EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
General => General Technical Chat => Topic started by: VK3DRB on March 16, 2019, 07:01:50 am
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Hi fellow electronics friends.
I have worked in many electronics industries over the last 35 years: IBM, telecommunications, automotive, satellites, medical technology and safety products in various capacities, mostly in R & D. It's been a great career, BUT... I HAVE HAD ENOUGH WORKING FOR THE MAN, to loosely quote Roy Orison.
I never want to be an employee again. I am over it. Pulling the pin. Don't want to be a cog in the corporate machine anymore. With the company I work for, I was hired as a senior electronics design engineer and on the first day was promoted to an engineering management role. Sure, after 2 years in the role, I have learnt heaps. But it isn't what I like doing.
So I have registered a business name, have a plan, and there are companies wanting me to consult with hands-on R & D work now, and I also have some ideas I have already started developing on the side. So I should have an good income stream for at least a few months.
Yep, I am scared :scared:. Not financially, but because of life change and the great unknown. I only hope that in 12 months I can say, "Why didn't I do this 10 years earlier! :clap:"; rather than an epitaph "Here lies an engineer who got his last calculation wrong :palm:."
Are there others here who have left many years of employment to do their own thing? Did you stay in electronics or do something completely different? How happy are you after the change?
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I have worked in many electronics industries over the last 35 years: IBM, telecommunications, automotive, satellites, medical technology and safety products in various capacities, mostly in R & D. It's been a great career, BUT... I HAVE HAD ENOUGH WORKING FOR THE MAN, to loosely quote Roy Orison.
I never want to be an employee again. I am over it. Pulling the pin. Don't want to be a cog in the corporate machine anymore.
Yep, I'd never go back.
With the company I work for, I was hired as a senior electronics design engineer and on the first day was promoted to an engineering management role. Sure, after 2 years in the role, I have learnt heaps. But it isn't what I like doing.
So I have registered a business name, have a plan, and there are companies wanting me to consult with hands-on R & D work now, and I also have some ideas I have already started developing on the side. So I should have an good income stream for at least a few months.
Nice!
Never quit your day job on the hope of work or something taking off etc. Having people already lined up and asking for consulting work is great, go for it. You'll find it very often leads to more work. You can't do much in a "few months", so it's likely to be extended.
Yep, I am scared :scared:. Not financially, but because of life change and the great unknown. I only hope that in 12 months I can say, "Why didn't I do this 10 years earlier! :clap:"; rather than an epitaph "Here lies an engineer who got his last calculation wrong :palm:."
If you aren't sacred financially then it's a safe bet you'll be happy with the change.
Are there others here who have left many years of employment to do their own thing? Did you stay in electronics or do something completely different? How happy are you after the change?
Yup.
But surely everyone knows my story.
Got retrenched from Altium with a wife who'd just stopped working and was 8 month pregnant. Decided to do some consulting work (Cochlear) and go full time at the blog. Things just fell into place after that.
And I have effectively changed careers. I went from full time electronics design to now rarely doing any actual hands-on electronics design. I just bum around my hobby lab and make random videos whilst wiling away the hours on forums...
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Been contracting for years now. Working a job just this month, onsite at a well known electrical equipment company -- will be very relieved when it's done. The bureaucracy and office politics and multiple levels of management are just as bad as I remembered.
I've never been worried about jobs, myself. My skills will always be in demand, and it is my choice to whom I provide those skills, be it through direct employment or otherwise.
I did take a "risky" four months between jobs (as many years ago), but I had several times that in the bank, no problem to sit on.
YMMV. I guess your average "working stiff" has more to be worried about, in terms of finding and keeping a job, paying greater expenses, and servicing more debt. Not to sound elitist or full of myself, mind, I've just never had to worry about that since college. (Which, on that note, since college is itself a huge economic issue today -- FYI, I grew up in that level of middle class which got just enough grants/loans to get by, but not comfortably so, and not without some family assistance. So, not elitist like that, anyway. And with tuition continuing to inflate aggressively, I'd have to recommend caution to prospective students today. :-\ ) (Yes, the US is screwed up. We know.)
Tim
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I’m still working a day job but have a business on the side. That has been steadily growing and will hopefully be at the point it will take over as my main income in a few years (sustainably)
Be your own boss, choose what 18 hours a day you want to work :P
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I actually went from being an employee to being a contractor for a while then back to being an employee.
I enjoyed the freedom of choosing the kinds of projects I was working on when I was independent. However, unless you have a great number of contacts that are going to provide you a steady stream of work, you will be trading your management work for sales + management.
Independent contracting is a largely a sales/management job. I was always having to keep one eye on the lookout for the next gig. Then there is the business related overhead that you'll need to do as well (marketing, accounting, taxes, etc).
I'm not saying that it isn't rewarding, but that it isn't all design work. After contracting through a few economic downturns, I had enough with the uncertainty of it all.
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I lasted three years as an EE employee. Had enough of corporate politics pretty early on. It devalued what I love and left me empty and with no meaning.
I now do something I hate but there’s plenty of well paid work for on contract (IT) which means I have the energy to pick up my sword every morning and run into battle screaming. This works for me.
I’d rather do a Dave :)
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Be your own boss, choose what 18 hours a day you want to work :P
In the case of consulting work though, you still have a boss!
