bogen.org

Starting 10 October 2005, I will report for duty at a new job.A couple of months ago I was contemplating how my business was working out. Fundamentally, it had three problems:

1. I wasn’t making nearly enough money.
2. The easiest way to increase my cash flow was also the least appealing.
3. The most interesting work was also the work nobody would pay me to do.

As much as I like the challenge of freelance writing, almost nobody would pay me to do it. I had several close calls with near-subsistence pay in the writing world, but they never worked out. For instance, I started working with one of the local newspapers last December towards increasing their local technology coverage. Part of this effort was creating a dedicated Technology page that would run once a week. Earlier this year, they offered me a column on that page, and naturally, I accepted. Then, the column was yanked, and I was given a job writing a feature story every week. Fine. But even though I’ve written several things for them, not one has ever seen print. The crew putting together the Technology page (which doesn’t yet exist) is either too busy or too disinterested to actually get the Technology page off the ground. So, nearly one year later, there is no Technology page and I can’t wait for it any longer.

My consulting business also had problems. The clients I could get were the clients I didn’t want. They were the clients with just one or two computers who weren’t interested in any sort of complex computing environment. Quite frankly, I can’t blame them. Most two person lawyer’s offices don’t need a the digital horsepower of clustered Linux servers or a distributed computing environment. So, I was doing work that I didn’t like in the least.

In addition, smaller clients need help relatively infrequently, so you need a very large number of them to pay the bills. That means lots and lots of work I don’t like.

Finally, other considerations came into play like the availibilty of health insurance. At the moment, I’m on Sarah’s insurance through the University. However, if her appointment is not renewed at the end of December, we would then be facing a monthly bill of $600 for health insurance. That’s a huge amount of money; more than half of our monthly mortgage payment, by comparison. So, I needed to get a job for the health insurance and the steady paycheck.

Monday will see me reporting for work at the IceCube project. IceCube is a scientific project dedicated to building a neutrino detector below the Antarctic ice. The UW-Madison is the lead agency so the project’s headquarters is located in downtown Madison.

In the last few weeks, I’ve been doing some interesting consulting for a few West Coast clients. I’m hoping to continue that work even after I start this new job. In addition, I’ll still keep trying to build up my writing credits as I can in my off hours.

I don’t really see this as an end to building my own business. I see it as a time to gather my wits, do some better research, and look for a stronger market while working on an interesting project and pulling in a regular salary.

Someone trying to recruit me to work for their consulting firm recently sent me quite a humorous e-mail.Some excerpts from the e-mail:

We would like the opportunity to inform you of projects, permanent or consulting, that match your skills/interests . If you are not current “available” we would still be very interested in keeping you updated on career possibilities in an informal basis. [company name snipped] offer our clients the right to permanently hire our consultants for those of you interested in this approach.

Yes, I’ll check to see if I’m “currrent ‘available’,” whatever that means. Other than the improperly formed adverb current, I’m curious as to why the word available needs to be in quotes.

If you would like to share your skills and experience with a staff, truly skilled in the IT Consulting field, please forward a “word” resume and we will be in touch.

That paragraph clearly demonstrates a lack of knowledge about when and how to use commas. In addition, the word word gets saddled with mysterious and unnecessary quotes.

Sending your resume obligates you in no way. I would be happy to answer any questions you may heave, simply drop me an e-mail.

Oh, yes. I will definitely heave a few questions your way. For instance, why would I want to work for/with people who are ostensibly native English speakers and yet have such a poor grasp of the language?

Don’t miss the seriously funny story of Hillbilly Dave over at The Streets of Pizza.

I found my new career today.While I was looking at something totally unrelated, I followed a random series of links and found myself looking at the following:

Running With Scissors Metal Sign with Real Bullet Holes!

The descriptive text says it all:

These are actual 12″x12″ metal signs emblazoned with the world-famous Running With Scissors logo!
Perfect for dorm rooms, nursery doors or underground bunkers!

These signs have REAL bullet holes blasted through them by hand using a variety of weapons and ammo.

That’s my dream job, right there. I want to be the guy in charge of shooting guns at signs which are then sold to people on-line.

It’s guns, ammo, and signs. All totally legal; all in the name of profits. How bad of a job could that really be?

My cousin Judy Arisman recently launched a website for her graphic design firm. Have a look at www.arismandesign.com.

My last day in my current job is Monday, 19 Jan 04. Why am I leaving a stable, if not extraordinarily well paying or interesting job? Mostly because the job was not very interesting, I didn’t have enough work to do, and the pay wasn’t so extraordinary that I couldn’t walk away from it without regrets.

So, what am I going to do with my time now? The current plan is for me to try my hand at freelance writing and computer consulting. Most likely I’ll have to form a limited liability corporation and perform my work under its auspices. That company already has a name (in my head, anyway), and a domain name, now it just needs to be formed officially.

If neither of those avenues lead me where I want to go, I’ll try something different. If worst comes to worst, I can always go back to be an IT worker in the corporate world. The corporate world certainly isn’t going anywhere.