linux for video editing, where are your links to those groups?
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.
So is Gnome, Debian and many other large projects.
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.
I know what you mean by getting behind. I learned Spanish serving a church mission for two years. I had nothing of computers (in the Dominican Republic), and I came back knowing nothing. So, I've done plenty of homework this time to make sure joining the Guard is as 'worth it' as the mission was.
Thanks for the tip and thanks for serving.
I actually am a dancer. Moonlighting as a gogodancer for varius clubs, parties and companies. It is a great job and it keeps me in shape. And it has nothing to do with my real job. A nice way to get your mind off of things..
You are right. You said what I did not in my previous oversimplified post.
Based on a study, 3/4 of American managers understands free time as "relaxation to do their job better afterwards". It's a cultural thing because in UK only 2.3% said something similar. Almost 1/4 of UK managers said that in their free time they want to forget about their job. They want their life to be separated from work like drawers. Managers in the UK work 20h/week less then American managers. American culture demands strong work ethics, individual success and work on yourself, so the work is considered like a tool to reach those goals.
Trolls are like broken clocks. They show the truth two times a day. The rest of the day they talk nonsense.
it's not kind of work where you get money earned, but anyway - i with couple of friends are doing punkrock shows - bookings bands, renting a place, collecting money at the door, sound engineering, breaking up fights, etc...
Well, in my case, I grew up on a farm and my dad got unlimited free manual labor out of me from the time I was old enough to do it. I'm not your typical /. reader white-collar kid that sat around their house for 18 years and then went to college on their dime.
They also never allowed me to be lazy about figuring things out myself, so I have the same policy with them. They pushed me to figure things out on my own, and taught me that that is a better way of doing things than running for help the first time you run into something you don't know. It's their value, too, so it'd be hypocritical of them to call me at every error message.
If they try to fix it themselves, and are still stumped, then I'm more than glad to help. I just don't put up with anyone refusing to try to help themselves.
And no, when they're old and physically incapable of doing what they used to do for themselves, I'm not going to make them try anyway. They're just not helpless yet.
I'm a licensed hypnotherapist. It's awesome, you get to help people and you make $150 an hour. You also develop your spiritual awareness, which leads to all kinds of benefits. Are there spiritual programmers? No? Just wait until my book 'Jesus Was a Buddhist' comes out, you'll understand -EVERYTHING-, including why biology and computer science both have extensive proof of reincarnation in them. No? Don't believe me? Whatever dude.
Which one was that again?
:)
"Evacuate? In out moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances!"
Help! help!, the termites are eating my DRAM!!!
Part of the beauty of life is knowing when enough's enough.
I get my fill of what I do at work. At home, I want to do other stuff -- spend time with my wife, do some work on the house, play some cards..... all stuff that's got NOTHING to do with being a sysadmin.
And that's exactly how I like it.
I agree with you about helping your family. However, I have a pain threshhold beyond which I won't go. In our case, it was met when my poor mother (who has to watch golf-related forum posts for my father, who can't do it for himself because he's so bad at using a computer) got her computer completely shredded by viruses and spyware week after week and I ended up spending all of my weekends, six hours at a time, cleaning her system out.
I told her, "Mom, I love you, but if you don't stop using Windows, you're on your own. I can't take it anymore."
She bought an eMac, and has been completely delighted with it ever since. Not one virus or piece of spyware has touched her in the several months she's been using it, and she's learned how to maintain her own machine. I'm quite proud of her, and I've been enjoying my (completely quiet) weekends ever since.
The answer is NOT to hang one's relatives out to dry, but to replace their windows machines with something a little more reliable (Linux, Mac, whatever works in your situation).
I cannot imagine an artist saying I cannot wait to quit painting or drawing...
Only that's not what the parent was saying. I can easily imagine an artist saying "after 9 hours of painting at my studio, the last thing I want to do when I come home is pick up a paintbrush and canvas".
Believe it or not, the last year or so I've taken on a handful of jobs helping morons^Wpeople with their windoze infected computers.
.wmv video going around. My windoze box never gets rebuilt, patched, or played with very much. I've got sparcservers, BSD boxen, routers, voice switches, and of course, several macintoshes to occupy my time at home. So I don't get exposed to the latest windoze horrors unless I go out looking for it.