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I’d rather do a Dave :)
I can wake up tomorrow and decide "bugger it, I'm doing stuff-all today" and I still effectively get paid ;D
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Be your own boss, choose what 18 hours a day you want to work :P
In the case of consulting work though, you still have a boss!
My side business isn’t consulting. I don’t have the brains, knowledge or experience to do that.
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As a consultant, I am mostly paid to repeat what google said :-DD
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As a consultant, I am mostly paid to repeat what google said :-DD
Customer: "£100 bill? All you did was kick it!"
Consultant: "Um, OK... Here's an amended bill: £1 to kick it plus £99 for knowing where and how hard to kick it".
Nowadays you could add knowing which bit of google's results to ignore, and knowing that you should ignore all TEDx videos, and danger money for watching too many interminable rambling yootoob videos.
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Employed you have 1 boss, working yourself. you will have hundreds of bosses, and one crappy partner the government who only wanna share the profits not the loses
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For those in the US, one of the biggest obstacles to being self employed is the health insurance situation where most health insurance is an employer provided benefit and getting it as an individual is often absurdly expensive.
Personally I also find a great deal of comfort in a steady and predictable income and I don't particularly like large changes in my day to day routine. I like to get up, put in a day of work knowing there is a set of expectations I need to meet for the boss, then come home and do my own thing and know that I'll have a paycheck go into my bank account twice a month. If I don't have a boss it's hard for me to stay focused and work on what needs to be worked on instead of various useless pet projects that always seem to be more fun. It's not for everyone but I'm quite adept at navigating the corporate bs and playing the office politics game. Every real job I've ever had has been corporate so I guess it's the only thing I've ever really known.
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I've never been worried about jobs, myself. My skills will always be in demand, and it is my choice to whom I provide those skills, be it through direct employment or otherwise.
Skills being in demand is rarely the problem. Its maintaining adequate contact with enough people who need those skills.
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I actually went from being an employee to being a contractor for a while then back to being an employee.
I enjoyed the freedom of choosing the kinds of projects I was working on when I was independent. However, unless you have a great number of contacts that are going to provide you a steady stream of work, you will be trading your management work for sales + management.
Independent contracting is a largely a sales/management job. I was always having to keep one eye on the lookout for the next gig. Then there is the business related overhead that you'll need to do as well (marketing, accounting, taxes, etc).
I'm not saying that it isn't rewarding, but that it isn't all design work. After contracting through a few economic downturns, I had enough with the uncertainty of it all.
Running your own shop definitely isn't all design work. There's a whole lot of work involved you'd rather not be doing. The major difference is that you can do it on your own terms.
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For those in the US, one of the biggest obstacles to being self employed is the health insurance situation where most health insurance is an employer provided benefit and getting it as an individual is often absurdly expensive.
Personally I also find a great deal of comfort in a steady and predictable income and I don't particularly like large changes in my day to day routine. I like to get up, put in a day of work knowing there is a set of expectations I need to meet for the boss, then come home and do my own thing and know that I'll have a paycheck go into my bank account twice a month. If I don't have a boss it's hard for me to stay focused and work on what needs to be worked on instead of various useless pet projects that always seem to be more fun. It's not for everyone but I'm quite adept at navigating the corporate bs and playing the office politics game. Every real job I've ever had has been corporate so I guess it's the only thing I've ever really known.
The problem generally occurs when those expectations don't turn out to be the actual expectations. If it were just days of work, less people would be bothered by working for the man. It's the politics and drama.
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For those in the US, one of the biggest obstacles to being self employed is the health insurance situation where most health insurance is an employer provided benefit and getting it as an individual is often absurdly expensive.
Researchers say this is the main factor keeping the rate of entrepeneurial activity in the US so low. Lots of people seem to think the US has lots of of entrepreneurs, because they see some prominent successful startups. The actual rate is quite low.
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As a consultant, I am mostly paid to repeat what google said :-DD
Customer: "£100 bill? All you did was kick it!"
Consultant: "Um, OK... Here's an amended bill: £1 to kick it plus £99 for knowing where and how hard to kick it".
Nowadays you could add knowing which bit of google's results to ignore, and knowing that you should ignore all TEDx videos, and danger money for watching too many interminable rambling yootoob videos.
That's a fair point for sure.
TEDx is perfect when you're stuck in a boring training seminar and need something to hate to keep you going.
For those in the US, one of the biggest obstacles to being self employed is the health insurance situation where most health insurance is an employer provided benefit and getting it as an individual is often absurdly expensive.
Researchers say this is the main factor keeping the rate of entrepeneurial activity in the US so low. Lots of people seem to think the US has lots of of entrepreneurs, because they see some prominent successful startups. The actual rate is quite low.
Very true. Same in UK. The company I am currently contracting with is full of people who failed or are failing to run businesses on the side.
The reason they failed is because the idea was stupid. Don't have stupid idea and you will be fine. You only hear about the good ones and don't assume that the thing that keeps it viable is the idea you see - that's usually a front for some othe objective these days.
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The reason they failed is because the idea was stupid. Don't have stupid idea and you will be fine. You only hear about the good ones and don't assume that the thing that keeps it viable is the idea you see - that's usually a front for some other objective these days.
