i am 100% indiscriminate when it comes to that certain phrase. everyone from teenage punks to sweet ol' grama has heard that from me at one point or another. like i said before, i used to work around A LOT of generally dumb people. probably why i dont work there anymore.... just sort of snapped on day, said f-it and quit.
Then they told me I could go home and just collect my checks without coming in and I got it "Retired" by god and loving it. I used to get up at 5am to be at the data center by 7am so some bozo could call me and ask where he misplaced his notes from the previous day. Sys Admin and Senior DBA US government. On call 24X7X365, vacations....Ha,,,Ha,,,Ha, keep your pager handy and respond within an hour. Currently retired 1 yr 14 days and there isn't enough money to get me to go back to that mad house. Now I just help my friends and neighbors with their little pc problems and collect an occasional dinner for my trouble. I finally get to do what I want when I want and get paid for it. If I'm not on my computers then I'm on my Harley doing miles. Think we can get that added to the olyimpics..."Doing Miles", probably not but man I would be good at it.
lol @ bacon of light !!!
well i'm just a student.. but I get money from being a free lance programmer and scripter of an open source game emulator (eAthena)
Zidane put it well: If you are good at it, don't do it for free. Many companies from a small one man garage based to a certain giant in Redmond, WA have started like that. Desire to do it, willingness to beat every obstacle and make it happen.
One of the biggest dilemmas for a new entrepreneur is always how to handle friends and other people near you when they are asking your professional help.
One example, I still have to pay when I bring my car to repair shop, even the owner is today my close friend. Some years ago I had a small conflict with this friend when he had called me to fix his non working HD. I picked up his rig, rescued his files, got a new HD from PC-shop and reinstalled his Windows and files I had rescued.
When I returned the rig, he asked me how much should he pay for the new HD. I told him he also have to pay my work, not only the spare parts, and gave him my bill. He looked surprised and said "I thought we were friends!". Completely forgetting I had paid his bills every time I had used his services.
My point is it's nice to be friendly and help people but do not let people to use you. Between the lines I read you really can what you do and people know that. I doubt if telling them "Yes, I can do that. My fee is $**" sends them away.
Kari
if anyone really cares...
I work for 3M Touch Systems developing gesture software and multi-touch controller firmware specializing in 7 compatability. it's fun as a matter of fact.
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