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Is Finding Part Time Work In IT Unrealistic?
I like my current job writes "Having worked full-time in IT for the past 12 years, I would really like to work less and focus on other goals and priorities in my life. I asked my current employer and was shot down. It seems like everyone I know in IT works full-time except for entry-level help desk staff. Striking out on my own seems to be the only way to control the ball and chain around my ankle. However, my experience with independent consulting is a 'feast or famine' situation, with work coming all at once, thus making part-time impossible, or the other extreme (which is even more likely). Is part-time work a pipe dream in IT? Maybe a career in toilet cleaning is calling me."
One reason corporations don't like part-time is that as long as you are full-time, you actually tend to work way past 40 hours a week. You do whatever it takes to get the job done, under impossible deadlines.
Once you are part-time, you start saying no to crazy demands. Corporations just hate that.
My answer? Be your own boss. It comes with a caveat: starting your own business alone is a bad idea. Guess what? It takes more than one person to provide something of value. It doesn't take an army of hundreds, but a small dedicated group of friends can do amazing things. The sum really is larger than the parts.
Take a look at fairsoftware.net. It was designed for exactly that purpose: geeks starting a side business together.
Schedule an appointment with your boss, then walk into his office(shutting the door behind you) and grab his tie. Yank it down so hard that it chokes him and his head slams into his desk and say with your other fist clenched,
"You punk motherfucker - I'm going to come in at 7am and leave at 11am and you're going to pay me my regular fucking salary as if we didn't have this little discussion, capiche?"
If he says anything other than "yes" then grab his stapler and pistol-whip him with it. Go back to work while keeping a loaded pistol in your desk so that you can point it at your boss whenever he walks by your cubicle. Leave early so that you can break into his home and hang his pets from his ceiling fan, but take one of the pets, behead it, and place its head on your boss' bed. Then write, "I see you" above his bed using his favorite pet's blood.
If the plan outlined above dosen't work, you just might have to play hardball.
If you are involved in the development of software then you will be on the treadmill. The only way out is to either strike out on your own or to give up on the industry altogether.
Personally, I wouldn't do it. But I can see how leaving the industry completely is attractive for some. Just be prepared for the paycut.
But then again, money isn't everything, and if you can improve your quality of life, even with a paycut, then more power to you.
Get a job at Microsoft, there is a reason why they have been rated 'best employer' serveral times in a number of countries.
Full time work is also impossible.. at least for me.
No todo lo que es oro brilla
Depending on your definition of IT, I've worked with a handful of people who worked part time. Of course, when it came time to rightsize, they were on the top of the list. And without a strong reason (like young children), that put a big question mark on your company loyalty.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Depending on your definition of part-time, but many companies in The Netherlands will allow for a 32 hours week (4 days).
As far as I know is hat not uncommon in Sweden either.
... but if your boss needs a particular amount of work done, it may be a lot more expensive for him to achieve that with 2 (or 3) part-time workers. Also, part-time sometimes means "partly committed" as well (or busy working on something else). Being your own boss may be a good solution, but it could also be the road to the 70-100 hour week hell. ;-)
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
As a contractor I have the option to work less. I can voluntarily choose to cut my hours to 6 hours a day (or alternatively 4 days a week) if work is slow & I have nothing to do. That saves the company's money and gives me more time to enjoy life.
The drawback is that when crunch time comes, then you're expected to put in the overtime.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Outside of IT, how often do you find people working higher level jobs part-time? It seems to me that part-time jobs are almost ways lower level, lower responsibility positions. You'd probably have better luck finding something with some sort of flex time or telecommuting. By altering your schedule that way, you can save quite a few hours.
My department has two or three part time workers. One of them is a part-time, remote worker.
They don't play in-depth technical roles. One is a project manager. She manages a single project that would, with full time people, be one of two or three projects that full time person was managing.
Another does do support, both helping with features and interacting with users about future features they would like to see on the reporting system in question.
I can't remember what the third one does but I'm pretty sure they exist.
I'm a development team lead, and wouldn't have a problem with a part-time developer, so long as they were largely self-managed - if I can give them a vague description of something and get a design and time estimate and then get the work done when they estimated, that would be fine.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
I did it for about 6 months. I went from 40 hour weeks to 20 hour weeks comprised of 2 10-hour days. After a few months the situation became untenable and I chose to quit and move on.
The problem was the manager couldn't sequence the work where I could perform it on the days I was there. I wasn't just asking myself to rise to the challenge, I was asking him to do so too. He couldn't. So he placed another employee to deal with issues that came up while I was out of the office. The other guy was what I like to refer to as a brilliant idiot. That's not just sour grapes; a few months after I left he escaped just ahead of the axe. In the months I was there he took it upon himself to unilaterally reconfigure systems on the days I wasn't scheduled to work.
Faced with the conflict, the boss made the decision to go with the guy who was in the office. Not the wisest of choices as it turned out, but completely understandable.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
both my boss and one of my colleagues are working part time (80%). but I'm from Germany and I work for a small family business - maybe this explains the differences.
...that doesn't need full-time IT. The company I work for only has forty employees and we have a part-time admin who comes in two days a week. The only drawback is that he's on call 24/7. Just remember that remote access is your friend.
If your reasons for wanting to work part time are that you're lazy and you don't like being told what to do, good luck! You'll need it. I successfully ran my own independent software business for a couple of years, with a combination of internet sales of my own product, and part-time contracting for a couple of companies. I could set my own hours of work, but that didn't mean that I worked any less - just that I had to rely on personal motivation and sense of responsibility to get the work done. And if you think "being your own boss" means that you can do things your way, think again. It means that you have to learn to put ego aside and do what your customers want.
Contract and telecommute. As long as you get your work done, you work the hours you want. Of course you may get underbid by foreign workers but often companies want someone who works THEIR hours, whom they can call if they need and who may be available beyond the contract for support. I have worked with many companies which have been burned by foreign contractors and will not work with them unless they have a presence their.
Of course, I have also seen employers get burned by domestic contractors but that doesn't stop them from trying to shop around.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
You could go into consulting, and only spend 1/3 of the money you earn and put the rest into reserve for between gigs, and then work parttime by doing 55hr/week some of the time and 0hr/week most of the time.
Logically conceviable, but would require trememdous dicipline financially and some luck in finding gigs.
or
You could develop your own software as part of an independent entity, and then set a schedule and stick to it.
I've seen a few donationware projects outthere that seem to run that way, but you would have to have the tremendous luck of being able to make something useful with parttime work.
Logically conceviable, heck people do this, but the odds of looking for it and getting it? More people win the lottery.
or
If you live in a city, really all you need to do is find a job 5 minutes from your home and take a couple hours out of your day that way. It will feel like parttime compared to what you are doing now, and still probably have benifits.
OR
Find a job you love, and you won't mind working fulltime. Even if you think you don't have a social consciousness, try working for a company that does (like a B-corp or a charity). You won't feel like you are wasting your limited and precious time on earth so much if you spend your days making this place better.
Okay, follow me here - FLSA (Federal Labor Standards Act) exempts computer professionals from getting time for working more than 40 hours per week. However, this federal law does not trump any state law. For example, Pennsylvania law specifically requires employers to pay time and a half for hourly paid computer professionals working over 40 hours per week. Now, this can at least keep your hours reasonable in an IT worker friendly state like Pennsylvania. More important, if your employer refuses to pay that overtime, the state will come after them, since the state gets taxes on that overtime.
It's not completely unrealistic.
(( tl;dr - Find a one-man show who needs help with current workload and is willing to contract out. ))
Let me tell you my quick story: I've been in IT most of my professional life, having made a lateral move from printing (prepress) into working for a hard/software developer in the field. A few years later, after running my own show for about five years, I worked for a helpdesk.
I didn't like working at this helpdesk, but I kept chalking up my displeasure to personal concerns. In the end, I was trying to fit into a management role and I hated management. My anxiety and depression (as I am inclined to) kept building to a point where I literally walked out one day with a serious bent toward harming myself.
Despite my situation, I needed work. I set out to find work in which I could set my own schedule. Now, I _hoped_ for part-time work, but was willing to do full-time if that's all that was available.