Failure is very often because they only had one OK idea, and when that didn't play out they had no fall back position. The great majority of companies that IPO are doing something very different from what they set out to do when the company was formed. This is just as true for businesses operating well below the point of ever achieving an IPO.
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Totally agree.
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In a non EE area, I was initially (15yrs) part time employed part time consultant, and now full time consultant. From the job, I don't miss the politics, the job involved some uni student teaching - that and the superannuation - I do miss.
One of the bigger issues is to make allowances financially for sick leave, holidays and superannuation. I employ 3 staff and the add on costs are significant.
You also can be quite an ardent task master to yourself!
The 3 As, affable, available and affordable! Probably in that order!
Rob
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yea self employment in the USA. hey just walk off the cancer you get right?
i do wonder how power would shift if people are not scared they will die from a scrape when they decide to run a small business and be financially successful, without 70 hours work week. some very wealthy people capable of serious innovation actually still end up working shitty jobs because of insurance. you know, rather then starting decent companies. it's like being glued down.
especially people with a business mindset that actually know what a business will take to run and how much insurance will cost vs working vs their time.
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yea self employment in the USA. hey just walk off the cancer you get right?
i do wonder how power would shift if people are not scared they will die from a scrape when they decide to run a small business and be financially successful, without 70 hours work week. some very wealthy people capable of serious innovation actually still end up working shitty jobs because of insurance. you know, rather then starting decent companies. it's like being glued down.
especially people with a business mindset that actually know what a business will take to run and how much insurance will cost vs working vs their time.
As far as I'm aware most self employed people make long weeks. Most are okay with that though, as you have a lot of freedom how to spend those hours. If you want a 40 hour work week, I don't think self employment is the right choice.
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I have been on my own since '92... cant complain.. the rectum hasn't healed over ..yet.
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I can wake up tomorrow and decide "bugger it, I'm doing stuff-all today" and I still effectively get paid ;D
In some parts of the world this is called retirement.
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Hi fellow electronics friends.
...
Are there others here who have left many years of employment to do their own thing? Did you stay in electronics or do something completely different? How happy are you after the change?
I've done some side jobs over the years that were of interest to me but I've never thought about doing something full time on my own. Good luck with your new career.
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For those in the US, one of the biggest obstacles to being self employed is the health insurance situation where most health insurance is an employer provided benefit and getting it as an individual is often absurdly expensive.
I always find that situation absurd. I've heard it's like $20k a year for decent private cover?
Personally I also find a great deal of comfort in a steady and predictable income and I don't particularly like large changes in my day to day routine. I like to get up, put in a day of work knowing there is a set of expectations I need to meet for the boss, then come home and do my own thing and know that I'll have a paycheck go into my bank account twice a month.
That is one of the benefits, you can switch off at 5pm and it's someone else's problem.
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I can wake up tomorrow and decide "bugger it, I'm doing stuff-all today" and I still effectively get paid ;D
In some parts of the world this is called retirement.
;D
On the flip side you have be willing to swallow 24/7 abusive and demotivating emails and comments.
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For those in the US, one of the biggest obstacles to being self employed is the health insurance situation where most health insurance is an employer provided benefit and getting it as an individual is often absurdly expensive.
Researchers say this is the main factor keeping the rate of entrepeneurial activity in the US so low. Lots of people seem to think the US has lots of of entrepreneurs, because they see some prominent successful startups. The actual rate is quite low.
From a quick google, in Australia "2.4 million Australians are self-employed. 1.4 million of these don't employ anyone. the other 1 million employ about 6 million people."
It's been dropping a bit in recent years:
(https://i.imgur.com/kkMJh9n.png)
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I can wake up tomorrow and decide "bugger it, I'm doing stuff-all today" and I still effectively get paid ;D
In some parts of the world this is called retirement.
;D
On the flip side you have be willing to swallow 24/7 abusive and demotivating emails and comments.
LOL.
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I always find that situation absurd. I've heard it's like $20k a year for decent private cover?
Quite a few of us here find it absurd too, but the problem is getting anyone to agree on how to fix it. One thing I do know is there doesn't seem to be anyone in countries with universal healthcare trying to get rid of it and adopt a byzantine US style private insurance system with middlemen everywhere and layer upon layer of complexity leading to huge expense. For me to get insurance on my own comparable to what I get through my employer would cost me over $800/month.
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I always find that situation absurd. I've heard it's like $20k a year for decent private cover?
That is one of the benefits, you can switch off at 5pm and it's someone else's problem.
That switching off at 5 p.m. part rarely is the case if you made it anywhere near an interesting position.
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Employed you have 1 boss, working yourself. you will have hundreds of bosses, and one crappy partner the government who only wanna share the profits not the loses
Employed or working for yourself, we all have just one boss: money.
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Employed or working for yourself, we all have just one boss: money.
I know more than one person who'd be doing exactly the same thing if they won the lottery.
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Employed or working for yourself, we all have just one boss: money.
I know more than one person who'd be doing exactly the same thing if they won the lottery.
Lots of lottery winners say they won't let the win change them. However, when the first annoyance occurs, most of them change their mind.
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That switching off at 5 p.m. part rarely is the case if you made it anywhere near an interesting position.
That depends on one's definition of interesting position. To me being able to switch off and do my own thing in the evening is pretty interesting. I enjoy my job but even so I only do it so I can afford to do the stuff I really want to do.
