Do you have wifi at home and work? If so, turn the phone off, put it in airplane mode, or shut off cellular data; you are doing something wrong if you think you are a light user and are consuming more than 1GB/month. I do video conferencing, web meetings, VNC, and a few other data-intensive uses, and am around 1GB/month (up from 250MB though a year or two ago).
With the iPhone you get application-specific cellular data usage, and you can limit applications' access; I assume Android does the same. For my iPhone, about half of my usage is system services and the app store (needed to replace phone while on the road, so I had to download everything over cell).
Focus on the trainwreck then. I will give one example: I get a resume from an engineer every 6-8 months from someone that I have heard stories about from one of his former co-workers as being a non-functional alcoholic. (The co-worker is what I would consider a functional alcoholic, read into it as you wish.) If this person were to put on their resume that they have been focusing on teaching yoga and spinning between professional employment then I would be forced to at least interview them.
Some specific advice: look at what part of the other things you are doing is what I consider "adult daycare." If you spend a lot of your time talking to people and trying to help them out then you really should approach looking for a job from the perspective of project management rather than engineering. If engineering is your passion, you work into it backwards.
I would say working under the table is a little different class; it might be the same ends, getting some extra cash, but working under the table is more like "doing odd jobs." (Tax law already accommodates this; you don't need to give a W2 or 1099 to someone you pay less than $500/year.) On the "employee" side, you just have more flexibility in reporting your income; not reporting is still a violation.
Agreed. A "dependent contractor" is by definition an employee. We have several people that have moonlighted for us over the years. We generally considered them 1099s as they did not generally work in our office, use our supplies, or have responsibilities other than delivering a specific product, which would place them firmly in that category.
Reality is that more people need to be considered W2 employees because that is the easiest way to prevent abuses.
The "gotcha" with Uber is what happens when a driver is simultaneously driving for Lyft, Uber, and the Pizza Company? Has he achieved a nexus where he is independent?
My bias is really over the issue of exempt/non-exempt employees though. Labor laws for non-exempt employees are really hard for small businesses when you get beyond restaurant/retail and into the professional realm. (Would you like a coding session when you are in the zone broken up by a mandatory 15-minute break?)
Not to judge, but as someone with a PE that does a lot of hiring of PEs, maybe you should take a close look at why you are having trouble. There are a number of things that can pose challenges, including location at one extreme and personality at another. It might help to go to IEEE meetings and try to get some help networking, reviewing your resume, and identifying what your specific challenges are, and how to work around them.
For point 3, it really depends where you live. Some of our employees have 2-hour commutes each way. While we prefer for them to first move closer to the office, it often is not possible. The least likely position in our office we recently agreed to let work from home two days per week-- someone that needs to coordinate with all the executives on tight deadlines.
If someone is good, you try to make it work. This person will have an uphill battle, but we will try.
When you have a run on the banks, it is too late for spending cuts to fix the problems. The stupidity here was that the debt repayment is unsustainable at 1.8x GDP. Greece got themselves into this, with the willing help of the EU, ECB, & IMF. All players are going to have to figure out a way to fix this... and of course the real problem isn't Greece but how the entire European Union functions.
Quite honestly, I can't see any good resolution coming from this. If Greece is pushed out, the other PIIGS might end up the same way, and the Euro starts to look more like a currency shared by France and Germany, with a whole lot of angry people around them.
Rather than treadmills, which instill a sense of walking and getting nowhere, corporate overlords now recommend Jacobs Ladders, so you can be climbing all day and not getting any higher.
I am mid-40's with back and sciatica problems and also recovering from recent laparoscopic surgery. I have been using a balance ball as my chair for 8 years, which worked for me pretty well up until a few months ago. (Now sitting hurts.)
I find I lose my ability to concentrate while standing-- I don't have the deep-focus time I used to get. I also need to have something to lean on periodically (bar height chair from ikea works). For me, the "zero-g" chairs aren't any good; not sure if it is a height thing or what. Locking your knees defeats the benefits of standing to some degree, and you really need to properly contract your abs to brace your spine. A treadmill would not help me personally.
The best advice seems to be to be at a healthy weight, have a strong core and actively engage it in whatever position you are in, change positions regularly, and find an excuse to walk around regularly throughout the day. There is no substitute for excercise though.
Bought a Buffalo Terrastation. Went on vacation a year later to a country with limited internet access. On trip, one-year warranty expired and it died the next day, taking all data with it.
Fortunately, I had a copy of the server with me on a portable hard drive, so I could work remotely. That was our only backup. Sending the accounting database back to the office via GPRS was a lot of fun, but mailing that drive back to the office (after duplicating it of course) scared me to death.