The first thing I did is leverage _all_ my contacts. I interviewed with companies with which I already had worked with or employed people I knew. When they asked me about availability, I told them "I would prefer part time, but we can talk about full time."
One contact was a guy who was in the same situation I was during my business' run. I had loads of work, but didn't know how hire or manage people. I never really solved that issue, but he was committed to trying. I started working for him part-time. Today, I work 4 days a week at about 4-6 billable hours a day. The rate is generous.
Now, initially, the hours available were pretty low. (Considering my mental state, I was happy to have a lot of time out.) What's key, however, is that as I learned his customer base and their needs, the customers realized that my colleague's business was simply more available. So, the customers started making more requests and, now, the company has the ability to serve the requests. My hours increased and I can do more if I want.
So, like any other search, you have to network. You have to state what you want, but be willing to compromise. Be nice. Be humble. Be enthusiastic.
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
This is a text book case of time to become an independent contractor.
You choose your work. You choose your hours. It's can be a little scary, but too, it's the foundation of the American dream.
Get a lawyer, get an accountant, and get a mentor.
Then live the dream!
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
Well, if you are really bold, you could take a full time job and just not show up sometimes. Sooner or later, you will get fired, but, if you can keep the balls up in the air you might be able to make it work for a year or two, and, you'll make a lot more money. Let's face it, there's plenty of people that simply do not do anything except show up, so, it might not be too hard to give output comparable them..
This is my sig.
Honestly, I wouldn't go independent to work part time. I guarantee you'll have the same struggle you see now with yourself all the time. Most consultants bring in good money on being more flexible, more "do what it takes" than your salaried employees, unless you work for huge consulting companies which is different but not better for part-time either. If you don't run into it yourself as in "taking both those will be good money" it'll come to you as "well, if you can't come in now we won't renew your contract". If you want to work part-time, find a company or even better educational or private sector who has a decent staff where you'll be one of a group. At least for the operations part of IT having somenoe who might not be there when you really need them is a big no-no. If you can negotiate your way into a position that handles planning, upgrades, policies, routines, scripting and all sorts of regular work that fits a schedule you can make it as long as they feel safe that there's someone else to pick up the phone when all went to hell at 3AM. Or at least you're not the first in line to be called.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I see the IE team finally caught up with Rob. 'We see you'
I suspect only working part time in IT would make it difficult to maintain a current skillset. I seem to learn something from just about every project I do - and I'd hate my job if I didn't. Only working part time gives you fewer opportunities to learn new things, stay current with what you already know, and keep up with the constant changes compared to a full-time co-worker. Unless you really focused on keeping up - which I find tougher to do without a specific (job related) task associated with it, you are going to fall behind over time, and you'll be lucky to get any job in IT.
If you're at a point where you don't want to work as many hours and don't mind the reduction in pay and benefits, then hire on with one or more temp agencies. Work the jobs you want, when you want. If you don't like the work at one assignment, request another. Of course if you become too choosy, the temp agency will stop calling about available jobs, but that's the risk you take in this economy.
The only part time tech work I had was as an intern or working at a University doing tech support for one of the colleges. Working at the University required being a student.
Otherwise there's probably very little chance of getting part time work.
Work Safe Porn
I'm part time IT worker. The company is small non-IT firm. No-ONE except me knows any programming, everyone does something else. There is really little work there, but it MUST be done, and you cannot really swap that guy all the time since it takes lots of time to learn the things required to do the work, so it needs to be in-house job.
How I got it? A friend was before me there and his last task was to find someone for his job, when he switched to full time position elsewhere.
©God
Try smaller businesses. They may not be able to afford multiple full time staff but still have need for programmers. Personally I would love to have a part time programmer helping me out, but it is very hard to find any.
The benefits are twofold.
Unionized workplaces usually have a lot of flexibility in terms of hours, part-time, mat/pat leave, benefits, leave of absence, etc. The only way to lose your job is to do something really stupid and indefensible, your employer can't just sack you, they have to prove their case.
Working at a non-profit means profit isn't the be all and end all, the focus is on service instead. There's a different mentality and work philosophy, people work at non-profits mostly because they're either useless at any other job or they really do believe in the cause.
Of course, this combo is guaranteed to keep your wages down...
If you like computers and your hobby... If you're a good programmer who knows howto write C code that uses OpenGL, SDL and all that creative stuff that makes coding fun...
Stay the hell away from IT... all those incompetent buzzwords and people will give you cancer..
The term "Pipe dream" comes from Freud's interpretation of objects in dreams. He believed that pipes signified unfulfilled sexual fantasies*. So... if you wanna think of a job in IT as an sexual fantasy... you go right ahead with that.
*Then again, being a raving pervert, Freud thought of everything as sexual related.
If your a systems admin and live in or around NYC, message me. I have plenty of part time work.
If you're asking the question, then likely you don't have what it takes. The secret is to find that part time work -- in addition to the current job, and then when it pays off, quit the regular job. To control you own hours, you have to TAKE control. My last boss encouraged extra work. It didn't matter if it was in-house, or outhouse.
Well, I don't know if it's unrealistic but I'm sure it's going to be tough. I worked in the IT department and Info Security department for a large company for more than 10 years. About 2 years ago, I resigned to go out on my own. At first, I was so busy I couldn't keep up. This past year, however, has been tough. I still have work here and there but I've put the resume back out there looking for a "real" job. I told myself that I would never work "for the man" again but I have a family to support. I'm still going to do consulting. It's just going to be in the evenings, weekends, and free time.
I worked for several years as part-time IT. The key is that the company was an nanoengineering R&D company. Everyone there was brilliant, but could do little with computers besides email and filling forms. I was the only IT employee for the company, but it worked because the entire company was roughly 50 people. I maintained the servers, installed the PCs, fixed the printers, and did break-fix on everything. Even with all that, 25-30 hours a week left me time to continue my education. It can be done, but from my experience it only really works at smaller companies that do not employee tech-savvy people for other roles.
As someone who did exactly what you are trying to do I can tell you that while the arrangement was ok for me, it wasn't that great for my employer. What happened was that I decided to quit my job as a developer because I was starting a business (not IT related) and wanted to devote more time to it. Since we were in the middle of a pretty major project, my boss tried to persuade me to stay and after a bit of wrangling we settled on a 3 day week, Mon to Wed.
The problem is, on most IT projects you don't work by yourself. And other people on the team are still there when you are not and face a choice of either calling you on your days off (in which case you might as well work full-time) or assigning your tasks to other people and working around the fact that you're not there (in which case your role will be increasingly marginalized to the point where you might as well not be there at all). It's not just a matter of scheduling. Unexpected things pop out all the time and since we were working on a deadline it was a major annoyance for people to postpone say a conference call where I was needed by 5 days (say Thursday to Monday) etc.
I guess it depends on the circumstances, but generally I would ask a question what's in it for the employer? If you are absolutely essential to them and there is no other way they can keep you then great, but in most cases they might as well hire a full time person instead.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
... But it's in addition to my full time job.
Strap some SNMP on top of multiple remote options (networkable power switches help in disaster scenarios).
They call me once or twice a week, and I see them once a month. I collect about $100 a week for maybe 4 hours of work.
It works out well.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
Four years ago, I hung my shingle (in the local Yellow Pages) and "retired" from corporate IT. I fix home computers for ninety bucks an hour. I have about 700 customers so far, and almost all of them would call me exclusively for future repairs. I pick up at least two or three -- sometimes a dozen or more -- new customers per week through the ad in the phone book.
It's truly a part-time job: some days I'm swamped, and other days I'm dead in the water... but I set my own schedule, and I have a very low overhead (the phone book ad is the biggest line item).
If you have a reliable car, are very skilled at desktop support, and don't mind dealing with people, it's a great way to go.
This is something I've been saying for years : 40 hours a week is "part time" for a programmer.
In the IT industry as I've known it, 'part time work' is anything less than 80 hours/week.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
I work part time right now as a sysadmin - but it's dangerous. I'm considered a "temp" even though I have no set end date. When the shit hits the fan, guess who's first to go? In today's market - I'd say it's better to stick it out full time, otherwise you'll constantly get the feeling you are on the chopping block.