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For those in the US, one of the biggest obstacles to being self employed is the health insurance situation where most health insurance is an employer provided benefit and getting it as an individual is often absurdly expensive.
Researchers say this is the main factor keeping the rate of entrepeneurial activity in the US so low. Lots of people seem to think the US has lots of of entrepreneurs, because they see some prominent successful startups. The actual rate is quite low.
From a quick google, in Australia "2.4 million Australians are self-employed. 1.4 million of these don't employ anyone. the other 1 million employ about 6 million people."
It's been dropping a bit in recent years:
(https://i.imgur.com/kkMJh9n.png)
Surprise, surprise. ::)
Gubbermints would rather you were successful in that you need to employ staff so their tax take is many times more. The longer you can hang on as a sole trader and enjoy/benefit from the taxation structure the better.
When we take that first step into small self employed business there is so much we have to learn and those early days are when the risk is highest and generally resulting from inadequate cash flow and/or noncompliance to relevant legislation.
To the OP, good luck and take particular care of financial records along with advice from a good accountant, hopefully a friend that you can ply with drinks and sustenance for the info you need.
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In the UK I don't see much encouragement to be self employed with the government taking a heavy hand to change laws that make it less worth while. On the one hand it's to stop people gaming the system but on the other hand they could just close the loopholes. I set up my own company but it has really never gone anywhere and once you start looking at stuff yau realize how hard it is to compete with the big boys if that is what you are doing. I have designed a couple of products recently only to be told that they found one off the shelf. So i too now look to have "off the shelf" solutions as it seems to be what the market demands, at least once the market finds out how much the bespoke solution is and I have quoted some big names that were not short of a penny or two.
I'm not sure consulting is less of a headache than a full time job. I guess having a main job my customers do not know about does make the time pressures harder for me but every time i get a request to quote i think - do I really want this? but most things i have quoted could match my wages for a few days work a month.
On the other hand as an extarnal consultant what you say goes. In the past I have used the consultant work uses (also a member of this forum that I work very well with) to get decisions made. In the past if i said it they ignored me, if I got him to say the same thing they did it, little do they know that saved them a butt load of trouble with their customer not that I would get any thanks for what they do not realize I have done so yea, being out of it and the politics is great.
I am currently working on a project that is basically a political tool to get two contracors to work together without working together. Because my boss stuffed things up by just expecting them to work together he had to bring me in late to the party to try and sort things out by which point the solution is that i develop some interface circuitry whilst talking to each contractor seperately to come up with something they can both agree on seperately. Fact is we do not need my interface board because the original device is already capable :palm: but it is a political tool to get us out of a deadlock. Had my boss stayed out of it and asked me to handle it at the start I would have less work to do that stands at -3 times what I have time for and this product that is already late would be done by now.
So yep, if you can dodge the politics great. Sometimes I wonder if i should just walk out and then offer to return os a contractor once they realize the hole they are in because they don't realize how many roots i have in most things quietly sorting things out before they happen.
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I’d rather do a Dave :)
I can wake up tomorrow and decide "bugger it, I'm doing stuff-all today" and I still effectively get paid ;D
It always seems we are a slave to someone. I have over a month of paid time off and could work it any way I want. I'm glad not to be measured by the hour or day, but rather by the work I produce. Taking a day off means I did not spend time making a "video" and would not post one. If I do not post my work, I'd eventually be terminated. Even though I take a day off, all I did was shift the work to another day. Royalties eventually run out. There is no way I could win by keeping the general masses interested in me - I'm sure it takes a lot of work and there is still some uncertainty.
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For those in the US, one of the biggest obstacles to being self employed is the health insurance situation where most health insurance is an employer provided benefit and getting it as an individual is often absurdly expensive.
Researchers say this is the main factor keeping the rate of entrepeneurial activity in the US so low. Lots of people seem to think the US has lots of of entrepreneurs, because they see some prominent successful startups. The actual rate is quite low.
From a quick google, in Australia "2.4 million Australians are self-employed. 1.4 million of these don't employ anyone. the other 1 million employ about 6 million people."
It's been dropping a bit in recent years:
(https://i.imgur.com/kkMJh9n.png)
Note how this graph paints a massively skewed picture! Self employment dropped by only 2% but the graphs makes it look like it is half. On a full scale graph the line is flat. Also note that the graph shows a percentage between 'self employed' and employees. Given the improvement in the economy world wide which created more jobs it may even be that the number of self employed people went up but that relatively more people got regular jobs. IOW: from this graph you can't see whether in absolutely numbers more or less people became self employed.
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I am 54 and employed in the government sector, working in IT. For almost my entire adult life, I've also done consulting work on the side, mostly obtained word of mouth. For the past 12 years I've done a gig for a local company where they pay me a monthly retainer to do side work for them exclusively, that retainer has been more than what I make in my "full time" gig, mainly because I know I am underpaid in my full-time job (I made a conscious decision early on I would be trading salary for more PTO and a defined benefit pension after 20 years.) Unfortunately it's about to come to an end over the next couple of months as the company has been sold.