I have a strong reputation in my field as a guy who doesn't tolerate windoze in any way. I consult on large telecoms projects, building networks which span entire continents. All of it is *nix based, or cisco, or really big expensive boxes. If I'm designing a secure network for a client, I isolate all the windoze lusers behind firewalls, on their own segments with their own IDSes.
At home, I've only got one poky old windoze box for doing a few things that can only be done on windows, like converting visio2k docs to something useful, or looking at the latest joke
I let my lawyer's wife talk me into setting up a PC for one of her friends. That led into about ten jobs over the last year setting up windoze + DSL + printer + camera typical home installations. Quite an eye opener going to someone's house to see the damage done by their daughter putting a CD-ROM from a cereal box into the machine, and having AOL+crap installed permanently all over the system. Watching thousands of pr0n site popups covering the desktop from the first moment the computer is booted. Trying, and failing, to clean up infections with a whole array of anti-malware tools. Seeing the damage done by XP SP2 installs.
I have a standard set of fees, 150 euros for a simple problem (spyware or setup a new PC), 250 euros if the job takes more than 4 hours, and 350 euros if I can't recover the PC and have to re-install the OS with data recovery. Its just enough to keep people from trying to get free support from a smart guy, and makes a day off interesting. For my own benefit, I get to keep up on the horror that is the M$ universe, without it tainting my professional reputation. It has a fun side too, because although my colleagues never see me near a 'doze box, I always seem to know the excruciating details of the latest malware, cleaners, patches and problems.
I do other odd jobs as well, for relaxation more than money. I'm the sound guy for a group of professional musicians, but their audio gear rivals my home telecoms gear just in a different geek arena. I've got my name on three of their CDs as Audio Engineer. A few summers ago when the tech market collapsed and I had house payments to make, I worked as a tour guide on a brewery circuit.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
I'm an IT Analyst with a well known Telecom company. I work the graveyard shift, come home, sleep a few hours, spend some time with my daughter, and head straight to my shop. It's a registered computer business but in actuality, 95% of the business that comes through my door is related to Xbox Modifications. I started out in my garage just modding for free for friends. Then it got busy so I had to start charging and eventually I had to move into an office. Which was a great excuse to get up off my ass and start a PC support business. Right now I don't advertise for the PC side of things since I'm already so busy, but I still get computer support requests from passerbys, shop neighbors, and Xbox customers. It's a great way to network. I've modded people from clearchannel, nearly the entire Chula Vista fire dept., Rockstar games, Chargers, and countless more. Modding is a grey area but they way I think of it- the Xbox is basically a PC. 733MHz PIII, 64MB RAM, Nforce chipset, and a GeForce3 on steroids. I don't support piracy and never "backup" games for a customer. I will however guide them through media center streaming, Linux installation, cosmetic mods, and other enhancements.
My solution: only help if they agree to use Linux as their main OS. I haven't used Windows since 1999, so why should they expect me to work on their POS Windows systems? So far, my mother, sister, and probably soon the other sister too have agreed. It's easy to fix most problems they have had remotely, and of course no more spyware, viruses, crashes, and crap. All they really need is Mozilla and Openoffice anyway, so the transition from Windows is pretty painless, even though they are total Luddites.
Well, when Russia Borders Tibet and both Russia and China need another buffer zone, I'm sure they'll gladly relinquish control of Tibet.
As is typical of many in the United States, they worry about the human rights people of other countries and ignore the human rights of those in their own back yard. Who cares that California and Texas were in effect stolen from Mexico, because Citizens of the USA happened to start moving in and making money and wanting it to be part of the US instead of Mexico? In both States, a revolution was started by citizens of the United States to take the land away from Mexico and the US government was ok with that.
Who cares that Hawaii had a popular monarchy that was overthrown by a US citizen who wanted to sell his sugar to the closed US market? He fake a revolution by hiring people to start trouble and called in the US military to quell the "rebellion" and force the queen to abdicate. Much of the native islanders of Hawaii still don't like the white invaders.
So it seems that it's ok that the USA invade others(God has ordained it), but when someone else does it, they must protest and fight it.