The solution at the time was the right one; we didn't have the money for anything more. Ever since we have a hot backup server synchronized to the primary, for a small business. Like most screw-ups, what is important is how you move forward.
A ways back a broker got us a diagrammatic fiber map for a region (200x200 miles) so we could review options for siting a data center. With the limited level of detail and some driving around you can quickly detail things out. If you understand how common-trench utilities work, it isn't hard to determine sensitive areas.
Just saying it doesn't take much inside information if you are willing to open a set of manholes in two locations and cut everything in and out at the same time.
I am surprised though that more of the manholes aren't alarmed though. It is relatively easy to do, and for meet-me manholes we always had them on each bolt.
It seems to be a lot like the U.S.-Cuba situation from my perspective, with the glaring exception being repression of religious minorities. Iran needs to have greater compassion for all its people with a goal of coexisting and prospering to succeed. If they get that far, maybe the exiles can allow relationships to normalize rather than saying we are best off just nuking the region and trying to start over in a few thousand years.
Quite honestly, I think a lot of people understand they are complete, overpriced shit. Unfortunately, the competitors appear to be mainly moderately or reasonably priced shit from a security perspective. The question comes down to accountability for the person purchasing/configuring it: can you at least say it was a best-of-breed device and was properly configured for an appropriate level of security, or will you need to say that the purchasing decision was made to save $400 and buy something else...
It seems the only solid approach now is security in depth... which gets expensive quickly. I can just imagine my small business trying to manage our network like a fortune-500 company (should). There are limits as to what you can do, and you hit them quickly when the vendors you select are inept.
Most Uber drivers aren't full-time. You need your own car which is up to their standards. Driving for Uber is a lot like a second job at McDonalds... only where you need to spend a lot more to make marginally above minimum wage.
Unfortunately, that isn't really true. In my area, flagging a taxi on a Friday night was no big deal. Weekends were "gravy" for taxi drivers, so they busted their asses to get fares and actually earn a few bucks. Uber absorbed 80% of the weekend evening traffic within 12 months, making it difficult to actually find a taxi willing to do a $10 fare.
Some of the taxi drivers figured out that they were in trouble quickly, and couldn't afford the gate fees from the taxi company, so they went from Taxi drivers to the Town Car Program (TCP). With TCP they needed to buy their own commercial liability insurance, but they eliminated the taxi company's cut-- the only limitation is they cannot take flag fares anymore, but they had their own unofficial network of drivers that effectively made them a taxi company.
About half those people have since given up. Uber has pulled too much of the money from the equation to make driving a taxi work anymore. Going from earning $150/day after costs down to $100/day is only a solution if you are truly desperate. (Many days aren't that good.)
While Uber might have a few things right, their system is gamed as much as the taxi system-- only now they are able to take 20-30% of the cash out of the pot for "arranging rides."
The number of studies done over the years all agree. Manual labor is more pronounced (limited IIRC to 10%), and youth have a less pronounced immediate impact (but a more dramatic long-term impact). I personally haven't seen studies with regards to accuracy, although I think something was done among medical residents.
If you are a contract worker, you should be charging about 2x your salaried hourly rate, to cover self employment tax, retirement plan, sick, vacation, and holiday pay, overhead costs, and...profit!
When you charge that rate, for at least 1,600 hours billed per year, you come out ahead.
As an incorporated contractor you can have significant tax breaks. One example is you can contribute $56k per year to your 401k, limit the social security tax you need to pay, and take many expenses prior to paying any taxes on the income.
No it isn't; you don't get anything more done, unless it is for one (maybe two) weeks out of 8-12 weeks, and even then it is limited to about a 15-20% increase for those weeks.
Speaking as an employer who needs to get an "honest week's work" consistently out of my employees, I discourage overtime. There are a few exceptions (deadlines must be met, sometimes people have to chip in more to cover for others on vacation our overloaded, etc.), and we pay straight hourly wages for salaried employees earning less than $80k. The big exception is entry level engineers, who generally need to put in more than 40 hours per week in order to cover both trip aiming and "working" time.
The alternative is hiring and firing, which doesn't really work for either side.
If we are forced to pay time-and-a-half overtime for an entry level engineer (more importantly is the idea of them being non-exempt-- which means they need to have scheduled breaks and lunch), we will never hire an engineer without appropriate experience in our field again. Young professionals being treated like factory, retail, or unskilled labor destroys a professional work ethic. Professionals manage their own time, take breaks when they need to, finish their work, and don't use a time clock.
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Do you have wifi at home and work? If so, turn the phone off, put it in airplane mode, or shut off cellular data; you are doing something wrong if you think you are a light user and are consuming more than 1GB/month. I do video conferencing, web meetings, VNC, and a few other data-intensive uses, and am around 1GB/month (up from 250MB though a year or two ago).