I have had many, many people over the years ask me why I do not do consulting work full time. To principle reasons:
Inherently I am an introvert. Not that I cannot be an extrovert when I have to be (e.g. I routinely have to give 60-90 minute presentations to large audiences of 100's of people, engaging in Q&A etc), but I am a classic ISTJ on the Briggs-Meyer chart. I married an ENFP to compliment me at cocktail parties. Remember: As stated by another above, a major portion of consulting is marketing yourself, building a network, etc. Always being on the lookout for the next "gig". I find doing things like that to be emotionally tasking and exhausting. Someone else pointed out when you become a consultant, you're really becoming a consultant/sales/marketing/administrator, and this is more true than I can tell you (I pay myself a salary from my consulting work so I can accumulate Social Security quarters, given my government sector job doesn't accumulate them and its either I pay an accountant $200/mo just to pay myself, or do it myself.) So, unless you're an extrovert with great networking skills, consulting probably will not pay off for you (of course you can always hire someone to market you.)
Health care. Moral of this paragraph: expect to spend a significant amount of money on your health insurance, and factor that in accordingly into what you're going to have to make in order to live. Case in point: The health insurance thing here (USA) is a major concern, especially now that I'm getting older and more prone to health-related issues. I have decent health insurance through work (not great, but not bad either) and over the past 10 years I've seen my costs skyrocket. Keep in mind what we usually see for our "insurance deduction" through work is only a portion of what the actual premium is. So, for example, my deduction is $360/mo, and my employer pays 80% of the premium, hence the real cost of my "single" premium is really $1,800/mo, or $22k/year if I had to pay it myself in full. And that's a rate in a HUGE (government) group, and like I said, while the coverage is okay, it isn't one of those "platinum plans" you hear about. [My wife is from Brighton/Hove, and she swears the NHS is the best thing since sliced bread compared to the US system, but, I often have to remind her: "honey, you're only 37 and haven't had any major medical problems -- see how great socialized medicine is when you're seriously ill and have to wait for live saving treatment". I know transplanted Canadians whose family members have died waiting for live-saving treatment.]
Sure, the office politics can suck, and the work can be unrewarding at times, but in my case I've felt those downsides are better than the alternatives.
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if you are going to make a business, and you determine you need 20,000$ in insurance, being a reasonable capitalist, you decide that instead of inflating your salary you will work more hours to cover the insurance, or being a good planner factor it into your business plan.
20,000$ is alot for 1 person for a small business. I think it can easily chowder your business plan / lead to unreasonable work hours. Money could be used for part time work, contractors to do dirty business of yours,etc.
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I’m still working a day job but have a business on the side. That has been steadily growing and will hopefully be at the point it will take over as my main income in a few years (sustainably)
Be your own boss, choose what 18 hours a day you want to work [emoji14]
Pretty much..... I have been a small biz owner my whole professional life. Roughly 26 years. Recently took a day job and it feels like a part-time side hustle. The entrepreneurial endeavors had me running fast for a long time. That's not a complaint necessarily, but burning the candle at both ends can eat a person up.
Keep a reasonable balance.
Typet purly on my fone.
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Still the insane health insurance costs seem mostly limited to the US. In the Netherlands I pay exactly the same for health insurance whether I'm self employed or not. I do have to take care of my pension plan and income insurance in case I become ill.
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Inherently I am an introvert. Not that I cannot be an extrovert when I have to be (e.g. I routinely have to give 60-90 minute presentations to large audiences of 100's of people, engaging in Q&A etc), but I am a classic ISTJ on the Briggs-Meyer chart. I married an ENFP to compliment me at cocktail parties. Remember: As stated by another above, a major portion of consulting is marketing yourself, building a network, etc. Always being on the lookout for the next "gig". I find doing things like that to be emotionally tasking and exhausting. Someone else pointed out when you become a consultant, you're really becoming a consultant/sales/marketing/administrator, and this is more true than I can tell you (I pay myself a salary from my consulting work so I can accumulate Social Security quarters, given my government sector job doesn't accumulate them and its either I pay an accountant $200/mo just to pay myself, or do it myself.) So, unless you're an extrovert with great networking skills, consulting probably will not pay off for you (of course you can always hire someone to market you.)
Sure, the office politics can suck, and the work can be unrewarding at times, but in my case I've felt those downsides are better than the alternatives.
Yep, same here. At the end of the day i can shut up shop knowing that I have a day job.
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Pretty much..... I have been a small biz owner my whole professional life. Roughly 26 years. Recently took a day job and it feels like a part-time side hustle. The entrepreneurial endeavors had me running fast for a long time. That's not a complaint necessarily, but burning the candle at both ends can eat a person up.
Keep a reasonable balance.
Typet purly on my fone.
Can you elaborate on why you decided to take a day job too? You seem fairly committed to running your own shop.
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Still the insane health insurance costs seem mostly limited to the US. In the Netherlands I pay exactly the same for health insurance whether I'm self employed or not. I do have to take care of my pension plan and income insurance in case I become ill.
That is exactly my understanding too from expat friends of mine, some of whom are now contemplating returning to the UK after several decades reaping the rewards of the US, including becoming naturalised and bringing up families. I don’t know if this is a recent thing, or just because deductibles and premium grow as you get into your 50s.
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Pretty much..... I have been a small biz owner my whole professional life. Roughly 26 years. Recently took a day job and it feels like a part-time side hustle. The entrepreneurial endeavors had me running fast for a long time. That's not a complaint necessarily, but burning the candle at both ends can eat a person up.
Keep a reasonable balance.
Typet purly on my fone.