I am fortunate to be working part-time on a small development team. I target 20 hours per week, but that fluctuates with other things in my life. We have three full-time developers and two part-time. For me, the key is staying engaged on our project's email list. Even when I'm doing other things, I check that list many times a day and respond to issues as they come up. I get to do a lot of the design work, and that comes with the responsibility of making myself available and communicating well, even when off-site.
"Maybe a career in toilet cleaning is calling me."
Information Technology/Sanitation Technology.
What's the difference? Either way you usually end up dealing with the end users crap in one way or another.
i too have worked in IT fulltime for 12 years, and i've always been in positions which required working above and beyond the standard 40 hour work week. in the beginning i used to envy my 40 hour co-workers, but then i started putting things into perspective:
+ i don't punch a timeclock.
+ although i am consistent in my arrival and departure time, my time is flexible enough that i can come and go as i please.
+ my lunch hour can be as short as 30 minutes, or as long as a couple of hours.
+ i'm often taken out to lunch by various vendors(existing and potential) to discuss new products, services, etc.
+ the company pays for my cell phone(i know it's a leash, but i'm also not limited in my usage).
+ i get equipment refreshes with a higher frequency then most users(save owners and other bigwigs).
+ i have more technology in my cube/office than several co-workers combined.
+ i can wear what i want.
+ i usually set my own agenda for my work week.
+ i'm often involved in interesting projects, many of the involving exploratory research regarding cost, deployment, etc, stuff that actually is challenging.
+ i'm a techno-god in the eyes of my co-workers.
+ i get a regular paycheck.
+ i have ability to authorize up to $5000 purchases per P.O.(no limit on number of P.O.s... how did that happen?...)
+ i get reimbursed on work related expenses.
+ i get paid vacations and official holidays.
+ i get to go home to my family and leave work behind from time-to-time.
of course on the downside:
- i get stuck holding the bag when technology misbehave.
- i have to work long hours from time to time.
- sometimes there just isn't someone to hand things off to, so i have to see things thru to the end.
- there often isn't anyone else to blame.
- i don't always get compensated for my time appropriately.
etc...
etc...
i can go on and on with the plusses and minusses, but the bottomline for me, i'm better off workin' for the man, and not for myself. you need to run a +/- list for yourself and see how it shakes out. work less? and you're thinking of going into business for yourself? pull your head out of your ass!
your gonna work harder and longer when you work for yourself, for a while(months, maybe even years)...
and you bring your work home with you...
and you can't take a day off 'cause your sick...
and you can't just up and quit cause your boss is an asshole...
why don't you ask for a different compensation schedule? or maybe a flex schedule? track how many hours you work(regular and overtime) and see if you qualify for overtime pay in your state/country. ask your employer to pay for your cell and home internet connection(so it's less money out of your pocket). start becoming creative about how you are compensated for your work, and maybe not just money...
sometimes i wish i was a bricklayer: only responsible for making sure that my shit is level, straight and plumb, and be able to leave all my work behind at the end of the day, but alas, that's not my lot. oh well, maybe the next reincarnation.
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
For my first job out of College, I was a contractor.
Many of the contractors I worked with loved it because they would take long vacations in between gigs. They also were able to control their hours and avoid death marches.
Contractors are also easily fired, which means that when working with contractors; those who write bad code are given the boot very quickly!
No, I will not work for your startup
I had a part-timer helper once. I sub-contracted some work to him to create a PHP page that queries a mysql database to update some stats on a web page. For the job spec I wrote a simple page that gave an idea of what I wanted with the relevant data and my hacked together SQL. Turned it over to him as a guideline. It took him a week to reformat the columns and then he tried to charge me for 40hours of work at $80/hr.
Then next part timer decided that he wanted to work part-time but still pull down the $2K bi-weekly he was making before. $150/hr seemed perfectly reasonable to him. His Java was not much better than mine (which is alarming because I can barely get "Hello, World!" to work). His perl was worse.
I did eventually find one college student looking for some beer money. He produced a whole bunch for about 6 months then went on to better things. (Beer money worked out to around $75/hr).
Yes, there are small consulting agencies willing to hire part-timers. From a benefits standpoint it's a good deal, but many agencies contract on a project basis. Any particular employee tends to give about 75% of the day working and the rest browsing the web and doing relatively non-productive stuff (**). An agency can take this into account. If they are loaded with part-timers then they could jeopardize deadlines even if they have the equivalent hours. I.e., if it takes half an hour each day to prep for work, then that's 1/16 of an 8-hour person's day, but 1/8th of a part-timer's.
(**) Coding is stressful and 25% non-prod time is not too bad.
If you work three days a week - 60% of the time...
Your computer doesn't cost 60%.
Your software licenses aren't 60% either.
That desk you use didn't cost 60% as much.
The office space to put your desk in doesn't cost 60% as much.
The HR department doesn't only do 60% of the work for you.
Your health insurance doesn't only cover 60% of you - you either insure or don't insure a person.
And so on.
As a rule of thumb, most employees cost their companies 2-4 times the cost of their full time salary. Take a hypothetical $50,000/year salary. Cost to the company may well be around $200,000 a year. You take a pay cut to $30,000 in exchange for working 40% less, that $200,000 cost has just dropped to $180,000 or only 10% less. They're paying 10% less to get 40% less value out of you. Hardly a good deal. Admittedly, many costs do scale - 401k matching only matches what you pay, taxes are relative to salary, etc. Still, those that don't ensure the argument's not in your favor.
Worked in reverse, it makes it painfully obvious why companies like EA so famously loved forcing overtime, especially when they could get it unpaid, out of workers. Health insurance doesn't cost them any more for a 100 hour week than it does for a 40 hour week. Office space costs no more. Hardware and software costs no more. On purely mercenary terms, efficiencies come in with more hours, not less. You're asking them to do the opposite.
Find an employer that supports your objectives. Many do.
The catch is that you will get paid less. Flexibility has value.
I would love to find some part time work, the problem is that the IT work that I do...really doesn't lend itself to just being somewhere a few hours. It's all stuff that requires you to at least be available on-call 24x7. Not that I usually have to work that much, but still if you are the network guy and the network breaks, you have to fix it, whenever that is. And if you have multiple clients, and they all have problems at the same time...well it could get ugly...
I've seen or heard so many ridiculous demands on IT personnel and their off time that it pretty much showed me that I don't want to work in the industry. The management tends to lean HARD on the person with the most knowledge.
For example, I was once pulling a Sunday watch and one of our LAN's went down, and considering it was a LAN that is hardly used I reasoned that if I couldn't solve the problem we would get to it in the morning when the senior administrator came into work. My boss tells me to call him into work, knowing full well he was enjoying one of his few days off with his girlfriend, and was several hundred miles away at Disneyland - not to mention he lives about 60 miles from work. Understandably, he didn't pick up his phone and my boss decided to have me call him every five minutes until he picked up, which turned into me calling every five minutes to remind him not to pick up his phone. I continued to troubleshoot and traced the problem to the router and my boss says:
"Oh, I know what to do." and hard reboots the modem, problem solved...
On a more helpful note, I know two people who's skills allow them to make money when they need it, and they otherwise do what they want for extended periods of time. One is a graphic designer who will seek out commissions, and spends his free time making music and performing live, hardware hacking, and travelling. The other is an engineer who started out with a PCI-based encryption card, sold it to the NSA(IIRC), and does similar things when he needs work. He spends his free time traveling, usually finding his way into some kind of shenanigans and other tomfoolery, even being told not to return to certain countries only to fly his plane back into them covertly.
Sounds like kick ass lives to me.
But you have to be very good, and before you try, you have to put in enough time at a company that you become indispensable. Then you will find yourself in a position where you are likely to be able to dictate terms of your work life within reasonable boundaries. I've managed to arrange 4 day/32 hr schedules at two separate companies. Neither company was thrilled about it, and both made it clear that my advancement in the company would cease while I was not working full time. I did this for several years and it was *awesome*. Ever do your grocery shopping on a Monday afternoon? Or go for a hike in a typically mobbed location and find it completely empty on a Thursday morning? It's powerful stuff. If you can afford it, and you're comfortable with putting your career on pause, go for it! But, again, you have to be very good, and you have to be willing to walk over the issue when you bring it up to management. Good luck!
