I've been doing IT consulting evenings and weekends for ten years now, and I've seen lots of other consultants for the same client come and go. Lots and lots of the ex-consultants would not return phone calls, would implement solutions that they wanted instead of what the customer wanted, etc.
My advice for new consultants:
Incorporate. Protect your savings, house, car, etc., if there's a disaster.
Be available. This includes evenings, weekends, and vacations.
Be responsive. Check your customer email several times a day and respond.
When I moved to the Big City after graduation, and I started sending my resume to places looking for Japanese language proficiency, I got a call from a lady who worked for a Japanese airline's local office. She asked if she could take me out to lunch.
I was suprised and happy. Then she spent the entire hour telling me why I should look for some other kind of job because of how badly the Japanese bosses were going to treat me and how almost no American could take it. Then she paid for the lunch and left.
I took her advice and got into the computer biz with no looking back. Still, I do think about all that time and energy I spent learning Japanese, living in Japan for a year, and I wonder if I could have spent it taking classes that would have been more useful for my present life.
How about a big disappointment booth for your students after they spend all that time and money learning Japanese and then they find out that Japanese companies don't want to hire them (they hire Japanese) and non-Japanese companies don't want to hire them (they'll hire Japanese)?
(from bitter, bitter experience and many wasted years in college)
... then you haven't spent time with a bunch of hams. Holy Moly. I got enough geek/nerd time in one hour to last me the whole weekend. Talk about a convention with no girlfriends in sight...
Exercise is an excellent suggestion, and I find it keeps me on an even keel. I walk 24 miles a week.
But what really motivates me are what-if scenarios about if I lose my job, my house, my wife, my family. I can't relax and forget how horrible it would be to lose what I have worked so hard to get.
Too bad he uses the UN
on
Altered Carbon
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
Too bad he uses the UN as a character/trusted institution -- already seems dated.
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Charging $60 an hour tends to cut out the bullshit but it's not so much that it prices you out of the market.
Charge by the half hour. That way, little things only cost them $30.
My advice for new consultants:
Incorporate. Protect your savings, house, car, etc., if there's a disaster.
Be available. This includes evenings, weekends, and vacations.
Be responsive. Check your customer email several times a day and respond.
Hammy goodness!
Smithfield Hams
Yeah, that'll work. (Again, from long bitter experience.)
When I moved to the Big City after graduation, and I started sending my resume to places looking for Japanese language proficiency, I got a call from a lady who worked for a Japanese airline's local office. She asked if she could take me out to lunch. I was suprised and happy. Then she spent the entire hour telling me why I should look for some other kind of job because of how badly the Japanese bosses were going to treat me and how almost no American could take it. Then she paid for the lunch and left. I took her advice and got into the computer biz with no looking back. Still, I do think about all that time and energy I spent learning Japanese, living in Japan for a year, and I wonder if I could have spent it taking classes that would have been more useful for my present life.
How about a big disappointment booth for your students after they spend all that time and money learning Japanese and then they find out that Japanese companies don't want to hire them (they hire Japanese) and non-Japanese companies don't want to hire them (they'll hire Japanese)? (from bitter, bitter experience and many wasted years in college)
Remember 9/11 when people on the doomed airliners were making calls to their loved ones? Cell phones worked pretty well on airplanes back in 2001.
Right. Virginia is a Red state, but northern Virginia, the richest part, consistently votes Democrat. See Arlington, Fairfax counties.
No, Northern Virginia consistently votes Democrat. That's why they called it "Occupied Virginia." Lots of Yankees.
Verizon Wireless is non-union.
Use what works, not what you see in the movies.
At some point, when a company's stock price drops low enough for long enough, it gets delisted, right?
So SCOX is now down to 3.64, the last time I checked:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=SCOX&quicken=2
Does anyone know at what point they will be delisted?
I still have my regular old 6 megs of space, but my wife just IM'd me to tell me about her 100 megs. What's up, Yahoo?
I was able to get out of that trap by doing volunteer stuff at night to get experience and references.
It's not just a good idea, it's the law!
... then you haven't spent time with a bunch of hams. Holy Moly. I got enough geek/nerd time in one hour to last me the whole weekend. Talk about a convention with no girlfriends in sight ...
Exercise is an excellent suggestion, and I find it keeps me on an even keel. I walk 24 miles a week.
But what really motivates me are what-if scenarios about if I lose my job, my house, my wife, my family. I can't relax and forget how horrible it would be to lose what I have worked so hard to get.
Too bad he uses the UN as a character/trusted institution -- already seems dated.