Can you elaborate on why you decided to take a day job too? You seem fairly committed to running your own shop.
Sure - I still have my old shop and no plans to get rid of it. Instead of doing 8 projects at once, I now do 1 major project at a time.
The day job is in aerospace. The company designs and manufactures motors and motor control electronics for military and civil aircraft. My primary responsibilities are in manufacturing. Reimagining the approaches and processes used. Hoping to quickly move entirely into engineering after I transform the manufacturing side of the business. All of the people are career corporate people, I am the only one that has an entrepreneurial background that brings creativity and energy. The executives like to see that. The rest of the employees are still shell shocked by the way I operate super fast, accurate, and lean. Changing/fixing/eliminating anything that is not working well for me and the company.
I am REALLY liking the ability to focus on a fairly narrow set of goals and related tasks. In my small business roles - I had to deal with 1,000 unrelated things every day. I never had the time to be excellent in any technical area - I was simply a manager. I no longer have to deal with HR, money, sales, marketing, shipping, office supplies, purchasing, BOM maintenance, EOL parts, etc, etc, etc.........
Let's see if the company can keep my interest long term. I warned them that if I get bored, I won't last long. So, if they like me - they have to continue to provide appropriate resources and avenues for success. So far, so good.
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Always being on the lookout for the next "gig". I find doing things like that to be emotionally tasking and exhausting. Someone else pointed out when you become a consultant, you're really becoming a consultant/sales/marketing/administrator, and this is more true than I can tell you (I pay myself a salary from my consulting work so I can accumulate Social Security quarters, given my government sector job doesn't accumulate them and its either I pay an accountant $200/mo just to pay myself, or do it myself.) So, unless you're an extrovert with great networking skills, consulting probably will not pay off for you (of course you can always hire someone to market you.)
I don't think you need great networking skills. You can only do a limited amount of work by yourself anyway. In my own experience you will always manage to find some projects even if you are doing only a little bit of advertising. Linked-in and internet fora are great ways to get in touch with people who may need your skills. Sometimes it does get quiet and that is a good opportunity to visit some of the existing customers and see what they are up to. I call it shaking the tree and it doesn't take long for something to fall out. And then there are also the recruitment agencies which can land you a nice gig but these are usually long term jobs (which I'm not fond of so I never went that route).
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I don't think you need great networking skills. You can only do a limited amount of work by yourself anyway. In my own experience you will always manage to find some projects even if you are doing only a little bit of advertising.
Once you 'prime the pump', referrals tend to be enough to overload an individual consultant. I started my design efforts in the same industry that I already had years of experience and contacts. My networking consisted of calling a handful of people that already knew me to see if they had any need for what I was wanting to do. I did a couple of small projects on my own that served as marketing pieces. After a couple of months - I was turning down more work than I was taking. Not because I was so good - but because there were not that many people trying to be freelance designers in an industry that needed them.
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Still the insane health insurance costs seem mostly limited to the US. In the Netherlands I pay exactly the same for health insurance whether I'm self employed or not. I do have to take care of my pension plan and income insurance in case I become ill.
That is exactly my understanding too from expat friends of mine, some of whom are now contemplating returning to the UK after several decades reaping the rewards of the US, including becoming naturalised and bringing up families. I don’t know if this is a recent thing, or just because deductibles and premium grow as you get into your 50s.
I have a relative in SoCal. He is staying there at the moment because despite being in his late 70s he is still a productive aerospace engineer.
However, he also has a house here, and it looks like he'll return when he no longer has health insurance there.
Yes, he has kept up suitable NI payments here so that he won't be regarded as a foreigner. He knows the value of the NHS and the difficulties in the US health care system.
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Obviously no system is perfect, but the US spends far more money on healthcare than any other nation and people seem to forget that the way it gets around the delays experienced by people seeking treatment in places with socialized healthcare is by flat out denying treatment to a large portion of the population that can't afford it. So if you're wealthy enough then the layers and layers of waste are of little consequence and the healthcare system in the US is arguably the best in the world. However if you're everyone else, instead of waiting months you may well just be told to pay up or buzz off. Personally I'd rather see every citizen have access to healthcare, even if it means some of us have to get a bit less of it. Given how much more we collectively spend per person than other nations, I would expect the situation would turn out better assuming we just maintain the current levels of spending but do so in the form of taxes instead of paying private for-profit insurers. Given health insurance is in effect a *huge* corporate tax on hiring, quite literally a job killing tax, it must create a bit of a conundrum for the right wing between the evils of "socialism" and their affinity for corporate welfare tax breaks.
It's little different than the way the express toll lanes they added on the highways near me a few years ago reduced commute times. They do so by excluding those who can't or refuse to pay to use them. Those who can rave that they spend much less time sitting stuck in traffic, but for everyone else it is worse as traffic in the general lanes and side roads spiked tremendously as soon as the tolls kicked in.
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Yes, he has kept up suitable NI payments here so that he won't be regarded as a foreigner. He knows the value of the NHS and the difficulties in the US health care system.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. You only need to be British to be eligible for NHS care.
