The Consulting Gig
I don’t really have the desire right now to be an independent consultant. I have the background, and I think I have the contacts, but I really like what I do and enjoy coming to work everyday.
That said, I was thinking the other day about if I was able to work from home on an 8-5 schedule doing the programming thing. I’m pretty structured, so I would definitely spend most of my time working in front of the computer.
But that got me thinking: if I did do that, could I pull off doing it while actually working another job? One thing that came to mind was from my middle school/high school days. They had a teacher who did nothing but supervise study hall. This person got paid to sit in a room all day and, for the most part, do nothing but read.
I thought: wouldn’t that be the perfect job for someone who worked on programming all day? First off, you get the whole summer off from it. And secondly, you get 95% of the day to yourself anyway. You could double dip and make some extra money while you were doing your main consulting job.
Someone out there who works for yourself: please try this and tell me if it works. I’m very curious to know.
May 17th, 2006 at 10:34 am
I haven’t tried full-time double-dipping, but in college I signed up for those types of jobs (lab monitor, front-desk-sitter) and did freelance consulting at the same time. It was fun at the time, but now I don’t think the extra minimum wage would be worth the hassle.
May 18th, 2006 at 6:36 pm
I work on site 3 days/week and remotely 3 days/week.
The single most important thing is having the right environment and habits.
May 20th, 2006 at 12:49 am
I work from home full time, as a developer for isohunt.com (while our existing stuff is questionably legal, our new stuff is 100% legit).
Additionally, I do consulting revolving primarily around Gentoo - not a lot of consulting, less than 20 hours/month, but it’s a nice bit on the side.
As Keith said, you need a very good environment (non-distracting), and you need good work habits - which can easily be developed if you have worked in a job (like my previous job) where your boss is half a continent away most of the time, and you only have vague outlines of what needs to be done. You gotta figure all of it out, and complete it yourself.
Funnily, I have MORE contact with my co-workers in my current work-from-home job than my previous one. Both my boss and my co-worker lurk in a private IRC channel 24/7.
One of the things that you will find yourself missing, at least initially, is well defined free time - but this will pass as you realize the advantages of total flexibility. I now tend to do a little bit of work every day of the week, and take a break as needed.
One of the tricks is not to overdo things, know when to stop for the day - this is harder than it seems.
I sleep ~2am through noon most days, and work intermittantly throughout the day, stopping often for wrist/eye breaks and doing general household chores.
No matter what, the idea of a 40 hour work week will vanish - you will tend to do more work while there are things on the go, with the side advantage that when off-time comes, you almost go nuts that you have so much free time.
May 24th, 2006 at 9:14 am
Yes, the 40 hour work week quickly goes out the window, but that’s one of the best things…
When I was a gov-type a while back, this is similar to how we worked… if things are going well and the code is flying off your fingers, noticing the clock is the last thing you need. If things are going slowly, getting up and coming back is the best thing you can do.