It's called contracting. You can easily work part time as a contractor with many employers it's when you're a full=time employee who wants to keep their benefits that it tends to fail, and with good reason as that's not fair to your employer. It's also more likely to happen if you're doing some sort of support work rather than a project with delivery targets. If your employer is rushing toward a deadline rather than doing a steady volume of on going work they're more likely to want more of a commitment. I've worked part-time in the past to have time for personal projects and seen others do it as well.
check out http://www.onforce.com/
perl hacker...worked for major( or so it likes to think ) UK university for 12 yrs, got made redundant, had 10 month break, stared back at 3 days week, and now doing 4 days a week. more than enough to pay the beer and loving it. Retire in the near future with a not to bad pension.
Usa is a small town in Japan. Or are you not old enough to remember that?
This is not the best economy in which to quit your full time job in search of contracting or part time work. Everyone who has been fired (and may not have a savings cushion) is looking for anything they can get, including part time and/or underbidding your contracting price. I know it is not the answer you're looking for (and many above have offered helpful suggestions) but I would seriously consider riding this recession out a little more and be happy you still have a job. At the very least, build up a *minimum* 6 month savings cushion before you quit, in case you can't find anything or end up hating the job you move to.
If your IT skill sets are in demand and you are good and knowledgeable with your skill sets, or you can pick up and master new skills without too much pain... and you have the capability to be personable and social and you can also get up in front of a small group and speak, then perhaps you might want to look into becoming a contract trainer.
I worked as a trainer in this fashion from '99 to '05 and it was a great experience. Generally it involves traveling to a client's site or training facility to do the work, but if you live in a big city, it will reduce the probability that you have to travel depending on the organization you do work with. The pay is pretty good... you can bring in between $400 to $1000 a day or more depending on various factors such as content complexity, demand, and class size. Most IT classes seem to run for about 3 to 5 days.
It is part time work in the sense that you train only when classes are available to be taught, and when you feel like teaching them. (Though turning down requests for training will move you to the bottom of the 'available trainers' list with most companies) So you could easily work 26 weeks during the year and realistically bring in a $75,000 salary. That gives you the other 26 weeks of the year to learn new skills and brush up on old ones, and to basically do whatever you want to with your free time.
On the downside, unless you are always learning the next new "hot" thing, it can be difficult to find work... Especially now that the economy sucks, as training budgets typically are the first to get slashed.
But if you find the right niche, you have partial control over the times and places you work. Also, you typically don't work during the weeks where there are holidays. And usually, a training day is exactly 8 hours, which includes a 1 hour lunch break and other smaller breaks in between. You typically won't work more than that unless the materials are new to you, where you have to spend an hour or two per night reviewing what's to come the next day.
As a bonus, if you can write your own materials, you can also make an additional income. Course materials sometimes go for anywhere from $10 to $75 per student per day.
Granted, training is not for everyone, and this is probably the worst time to consider starting off in the field... wait for the markets to go up... but it's an awesome part time gig!
1. IT is project focused. Which means deadlines.
2. IT work must really be done for it to be done. Test must pass. It must be deployed. It is not like softer information professions that are document focused.
3. For every month you work as a contractor, it takes a month of sales to get that work. That means that it is hard to sustain true independence.
If you are good at budgeting, you could work for a year, and then take six months or a year off. I have done that.
As someone stated above, you also could move to a European country that has more favorable work laws.
Or you could greatly decrease your standard of living and work in some aspect of IT that is unreliable income-wise.
Or you could start your own business, such that you are an employer and not an IT worker yourself.
Whatever you attempt, good luck!
I know it's not the best time to be looking for a job, but it doesn't really sound like you have much of a choice if you really want to go that direction. There *ARE* places out there that will let you do this. I have a friend who has been working 4 day weeks for over a decade.
This question comes at an interesting time, because I just switched to doing half-time. However, that's kind of easy for me to say -- I'm one of the founders. However, I have talked with a co-worker in the past about doing part-time (he chose not to, it was actually my idea), and we were seriously looking at hiring someone who would only do part time (he decided to go out on his own).
So, you can definitely do it without starting your own company. If you want to start your own business to reduce your hours, you are crazy (IMHO). Owning a business, there's always more you can do. My road to half-time started first by going from 60 to 70 hour weeks down to 40...
Sean
www.dice.com keyword - part time Looks like there's opportunities out there. Sure you may want to stay with the company but today's business world has gone the way of the NFL. Free agency and no loyalty on the part of the employee or the employer. I would prefer stability but then again the instability means we get paid higher than a lot of other career paths.
Beware of those who profit off the docile and persecute the unbelievers.
There are tens of thousands of quality part time IT jobs in school districts. Companies, too, but those are harder to locate and less predictable. Many schools, both public and private, cannot afford a full-time person, but desperately need professional IT services. Also for smaller Cities, working directly for city gov't. (Look for a City where the city offices are in the same building as the police department.) These organizations don't know what to look for or how to interview. They will appreciate your experience. Walk in with a complete IT support plan for them, not just a resume.
I will create a sig when innovation restarts in the U.S.
There are zero guarantees between now and ..who knows about this economy. sure, tons of eople are still working normally and making good money..but millions aren't and with half a million layoffs in just ONE month, last month, and more to come across all industries..feeling lucky? Is your home all paid off, do you have a big working garden, is your ride paid off and in good shape, do you have some backup solar panels for guaranteed electricity, do you have a year's worth of long term storage food for yourself and family..and so on. In other words, suck it up for now, keep working full time, drag in the cash and spend it *wisely*, pay off bills and get as independent as possible as long as the gravy train is running.
I think that a LOT more people next year are going to be looking at "spare time" as in all their waking moments "spare time", available and a lot more people will feel good if all they have is a part time job. And here's why..if you follow the financials, all the bulls for the past 1.5 years or better have *consistently* almost without fail lowballed how bad it was going to get, only the contrarian bears got it right. Now, the same bulls (wall street and Fed guys and treasury guys, those bulls) are still the same guys, but even they are getting rather antsy about things. Notice all the "emergency bailouts" and so on? These are not normal times. This is more than a clue.
Visit every small office you can find near home, tell them that you are willing to come in every Monday (or tuesday, etc.) and serve as their dedicated IT person for that day or half day. Tell them you don't want to be 1099'd but instead want to be a part time employee, in exchange for a regular schedule and the reduction in risk that 1099 work entails, you would be willing to take a far lower wage than their current on call guy.
So your giving them the benifit of having an in house IT guy who's not going to over bill, no going to make unnecessary recommendations in hopes of profiting.
I did this for a couple of years while I was in school... it works great. Most small business owners network with other small business owners, and you will turn down more offers than you'd imagine. Pick one who has a good health package and agree to work in exchange for healthcare. All together, most of my employers were out less than 10K per year, far less than they spent when they called the "geek squad" or their $100/hr consultants.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
I went from working as an IT consultant to an in house DBA/head network administrator position. I took a pay cut, but I enjoy a better quality of life. Instead of driving all over southern California and flying across the country on a regular basis, I now take the train to work. Instead of working random schedules whenever I was needed and putting in a lot of overtime, I work 35 hours a week and some times even less. I spend the mornings and evenings training martial arts, and spend the weekends and Wednesday nights with my girlfriend.
Life isn't all roses though. I'm working for a non-profit that has been all over the papers (Los Angeles and New York Times) because of serious fiscal mismanagement on the part of the board of directors and senior staff. I could very well lose my job due to the mistakes of others.
What you really need to do is to take a long hard look at how hard you want to work, and what you want out of life. I decided that I could live without a Porsche and a nice big house. I simply wasn't willing to put in the hours it took to make the big bucks. Some people are driven by those rewards. I'm not. I value tranquility and simplicity. I don't deal well working with the ladder climbing, self centered prick types who seem to end up at the "top" of the material world. I'd rather have free time to meditate, and practice tai chi, and read, and cook, and do other things that don't have me sitting in front of a computer, or sitting in meetings and thinking about work all the time.