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I don't think you need great networking skills. You can only do a limited amount of work by yourself anyway. In my own experience you will always manage to find some projects even if you are doing only a little bit of advertising. Linked-in and internet fora are great ways to get in touch with people who may need your skills. Sometimes it does get quiet and that is a good opportunity to visit some of the existing customers and see what they are up to. I call it shaking the tree and it doesn't take long for something to fall out. And then there are also the recruitment agencies which can land you a nice gig but these are usually long term jobs (which I'm not fond of so I never went that route).
Obviously you're more of an extroverted personally and do not understand introverts. I avoid social media. I use FB solely to keep in touch with my parents, who are in their 80s and pretty much housebound at this point, and although I have a linked in account, I never use it and could be bothered. It holds zero interest to me, to read crap I could care less about in other people's lives. If I did anything, it would probably be through a recruitment agency. The idea of "shaking the tree" as you call it, to me, reeks of sales and doesn't appeal to me in the least.
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Obviously no system is perfect, but the US spends far more money on healthcare than any other nation and people seem to forget that the way it gets around the delays experienced by people seeking treatment in places with socialized healthcare is by flat out denying treatment to a large portion of the population that can't afford it. So if you're wealthy enough then the layers and layers of waste are of little consequence and the healthcare system in the US is arguably the best in the world. However if you're everyone else, instead of waiting months you may well just be told to pay up or buzz off. Personally I'd rather see every citizen have access to healthcare, even if it means some of us have to get a bit less of it. Given how much more we collectively spend per person than other nations, I would expect the situation would turn out better assuming we just maintain the current levels of spending but do so in the form of taxes instead of paying private for-profit insurers. Given health insurance is in effect a *huge* corporate tax on hiring, quite literally a job killing tax, it must create a bit of a conundrum for the right wing between the evils of "socialism" and their affinity for corporate welfare tax breaks.
It's little different than the way the express toll lanes they added on the highways near me a few years ago reduced commute times. They do so by excluding those who can't or refuse to pay to use them. Those who can rave that they spend much less time sitting stuck in traffic, but for everyone else it is worse as traffic in the general lanes and side roads spiked tremendously as soon as the tolls kicked in.
Yea because medical costs are higher and paid for privately? In the UK we have (or had) one system that treated everyone the same and now badly because government won't fund it and tthose that can afford to pay more wont. A bed/room in a hospital in the US cost what a luxury room in a hotel costs before anyone even gets treated.
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Yes, he has kept up suitable NI payments here so that he won't be regarded as a foreigner. He knows the value of the NHS and the difficulties in the US health care system.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. You only need to be British to be eligible for NHS care.
I'm not entirely sure either; for obvious reasons I haven't quizzed him in detail.
However, he has lived and worked in the US since the mid 60s, which might have a bearing on it.
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Still the insane health insurance costs seem mostly limited to the US. In the Netherlands I pay exactly the same for health insurance whether I'm self employed or not. I do have to take care of my pension plan and income insurance in case I become ill.
That is exactly my understanding too from expat friends of mine, some of whom are now contemplating returning to the UK after several decades reaping the rewards of the US, including becoming naturalised and bringing up families. I don’t know if this is a recent thing, or just because deductibles and premium grow as you get into your 50s.
I have a relative in SoCal. He is staying there at the moment because despite being in his late 70s he is still a productive aerospace engineer.
However, he also has a house here, and it looks like he'll return when he no longer has health insurance there.
Yes, he has kept up suitable NI payments here so that he won't be regarded as a foreigner. He knows the value of the NHS and the difficulties in the US health care system.
Medicare is government run healthcare for retirees - if the expat worked in the US for over 10 years (and residing in the USA legally at retirement), it would be available to him/her and spouse. Many if not most USA employers moves an employee's health coverage to Medicare upon retirement (or at 65 years old whichever is later).
Medicare part A and part B cost very little (approx $1.5k/yr for both A&B) and are "basic coverage": you go to the hospital and it is paid for. Part A & B together is more like the old traditional health insurance - insure against the unexpected. You can also get part C and D at additional cost to make it like health maintenance (HMO) plans which would pay for the expected and unexpected - regular doctors visits like annual check up, eye glasses, what not. Part C & D are private insurance offered cooperatively with Medicare.
Often mixed up is MedicAid which is like Medicare but for qualified low income individuals. So for qualified individuals without adequate income, health care is available. MedicAid is funded by the federal government in its basic form but different States offer different coverage with additional States funding.
But, if you make too much to be poor, too little to be rich, and too young to be retired... You are on your own.
It is not so much that USA offers no help for medical, it is that we have holes in coverage and coverage is uneven. For example, if you are not in the USA legally, California will cover you, but some other states may not. And, being State run, you may be ruled "unqualified" in one State and 20 feet away from you across State line, you would be qualified for coverage.
Fun thing about State laws. NJ and NY are connected by many bridges. (Repeating what I read in news upon a law change) NJ and NY define legal death differently - brain death vs brain/heart. So, you can be in an ambulance and legally dead one moment and 3 feet later across State line, you are back alive - legally speaking. Think about this: (not that any reasonable prosecutor would, but...) technically you could charge the driver with homicide if the driver makes a U turn because by doing the U turn, he caused the patient to go from being alive to being dead.
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Yea because medical costs are higher and paid for privately? In the UK we have (or had) one system that treated everyone the same and now badly because government won't fund it and tthose that can afford to pay more wont. A bed/room in a hospital in the US cost what a luxury room in a hotel costs before anyone even gets treated.