With the iPhone you get application-specific cellular data usage, and you can limit applications' access; I assume Android does the same. For my iPhone, about half of my usage is system services and the app store (needed to replace phone while on the road, so I had to download everything over cell).
Focus on the trainwreck then. I will give one example: I get a resume from an engineer every 6-8 months from someone that I have heard stories about from one of his former co-workers as being a non-functional alcoholic. (The co-worker is what I would consider a functional alcoholic, read into it as you wish.) If this person were to put on their resume that they have been focusing on teaching yoga and spinning between professional employment then I would be forced to at least interview them.
Some specific advice: look at what part of the other things you are doing is what I consider "adult daycare." If you spend a lot of your time talking to people and trying to help them out then you really should approach looking for a job from the perspective of project management rather than engineering. If engineering is your passion, you work into it backwards.
I would say working under the table is a little different class; it might be the same ends, getting some extra cash, but working under the table is more like "doing odd jobs." (Tax law already accommodates this; you don't need to give a W2 or 1099 to someone you pay less than $500/year.) On the "employee" side, you just have more flexibility in reporting your income; not reporting is still a violation.
Agreed. A "dependent contractor" is by definition an employee. We have several people that have moonlighted for us over the years. We generally considered them 1099s as they did not generally work in our office, use our supplies, or have responsibilities other than delivering a specific product, which would place them firmly in that category.
Reality is that more people need to be considered W2 employees because that is the easiest way to prevent abuses.
The "gotcha" with Uber is what happens when a driver is simultaneously driving for Lyft, Uber, and the Pizza Company? Has he achieved a nexus where he is independent?
My bias is really over the issue of exempt/non-exempt employees though. Labor laws for non-exempt employees are really hard for small businesses when you get beyond restaurant/retail and into the professional realm. (Would you like a coding session when you are in the zone broken up by a mandatory 15-minute break?)
Not to judge, but as someone with a PE that does a lot of hiring of PEs, maybe you should take a close look at why you are having trouble. There are a number of things that can pose challenges, including location at one extreme and personality at another. It might help to go to IEEE meetings and try to get some help networking, reviewing your resume, and identifying what your specific challenges are, and how to work around them.
For point 3, it really depends where you live. Some of our employees have 2-hour commutes each way. While we prefer for them to first move closer to the office, it often is not possible. The least likely position in our office we recently agreed to let work from home two days per week-- someone that needs to coordinate with all the executives on tight deadlines.
If someone is good, you try to make it work. This person will have an uphill battle, but we will try.
Anything you do very well. Just being in the top 20% of your field is sufficient, although top 30% weeks to be workable if you have a good network.
Working from home adds a layer of complexity to things, but isn't a deal killer if someone can handle the issues.
When you have a run on the banks, it is too late for spending cuts to fix the problems. The stupidity here was that the debt repayment is unsustainable at 1.8x GDP. Greece got themselves into this, with the willing help of the EU, ECB, & IMF. All players are going to have to figure out a way to fix this... and of course the real problem isn't Greece but how the entire European Union functions.
Quite honestly, I can't see any good resolution coming from this. If Greece is pushed out, the other PIIGS might end up the same way, and the Euro starts to look more like a currency shared by France and Germany, with a whole lot of angry people around them.
Rather than treadmills, which instill a sense of walking and getting nowhere, corporate overlords now recommend Jacobs Ladders, so you can be climbing all day and not getting any higher.
I am mid-40's with back and sciatica problems and also recovering from recent laparoscopic surgery. I have been using a balance ball as my chair for 8 years, which worked for me pretty well up until a few months ago. (Now sitting hurts.)
I find I lose my ability to concentrate while standing-- I don't have the deep-focus time I used to get. I also need to have something to lean on periodically (bar height chair from ikea works). For me, the "zero-g" chairs aren't any good; not sure if it is a height thing or what. Locking your knees defeats the benefits of standing to some degree, and you really need to properly contract your abs to brace your spine. A treadmill would not help me personally.
The best advice seems to be to be at a healthy weight, have a strong core and actively engage it in whatever position you are in, change positions regularly, and find an excuse to walk around regularly throughout the day. There is no substitute for excercise though.
Bought a Buffalo Terrastation. Went on vacation a year later to a country with limited internet access. On trip, one-year warranty expired and it died the next day, taking all data with it.
Fortunately, I had a copy of the server with me on a portable hard drive, so I could work remotely. That was our only backup. Sending the accounting database back to the office via GPRS was a lot of fun, but mailing that drive back to the office (after duplicating it of course) scared me to death.
The solution at the time was the right one; we didn't have the money for anything more. Ever since we have a hot backup server synchronized to the primary, for a small business. Like most screw-ups, what is important is how you move forward.