If your meta question is, "Can I make the big IT dollars and work part time?" I think the answer is a big NO. People make a lot of money with IT skills because, a lot of IT skills require a serious time commitment. Being successful in IT requires constantly upgrading your skills and staying abreast of the trends. In the two years I've been working where I'm working, I've missed the shift to virtualization. If I had stayed with my previous employer, I'd have VMware ESX skills right now. Since I didn't, I don't. I make ~$68k a year which is on the low side of what IT people make, and in southern California it isn't much at all. I'm happy though. I'm not going to starve any time soon.
My company hires a lot of part-time people for engineering. They are entry-level, and the savings in pay and benefits are marginal compared to the added costs of supporting part-time people. We do it because it helps us find quality people and poses little risk for us (not hard to terminate someone part-time).
For people more senior that only want to work part-time, we hire them as independent contractors. They all have day jobs and moonlight, and their pay is really just 10-20% above their day-job salary. Again, we gain benefits at minimal risks, making it worthwhile.
It works for us because the tasks they are doing are between 2-10 hours, and can be done in one or two sittings. It works for them because they already have benefits and the money is generally extra cash.
Part time employees don't take the place of full time employees. There are tasks that part-timers can't be expected or trusted to do. You get disappointed with performance periodically.
So, converting a full-time job to a part-time job is generally impossible, especially on a long-term basis. (I pulled it off for 8 months once though.) You aren't going to get 2x the hourly wage to cover billing, benefits, and overhead if you are working part time and picky about hours.
What does work is recognizing a deficiency and understanding how it can be solved part-time or in a geographically-agnostic way by someone with your particular experience.
We work 217 days/year here :D
Many kinds of work really can be done at home by telecommuting. That can eliminate many of the costs to the business, such as the desk and the computer and the space they occupy. Software development in many cases (but not all) is just such work. System administration is less so, but even that can be done to a great deal by telecommuting (virtualization helps this in many cases).
In other cases, shared desk/computer/space can be done between people scheduled to not overlap for other than meetings. Usually we're talking 50% or less for this.
The health benefits are still a big issue. That's why I have for the past couple decades taken the position that it would be better for business, and for creation of jobs, if health costs structures were shifted away from employers. I'll let others fight it out whether that should be individual direct insurance or a government provided social system. The taxes on business would be higher if the government was providing it, of course, but at least it should be proportional to the employee's scale of employment.
For every hour someone wanting part time is not interested in working, there's an hour of work available for someone that's looking. The government should be doing things to provide incentives to get businesses to let people work part time (and to work by telecommuting which also helps reduce energy costs and impacts) so that those fixed costs that still remain can be at least partially offset.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I work as a "Software Consultant" (21 years so far) and 10 years ago I went from the standard 40 hour week to 30 hours when our second child was on the way (FWIW I am male: all the other part-timers at that time were female).
Just recently a friend also went down from 5 to 4 days a week.
IIRC the law here in Germany just changed such that the onus fell on the employer to show a reason why *not* to let you work part-time.
You don't want to freelance. You want a job. (I'm not trying to be Peter Parker here.) If you freelance you make O.K. money but you have to do the shit jobs nobody else wants to do and you get squat. You want the full time job, where you can sit there and spank it 90% of the time.
Don't go part time in I.T. Trust me. Don't even think or want to do that.
I scored the anchor client because I interviewed with the place, and they liked me, but I didn't like them enough to abandon my own business and be a W2 for them, and while they liked me, they would have liked someone cheaper. Most of my other clients I picked up through craigslist or word of mouth.
It is not steady though, not even a little bit, so you have to be prepared for that. On the other hand, at what even a mediocre linux guy charges, there's really no reason to work full time, and the tax structure in this country seems to be setup to encourage you to keep your income below $50,000 or entirely in capital gains - so part time is much better than a few years on, a few years off, well, unless you can turn your earnings into capital gains.
That's another way to structure it... work for a year at a time, then take a year off. But structure it such that you are working 6 months out of every tax year so you pay taxes like you aren't making much money.
There is an easy reason for this.
Being i.t. the fact that you're there full time is more of a security blanket for your manager. so if anything should go wrong, you're right there to fix it,no need to call, sched. a time etc...
As you will have seen here, there are ways to do things in order to accomplish your goals. However, I suggest that if you are serious about this, what you should consider doing is checking in with your local headhunter organization. They may have contractor positions that may pay more, but you would only work three months or six months. This might enable you to see if truly like the idea. Plus you can actually feel out if it is some financially feasible for you (and your family, if applicable) to afford. Another thing to consider with a contract slot is that it could lead to a permanent position in which you would be able to negotiate terms of employment (work two to three days a week or x amount of hours). You have to remember there are priorities in life, being able to provide for yourself (and your family, if applicable) is one of those and things like insurance and medical expenses are not cheap.
"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet." General James Mattis
Outsource 8 Hrs of your time to a foreign nation and bring a pillow and sofa to work for that day. Use that time to sleep or watch your internet tv while someone works for you and you get paid to sleep. If you can telecommute even better.
Currently, I do part time (5 or so hours per week each) for two different companies, as a chip design consultant. For the first one, I worked for them for 9 years before I decided to go back to grad school, so it wasn't hard to talk them into it. For the second one, they begged me to work on this project for them because they didn't feel they could find someone else they could trust to do it. I mostly telecommute for both.
Impossible? No.
But you can't get into this kind of thing sight unseen. They have to know you and already trust you and find you invaluable. Going through head hunters, applying to positions directly to companies you haven't worked for -- no one will hire you for part-time work, and few will hire for telecommute. This sort of thing requires networking (in the human sense).
It took me two steps to make it happen.
Step one was to move to an industry where part time is the norm. In my case I moved into health care.
Then after getting settled and proving my worth I asked about part time.
I am now working 32 hours per week, Monday to Thursday.
Extra hours/overtime happen during my normal work days. If I have to work on my scheduled day off I take another day as comp time.
Good luck. YMMV.
...and for nearly a year encountered few problems as far as work was concerned. I chose to do this for precisely the same reasons as given by the OP: to simply spend less time working and more time on other things.
However, I specify 'as far as work was concerned' for good reason.
Whilst I am still able to deliver projects (this does require additional effort on my part - communication and flexibility are important), I found that I wasn't actually spending my additional free time very effectively at all. I wasn't doing the 'other things'!
Trouble is, whilst I thought the additional 9-10 hours a week would be enough to give me the breathing room to focus on other goals, the reality is that I could never get out of the work frame of mind sufficiently. For this reason I went back to full time, and am saving the additional cash to get a good six months away to give my other interests the full attention they deserve.
Given that you say 'ball and chain' it sounds like you're simply bored with your job (I realised that this was part of the reason for me wanting to do other things), but want to play it safe rather than just quit. Going part time won't solve that problem.
You mention two wage terms in your question: ... ...?
* Part time means what?
Part time can be a number of things, 35h/week, 20h/week, 10h/week, three days/week, 10month/year, 6 mo/yr,
* IT industry means what?
Are you working in hardware development, software development, management, consulting, data center maintenance,
You also mention that you like to focus on other things in life. You fail to mention how you intend to support your life. Do you need steady income, benefits (health insurance, 401k, disability insurance, ...), do you need income to support yourself for the next year? Where do you intend to live (urban, suburban, in the country side, ...)
With answers to these questions you can sort through the many suggestions above and get a clearer picture towards what each of them assumes are your ideas of both. With the last set of questions you can find out if the basic idea of reduced work is something feasible, or if you go back after the holidays to your existing job with a renewed sense of appreciation for it.
I'm feeling exactly the same. I want to work less and would love to go part time. I have thought about talking to my boss about having every other Monday off. I only get twenty days holiday a year and so in the end I just asked for a few extra one week blocks off a year unpaid and my boss was very understanding and said yes.
Most jobs get allocated way too much time, so do your work for the week and don't hang around once it's done. In the past I've regularly billed for 27 hour weeks for pretty much the same output as the rest of my colleagues. Most reasonable bosses will love you for it, because it makes the project budget go farther.
cheers
I suspect a lot has to do with your role within IT, but I used to be a fairly low-level network admin (no relevant degree), and when I decided to pursue an unrelated graduate degree I had to give up on IT work, there was simply nothing, NOTHING even advertised for part-time work at my level. I still keep an eye out, but I've been doing accounting work for three years now...yay for me.
