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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."
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.
...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.
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.
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
I started my company by myself. It doesn't have to pan out the way you described -- it depends very much on what your product is and what the margin on that product in the responsive markets is, and how that margin changes over time.
Pretty much business 201 there. If you're doing hardware repair then no, you probably can't start a company on your own that does just that. The margin is too small in most markets. However, if you choose a thing like security consulting the current margin is ridiculously huge enough to really get something viable going with one single person.
That doesn't mean that the breaking point (where you have to hire someone else or risk either ending up on nitro glycerin or thorazine) is any easier with a very high margin product. In fact I think it makes it even harder; the tendency is to wait much longer than you need to when you see the kind of profit you're bringing in by yourself. It's death to a number of one person operations every day, having bad timing in that moment.
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.
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!
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.
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.
> 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.
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.