I can one-up you there... CIO let a 2-letter domain name expire in 2010, due to a merger and re-branding. Helped sign up for it in '95.
That fiber could very well feed your local DSLAM, providing you your DSL...
A ways back a broker got us a diagrammatic fiber map for a region (200x200 miles) so we could review options for siting a data center. With the limited level of detail and some driving around you can quickly detail things out. If you understand how common-trench utilities work, it isn't hard to determine sensitive areas.
Just saying it doesn't take much inside information if you are willing to open a set of manholes in two locations and cut everything in and out at the same time.
I am surprised though that more of the manholes aren't alarmed though. It is relatively easy to do, and for meet-me manholes we always had them on each bolt.
It seems to be a lot like the U.S.-Cuba situation from my perspective, with the glaring exception being repression of religious minorities. Iran needs to have greater compassion for all its people with a goal of coexisting and prospering to succeed. If they get that far, maybe the exiles can allow relationships to normalize rather than saying we are best off just nuking the region and trying to start over in a few thousand years.
It is all about power, and holding on to it.
Quite honestly, I think a lot of people understand they are complete, overpriced shit. Unfortunately, the competitors appear to be mainly moderately or reasonably priced shit from a security perspective. The question comes down to accountability for the person purchasing/configuring it: can you at least say it was a best-of-breed device and was properly configured for an appropriate level of security, or will you need to say that the purchasing decision was made to save $400 and buy something else...
It seems the only solid approach now is security in depth... which gets expensive quickly. I can just imagine my small business trying to manage our network like a fortune-500 company (should). There are limits as to what you can do, and you hit them quickly when the vendors you select are inept.
Arguably they need lower penetrating frequencies to solve the problem. More access points makes things better.
Most Uber drivers aren't full-time. You need your own car which is up to their standards. Driving for Uber is a lot like a second job at McDonalds... only where you need to spend a lot more to make marginally above minimum wage.
Unfortunately, that isn't really true. In my area, flagging a taxi on a Friday night was no big deal. Weekends were "gravy" for taxi drivers, so they busted their asses to get fares and actually earn a few bucks. Uber absorbed 80% of the weekend evening traffic within 12 months, making it difficult to actually find a taxi willing to do a $10 fare.
Some of the taxi drivers figured out that they were in trouble quickly, and couldn't afford the gate fees from the taxi company, so they went from Taxi drivers to the Town Car Program (TCP). With TCP they needed to buy their own commercial liability insurance, but they eliminated the taxi company's cut-- the only limitation is they cannot take flag fares anymore, but they had their own unofficial network of drivers that effectively made them a taxi company.
About half those people have since given up. Uber has pulled too much of the money from the equation to make driving a taxi work anymore. Going from earning $150/day after costs down to $100/day is only a solution if you are truly desperate. (Many days aren't that good.)
While Uber might have a few things right, their system is gamed as much as the taxi system-- only now they are able to take 20-30% of the cash out of the pot for "arranging rides."
The number of studies done over the years all agree. Manual labor is more pronounced (limited IIRC to 10%), and youth have a less pronounced immediate impact (but a more dramatic long-term impact). I personally haven't seen studies with regards to accuracy, although I think something was done among medical residents.
Screw you! I can do my job just fine in less than 30 hours in the office per week. Why would I want to take a pay cut!?
If you are a contract worker, you should be charging about 2x your salaried hourly rate, to cover self employment tax, retirement plan, sick, vacation, and holiday pay, overhead costs, and ...profit!
When you charge that rate, for at least 1,600 hours billed per year, you come out ahead.
As an incorporated contractor you can have significant tax breaks. One example is you can contribute $56k per year to your 401k, limit the social security tax you need to pay, and take many expenses prior to paying any taxes on the income.
No it isn't; you don't get anything more done, unless it is for one (maybe two) weeks out of 8-12 weeks, and even then it is limited to about a 15-20% increase for those weeks.
Speaking as an employer who needs to get an "honest week's work" consistently out of my employees, I discourage overtime. There are a few exceptions (deadlines must be met, sometimes people have to chip in more to cover for others on vacation our overloaded, etc.), and we pay straight hourly wages for salaried employees earning less than $80k. The big exception is entry level engineers, who generally need to put in more than 40 hours per week in order to cover both trip aiming and "working" time.
The alternative is hiring and firing, which doesn't really work for either side.
If we are forced to pay time-and-a-half overtime for an entry level engineer (more importantly is the idea of them being non-exempt-- which means they need to have scheduled breaks and lunch), we will never hire an engineer without appropriate experience in our field again. Young professionals being treated like factory, retail, or unskilled labor destroys a professional work ethic. Professionals manage their own time, take breaks when they need to, finish their work, and don't use a time clock.