Why don't you find someone who was in your position, went Independent, and now has too much work to handle ("Feast")? If their business slows down alot, they might not have the work to support you anymore, but that's true of any business. I KNOW people in this position, and who basically are in the position of closing down their "overly" successful IT business because it's not worth it to them to devote the hours it demands, and would rather pursue a lower-key career, like mind/body healing. This sort of person is EXACTLY the sort who could understand your desire to work Part-Time.
.
Obviously you didn't get the memo. When does a FTE IT staff really work FT? usually it's work 15hrs straight, then surf/sleep for the next 25, or work for 2hrs and surf the rest of the 6. And I'm talking straight IT, that handles installs and help desk related, not a app programmer, setup or troubleshooting guru (e.g. sysadmin).
Several years ago when I was unemployed I took an offer of 3 days/week doing programming at a company that didn't have room for a full time person in the budget. I was able to keep my bills paid and stop the cash flow. I did this for 4 or 5 months until they got me on full time.
The weirdest part about it was having my friends and family give me grief about it. Between the 'wow you're having a long 3 day week', and 'when are you going to find a real job' and 'how long are you going to let them do that', they were driving me batty.
Personally, I like the schedule. Money was somewhat tight, but it was nice having a lot of free time. I could go day hiking, drag the bike to the trail, and I was starting to look at some side work. But it's about what I'd expect to do when I am retired.
Get over yourself dickbag, and thank your lucky stars that you're in a position to ask such a question.
You probably just need to look around for an employer that has some more modern work practices. So dev firms are dickensian factories, but others are a lot better. Good flexible employment practices make it easier to attract great talent.
I work part time in IT. The trick is to start at part time and become valuable enough that even though they want you full time they do not want to lose you part time. I work 3 days a week and usually do 1 or 2 days a week contracting to other small companies. Or sometimes I just take 4 days off :0
> I have several friends who have tried this over the years, and know other people who have tried this. The bottom line is: friendships can fail under the strain of a business relationship ...
This is so true. I've worked on a number of projects with friends and have to conclude it's a bad idea. People, even those who hang out a lot and met in the same organization have very different expectations about how to go about work. Being friends, it's so much harder to confront the issues because you don't want to end up fighting them. Even if you agree lets be upfront as soon as we think there's a problem and we'll head it off, well, that doesn't work either. People hold it in.
Trick to resolving problems WITH ANYONE is you need to jump on them asap. Putting it off only makes it worse. Being friends, you put that off (and it gets worse) until one of you blows a fuse, then it's so much harder to undo the damage.
And hate to say it, but money changes most people. Sure there are people it doesn't, but at the moment my sample rate shows 100% and that includes some awfully nice people. One stage I was owed $100K by someone I thought was a friend. But when they had to decide between me and $100K, from their luxury waterfront beachhouse, well, Satan likes water views.
> where two friends created a business, had a falling out, and the business collapsed as a result.
I've never *lost* a friendship because of business. When it did go bad, we agreed to put it behind us and never do it again. That required a lot of forgiving in some cases, but learned the lesson.
I work 7-3 at a place as a lead developer (well now leading myself as most all other developers quit because of pressure - they are lame, sorry... no I did not make them quit, they just cannot handle it).... and spend 2-3 hours (sometimes a lot more) on my personal/freelance projects.
I earn 2x+ on my freelance per hour, but due to my day job I can only do around 3 hours. Then there are good days (like today) when I make as much in 8 hours on a weekend what I make over a week at my morning job.
This is in Costa Rica and I am (considered) a rare breed with years of networking and programming experience with a Unix/Linux background. Technically I am a developer who is asked to sometimes help with kernels, networking and debug mail server problems. That is not to praise myself just to give an idea.
Why I work that much ?
Baby is on the way (1st one) construction is half way, and I have hobbies like scuba, enduro (that is off-road bikes where you break some shit every weekend if you push it).......
I have nothing (really .. almost) but do not owe the bank :) a penny.....
Then again, your experience, needs, situation might vary, that is just me, and if I did not have a baby coming I would go back 100% freelancing and just gave up the day job (did that for looooong years before)
I'm good and payed over average.
If you need a good software developer to fix your software-development-problems, you have to make yourself comfortable with _my_ demands or you'll have to find someone else.
Honestly, working 8 hours (instead of 4) a day would give only 10-20% more output, working 4h concentrated on new/unknown software chunks is probably the most effective way for both sides.
I'm not en employee, think of me as a small effective out-sourcing company and/or consultant with real programming skills.
You don't need to give me an office, neither a computer or anything like healthcare or bonus stuff, it's all covered with my bill.
greets from the beaches in spain ;)
Big money, flexible hours and so little competition that you will never have to worry about your income again. The secret is "Hydrochloric acid". There is not a filthy toilet anywhere in the world that will fail to respond to two ounces of acid, a brush and a possible repeat after a 15 minute wait for the crud to be dissolved. With this information the world is your oyster. Buy the acid at a building supplies company - It is used for cleaning up excess cement after brick-pointing.
Has anyone working in IT tried job sharing?
Please share any experiences..
work 100 weeks for too long and you will be making a health insurance claim, which will cost your employer more...
Ask Me About... The 80's!
Have a look at any sociology book and you'll see that you've got the wrong attitude to work. You see, there is this thing called the "flexible workforce". Women are overrepresented in it and therefore "marginalised" into suffering low hours and flexible work practices. It would be sheer foolishness to relinquish the great honour of unreasonably long paid work hours that are stifling your life/family aspirations.
Salary is the only metric of any importance when making an assessment. Conditions are absolutely irrelevant. Tenure requirements, work hours, intrinsic reward, decent work life balance, and on the job safety are of no importance. If they were worth fighting over the men would have them and they would be graphed out in objective and fair sociology text books. Right next to those graphs that show salary disparity.
Michael Reed, freelance tech writer.
About 70% of new callers have malware issues. The rest run the full spectrum from true PEBKAC to cat hair in the vents: today, I got ninety bucks for un-checking "Mute" in the Volume Control applet (although I was there for about half an hour, checking for malware and giving advice). My ad says "your call is answered by the same Microsoft Certified Professional who will come to your home or office," and this is a big selling point for people who have bounced from Dell Support to the Geek Squad's credit-card collection team.
After I establish myself with the customer, I get their new PC & peripheral setups, along with any future problems & infestations. I have several customers with multiple PCs who have spent well over $1000 each over the years.
The number in my ad is my cell phone. I answer all my own calls, and usually schedule jobs for the same day or the next day. I often tell new customers "We accept Visa, MC, and cash" if I'm unsure about their checks (e.g., if they live in a trailer park or a crappy apartment complex). I have a concealed carry permit, so I'm not too afraid of bad neighborhoods... but I don't take unnecessary risks, as it doesn't make me bulletproof. I only have two or three (business) customers who don't pay upon completion, and their checks arrive within the week; my A/R balance is $0.00 right now.
One of the most important things, IMHO, is knowing how, when, and to whom to say "NO." I don't get sucked into working for people who think $90/hour is exorbitant, and I routinely decline to work on Win9x. I don't fix video games or hook up HDTV's. I usually turn down obvious major electrical problems like lightning strikes, and I don't do internal hardware work on laptops. I don't provide phone support to anyone, even family: within 60 seconds of answering the phone, I have usually said "I would be glad to take a look at the machine." This separates the real customers from people who are fishing for free advice. (However, I will often tell a caller something like "You don't need me: tell Verizon you have a bad FIOS router" because I don't want to knowingly charge for an obvious one-sentence fix).
My goal is to accumulate 1200 customers who spend an average of $100 per year, so I can easily live without the most annoying 2 or 3 percent of the customers I meet on the way to that goal.
You just have to work crazy hours at home as well as in the office, be highly poison and disease resistant or take precautions (antibiotic oils, safety glasses, non-toxic absorbing clothing)
Oh yeah and work at least a couple hours each day looking for your next job too. But they never tell you when the job is really ending or when you will be available to other companies.
n/t
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Working part time should refer to working a few days a week, not to working 4 or even 5 days a week.
my experience:
part time - no
freelance - YES
seriously
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Find somewhere that allows you to job share. You and one other person cover the week's work and talk between yourselves on the phone to handle anything that goes beyond your time.
For example you work Mon, Tuesday, Wednesday and the other person works Thursday, Friday (or perhaps overlaps on Wednesday).
It isn't without hitches, but it works for some people where I work. I guess how feasible it depends on the nature of the job as well.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
That may be you, and certainly most people.
In quite a few years of working on IT, in quite pressurized environments, I have rarely done it.
Lets be honest, employers in general have got absolutely no chance to make you past your stated working hours, unless you agree to be mistreated in such way in your contract of employment, or if you allow the interpretation of such contract to be always done by your employer to their own benefit.
If you interpret your contract properly very often it does not say what you think it says and you can, very successfully, remain working only the core hours you agreed originally because your interpretation may be as valid as theirs.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I have worked in several countries, different cultures, and I never did more than 40 hours a week.
The key is drawing the line clearly and firmly from the start.
At some point one of my bosses began to pester me with working extra hours with no pay (hint: that does not mean there is work to be done, it means your employer can't be bothered to plan and allocate resources accordingly), I politely but firmly refused. Then I was told I will not get a bonus.
The irony was that she was later made redundant, and my boss gave me a bonus anyway.
If you are exploited don't blame others but yourself, you are not as powerless as you think.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I will be available for you 24x7 if needed.
But you will pay for it.
If you can't do planning that is not my problem.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
This is really late in the thread, but I'll put in my 2 cents worth anyway. I'm part time. I manage the software development team at a local company. My situation is a bit different though. I've been in development for 20+ years and left a few years back to be a stay at home dad. I worked on a couple of contracts while I stayed at home. One of my contracts offered me a full time position, and with the economy the way it is, I seriously considered it. The end result is that I am an employee now, but when my kids aren't in school, I'm not at work. I get in by 9:30 AM, I leave at 3:00 PM. I get 2 weeks off at Christmas and Spring Break, and 2 months off in the summer, as well as all school inservice days and when my kids are sick.
Let me tell you, it's not easy. In my case, I'm juggling two jobs. Even if you're not, keeping on the pulse of on-going projects is extremely difficult. You need to be extremely organized and trust your staff.
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/07/10-reasons-you-should-never-get-a-job/
I'm not a programmer -- ok not quite true. I'm a sysadmin, so I spent a lot of time writing perl, but most of my life was fixing hardware and configuring things to work together. In most of my jobs I was the entire IT department: network, servers, clients, software, hardware, specs, purchase orders which meant that I learned do a lot of different jobs badly.
For 15 years I worked at a university. And yes, I put in some long days. But the work week was nominally 35 hours, not forty; the U gave us all a week without pay between Christmas and New years. (At our option it was averaged into our monthly cheques) We started with 3 weeks holiday per year. And my bosses would let me record my hours, and take time off in lieu.
Later I took a job with a hardware development company, with about a 25% raise. Biggest mistake I ever made. 50-60 hours was expected of you, initially for 'the last push' to get a product ready to go out the door, but these pushes breed like rabbits.
The company was fun, small and exciting the first year. Within a year it had become totally dilbertized, cubicals and all. I saw the writing on the wall when it got to the point that I needed three signatures to buy a $110 dollar ethernet card, one being at head office in Seattle.
For the last 5 years I've been working half time for a local school at 40% of the pay I was getting in industry. However as part of that job:
* 5 weeks of the year was canoeing, hiking, snowshoeing and orienteering, which I love.
* I could bank hours in bad weather and take it off in good weather.
* My commute reduced from 75 minutes each way to 12 minutes each way. In good weather it was reasonable to bike to work.
This gave me time to work on my tree farm.
The school has closed. So I'm working on the tree farm full time, and doing house renos that I've postponed for years.
Third Career: Tree Farmer Second Career: Computer Geek First Career: Teacher, Outdoor Instructor, Photographer.
Anyone who thinks web development entails only HTML is probably still writing COBOL or RPG on some big iron.
"RPG on some big iron"? Since when have developers of the server side of an online RPG not heard of web development with Java or a "P" language?
</whoosh>
My rule is if a layer has some built in functionality, don't use another layer to simulate it. Don't use Javascript to style things that CSS can do
But would you use JavaScript to simulate a CSS feature whose implementation in Windows Internet Explorer has defects? Or would you rather put the End6.org pop-up on sites intended for the public?
I would agree that starting on your own is probably the best idea. I work part-time but I am a student working for a small company so it works out well for both of us. I get paid well for someone still in school, and my company gets their stuff kept in working condition for way less than they would pay if they hired someone with a degree.
Your computer [...] desk [...] office space doesn't cost 60%.
That's why someone else uses your computer, desk, and office space on the days when you're not there.
Your software licenses aren't 60% either.
They are if they're per seat, and another part-timer uses the same computer. If your licenses are billed per user rather than per seat, perhaps your firm should investigate a free software environment.
you either insure or don't insure a person.
Since when? I've investigated individual health insurance, and I've seen policy offers that exclude dental, mental, and/or brand-name prescriptions. I would imagine that the health insurance policies offered to part-timers have such exclusions.
This leaves human resources as the only cost that's sure not to scale.
If you live in Mobile, can work 20 hours and know LAMP, send me a resume.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Short version: You have to specifically request something less than 40-hours a week, and even then you have to work against Americans' (and many states') prejudices that the only full-time is 40hrs.
Many companies won't go for it because they have horrible management practices or don't trust their employees. They simply don't have the processes in place to take advantage of resources without having constant access (on-site, forever).
Caveat: Unfortunately I've seen a lot of evidence saying a significant portion (>1%) of employees can't be trusted even if they have deliverables.
8-PP
----
Background:
After my first stint as an employee of a consulting firm (consulting to other companies) I knew that I couldn't handle the mindless, frustrating, constant limitation of working on projects I didn't care about for a full 40 hours a week. The next firm I applied to I made it a condition that I work 32 hours a week. They went for it. Only it didn't manifest until I complained a while later and reminded the owners of their agreement.
They countered that it was dependent on the clients' needs (the positions I was fulfilling) which is understandable. So it took a couple years after joining, but I was able to work 32-hours a week. In my state (U.S.) 32-hours is still full-time and you get all the benefits of a 40-hour employee. And of course now it annoys me that so many people and companies have a single definition of full-time as 40-hours a week.
It has worked out really well for me, but I have also been a developer working with some good companies in both on-site and off-site work over the last 6 years. I have done some 40-hr work a couple times if absolutely needed, and I pay attention to my email most of the time. Being in touch is necessary, yes. Hard to think if how any on-call position could be fair without being hourly of having good flex/comp-time/overtime policies.
But I am a developer who has worked on all parts of a project (minus funding/selling), and with managed projects whether or not I'm the one defining the requirements with the client, whichever position I'm playing on the team (or alone), working less hours whether at 8-hour days or 5-day weeks, has worked out very well for me. And helped me keep my sanity.
However... finding this kind of thing is very, very hard with U.S. company's preconceptions may be nigh impossible. Some say that a tough economy means consultants thrive, but I don't know if it will influence managers and HR departments to consider creative solutions.
Also, yes, it seems many companies equate 40-hours/week with "unlimited employee time for standard pay" so if you suggest 32/wk they think "uh oh, there's some actual limit on their time!". The whole EA/unpaid overtime crisis is one tiny example of an industry-wide problem... Uh, though I haven't let myself be exposed to it much.
Good luck to us all,
8-PP
I work as a programmer doing in-house development for a medium-sized company (~16,000 people). A few years ago, I asked my boss if I could go down to part time. I now work 3 days a week, Monday to Wednesday. Both me and my employer are flexible, so if there is a meeting I need to be at on a Thursday or Friday, I'll rearrange my week so I'm there that day instead. Same applies the other way if I need a day off. It has all worked out really will. This is in New Zealand, where I think the laws are better for employees, but the company has been very good about the whole thing, and it seems to work well for both parties.
I mostly agree--but corporations have worked to make IT people exempt from the benefits other hourly and salaried people are protected by--it is part of a general abuse of the exempt/nonexempt labor laws--the only difference is that for IT people it has been made part of the law that they are not protected.
First they said "you're not protected until your average hourly pay goes below 5x minimum wage" then they changed it to "...below $26.50/hour."
In other fields, if you are treated hourly (told when to work, how long to work, clocked for hours,) you are automatically a "nonexempt" employee. Exempt employees cannot be regulated as to when and how long they work--except for IT folk.
Most think that exempt=salaried, but this is a wrong impression given by the fact than most HR departments SO equate them. But lots of salaried folk are nonexempt for one reason or another, most commonly because their hours are tracked and the work they do is not "management."
And even exempt employees are entitled to compensatory time or money for overtime--again, IT is an exception.
So companies do overwork their IT staff (despite the very real large risks of disaster that result from working long hours continuously.
Working for yourself can be better, but it is not a given. Working for yourself makes it very hard to define "work hours," and the consulting business full of companies which underpay and overwork their contracted workers too.
Actually, it doesn't take more than one person to create value--history is full of cases which prove otherwise. Granted, like any business, you are probably better off hiring someone to do much of the daily maintenance of the business--since you can hire them for less than your time is worth. And great value requires group effort. But working contract jobs through another company usually results in a bad deal for both the client and the consultant. The client pays high rates for labor which is often paid only a small fraction of the client's charges--20% is not uncommon. This is because the majority of such companies charge the highest rate they can to the client and get the lowest rate possible from the consultant--and pocket the difference. Very few IT consulting companies pay their contractors on a percentage basis as theatrical and publishing agents (who preform similar functions) do.
I've been doing this as employee or consultant for over 35 years now, and though the treatment you get as a consultant is better than as an employee (sometimes!) you are often put in a position of being terminated or agreeing to an outrageous assignment.
An additional problem is that clients all to often look at the hourly rate without thinking about the total project cost. It does not take an extremely competent programmer anywhere near as long to perform a job as it does a lessor person--and the code quality is usually much better.
In any circumstance, it is difficult to get paid anywhere near your value, and this often results in a company receiving just the level of quality they are willing to pay for...regardless of the person's abilities.
For instance, I walk in and find a solution to a problem that an IT staff has spent 50-60 man-months on, and solve it in 12 hours. But my pay level will not reflect that value!
My code is robust. It doesn't generate call-backs unless the client mucks with it.
I start producing code on a new system within the first couple days (unless the job is still in the analysis phase :)
I've had clients who had never gotten and deliverable from contractors for the first several weeks of even simple contracts.
Take a job as a University professor, I have never seen one work anything close to 40 hour work week.
Perhaps you should tell your boss that you wanted to work in politics part-time.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
It would be really difficult to go part time when rest of the team is doing 60 hrs a week. You might try followings... 1. Don't compromise on total hours. Say you would work 10 hrs a day and take Friday off. 2. Spread out your vacation. For example if you have 14 days of paid vacation then you can say that you want to take every Friday off in summer. 3. Going part time would be easier if you have some legal reason such as child care, illness or regular doctor visits or care for family member. 4. Going part time is much easier when starting a new job. I've always seen that if you tell employer during the time of offer acceptance that you want to take every Friday off (because you need to visit your hometown for example) then it may get approved easily especially for senior positions. 5. Work on some weekends and compensate on other days by longer vacations. 6. Switch to contracting with your own employer. Most IT companies have contractors. You can have 3 month job followed by say 1 month off when project is in low velocity. Many companies would love this if you explain them that they can reduce cost this way by not hiring full time. In nutshell, if you are going part time and rest of your team isn't you would hurt your career from long term perspective (promotions, bonus etc). The only perfect part time jobs I've heard is in likes of carpentry, plumbing etc.
I worked myself through school as a part-time network admin and general IT support.
My best suggestion to you is look for smaller companies that outsource their IT and / or NPOs which typically can't afford regular IT staff. By creating your own job and going on contract with a 1 - 2 a week agreement you can work to the contract and if you are not available for more time your are not obligated. This worked for me very well during school and when you create your own job you have to make the company realize that they actually will save money by having you on staff. Eliminating user downtime and creating long term IT strategies can and typically will save organization money in the long term.
The best bet is to look for companies 10 - 20 staff which currently outsource their IT staff and as I mentioned before NPOs (nonprofit organization) can be ideal for this in some cases as many in my experience (I work or have worked for ten or so of them) either outsource their IT or just the staff member who sort of knows IT and that just doesn't work in the long term.
I work 3 days a week ( 24 hours ) at a national lab writing bioinformatics software. Here's how I did it:
I spent 3 years becoming a valued member of a small team that dealt with a key piece of software. When the other key people left, I had the leverage. I'd always wanted some extra time to hone my artistic skills, and figured I could break even with the bills at 60% salary. At the moment when I realized the leverage I held, I pitched to my manager...he wasn't happy about it, but after a few weeks, he agreed. A factor worth mentioning is that the lab != industry, and there are more flexible arrangments ( even though I'm the only one I know with 60% time ) for visiting scholars/professors and such, plus the pressure to make money is much less, being government-funded.
It's a great situation: a steady paycheck, fairly interesting work, full benefits ( including an accruing pension ), and 4 days a week to do what I love. And if I need to make extra cash, I do some contract work at a higher wage, since they don't pay benefits.
The main downside--I am no longer the key person in the group, after years of this part-time situation. My contributions to the company are less than what they were, as my art takes over more and more of my life. It is what it is, only so many hours in the day...luckily job security is still high, being a government job, but I miss being a valued high-performing contributor.
easy part time work = www.onforce.com
Being honest gets you ahead, if only in the long term....Working your 40 hours a week, sometimes more and sometimes less
But what if you were honestly slacking?
Not showing up for a year or two and collecting a paycheck is just plain stealing and catches up with you in the end anyhow.
How is it stealing if the company's employment is at will? I wouldn't do it because I see things the way you do, but, if someone wanted to throw their career on the line, slack off, still get stuff done but not necessarily give 100%, and ultimately got ahead by doing it, but without lying, then, what would be morally wrong with that? Einstein was finished as a patent examiner because he screwed around and got his phd, but look at what humanity as a whole got because he did it. You could say he stiffed his patent office, but, he served humanity more. Isn't that what free enterprise is supposed to do? If someone could basically turn a full time job into a part time gig, and then achieve something genuinely great by doing so, then, isn't that more economically efficient as a whole? I would argue that it is. I mean, employment is at will. Obviously, if someone can keep the balls rolling for a year, the employer could not be too upset about the whole thing, and, if society has room for some of that, and we get a few Einsteins along the way, aren't we better off?
What you don't see is that the capitalism results in the same outcome as socialism, people don't want to work because there is no point to trying to get ahead when constant outsourcing removes stability and intense pricing pressure makes it impossible to advance under less imaginitive circumstances. You have to be creative and self serving, just as much as a boss of a company is.
Your exhortations are really just like the old Soviet "You must work hard for your honesty and the glory of your country", except you say "company", instead of country. What's really the difference between legions of disaffected soviet workers that bailed because they are perpetually screwed, and western european and american workers that bail for the same reason. What's the point of competing if, you don't get a share of the victory? The more and more companies lock down IP, lock down people with non-compete agreements, the more they spy on employees, search people's records, lie to them, outsource them, the less and less people will actually believe in the very idea of hard work.
Work has to pay off, for people to want to do it. IT doesn't matter if you have investment driven capitalism or socialism, if people see that they don't get anything for their work, they are not going to do it. If you want to take a big chance and throw out your career, you can do that, but don't you think its odd that our economic system has arrived at a point such that that is what you have to do to get ahead. I mean, even in the 1970s, Jobs and Wozniak were doing the min at HP and Atari and they gave us the first practical personal computer, and ultimately, indirectly, the core of HP's business as it is today.
This is my sig.
Geek Squad.
+++OK ATH
http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites.html
Slashdot = Sarcasm
Based on the original post, I think something went wrong during the talk with the boss: "I asked my current employer and was shot down". The question here isn't "can I?", but "what can I do to?". Unless you walked into that room with ways to make it happen, then you were dooming yourself. Go read 4-Hour Work Week for some inspiration / ideas.