Besides mere profit considerations, USA laws is that hospital MUST take care of emergencies with or without insurance. So, they charge the insured a lot more to cover those without.
In other words, people with/without insurance are typically treated and are for sure treated in emergencies. Those with insurance pay for themselves and pay for those without insurance via inflated prices.
A hospital room makes luxury hotel looks economical...
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I HAVE HAD ENOUGH WORKING FOR THE MAN[/b][/u], to loosely quote Roy Orison.
I never want to be an employee again.
Well, I have an arrangement at a university where they pay me peanuts of "full time" salary, but I actually get away with working about half-time. This gets me health insurance and their dependents tuition benefit, meaning they pay up to half of their own (insane) tuition for my kids to go to some other university. (None of them could likely get into the place I work at!) Since we have SIX kids, this is an insane benefit!
And, I have a home business. I sell a bunch of board-level products for CNC motion control, and also copies of the stuff I design at work related to nuclear research, to other universities and national labs. The bonus there is there's no risk, I do the design at the univ. then just make them at the home business, where I have a P&P machine and other tools.
I also run my own web server out of my house, with a web store, do my own taxes with a tax program, and my own accounting, etc.
So, I figure out what might sell, design stuff, order parts, prototype, design and order boards, assemble, test, do customer support, ship boxes, and everything else.
Speaking of taxes, the home business expense is really pretty amazing! If you dedicate a fairly big portion of your square footage (nearly all of my basement) then you can deduct maybe 1/3 of the annual cost of the house, utilities, taxes, etc. from your profits!
Jon
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In other words, people with/without insurance are typically treated and are for sure treated in emergencies. Those with insurance pay for themselves and pay for those without insurance via inflated prices.
One big deal is that people without insurance pay FULL PRICE for treatment. If you have insurance, then they negotiate a lower price for everything, from open-heart surgery to an aspirin. These negotiated prices can be astonishingly less than the full price, in some cases TEN % of full!
In a sense, those without insurance, but who CAN pay, pay for those who can't pay!
Jon
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I don't think you need great networking skills. You can only do a limited amount of work by yourself anyway. In my own experience you will always manage to find some projects even if you are doing only a little bit of advertising. Linked-in and internet fora are great ways to get in touch with people who may need your skills. Sometimes it does get quiet and that is a good opportunity to visit some of the existing customers and see what they are up to. I call it shaking the tree and it doesn't take long for something to fall out. And then there are also the recruitment agencies which can land you a nice gig but these are usually long term jobs (which I'm not fond of so I never went that route).
Obviously you're more of an extroverted personally and do not understand introverts. I avoid social media. I use FB solely to keep in touch with my parents, who are in their 80s and pretty much housebound at this point, and although I have a linked in account, I never use it and could be bothered. It holds zero interest to me, to read crap I could care less about in other people's lives. If I did anything, it would probably be through a recruitment agency. The idea of "shaking the tree" as you call it, to me, reeks of sales and doesn't appeal to me in the least.
Well, I don't have an FB account and in general I don't like to be in crowds. And shaking the trees is more like sending an e-mail asking how someone is doing.
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Well, I have an arrangement at a university where they pay me peanuts of "full time" salary, but I actually get away with working about half-time. This gets me health insurance and their dependents tuition benefit, meaning they pay up to half of their own (insane) tuition for my kids to go to some other university. (None of them could likely get into the place I work at!) Since we have SIX kids, this is an insane benefit!
...
Jon
I've heard of an insane solution - enroll in your local community college and get student coverage... much cheaper!
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Note how this graph paints a massively skewed picture! Self employment dropped by only 2% but the graphs makes it look like it is half.
Correction: two percentage points. That is, percentage relative to the total.
Self employment, relative to its initial value, dropped by 11% (100 x (1 - 17 / 19) = 10.526...%).
So in cases like this, one must be triply careful not to be misleading!
Tim
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One big deal is that people without insurance pay FULL PRICE for treatment. If you have insurance, then they negotiate a lower price for everything, from open-heart surgery to an aspirin. These negotiated prices can be astonishingly less than the full price, in some cases TEN % of full!
In a sense, those without insurance, but who CAN pay, pay for those who can't pay!
Jon
That mostly points towards "full price" being incredibly inflated.
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Good luck Dave :-+
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Work for a dozen years or so with any government agency - long enough to be vested in the retirement plan and receive a decent income. Fine, so what's the point? Well, in many cases, you can also buy medical insurance through the agency's plan at a substantial discount compared to buying an individual plan from the HMO <or whatever>.
Then you can choose to break loose and do your own thing so long as you can keep up the insurance payments but it is usually charged against your retirement income.
Not all agencies work this way but it's worth considering.
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Work for a dozen years or so with any government agency - long enough to be vested in the retirement plan and receive a decent income. Fine, so what's the point? Well, in many cases, you can also buy medical insurance through the agency's plan at a substantial discount compared to buying an individual plan from the HMO <or whatever>.
I'm pretty sure the Sovjet Union had a similar healthcare system >:D
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Well, I don't have an FB account and in general I don't like to be in crowds. And shaking the trees is more like sending an e-mail asking how someone is doing.
That would be a sure way i ban you in my supplier list and never call you again.
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Well, I don't have an FB account and in general I don't like to be in crowds. And shaking the trees is more like sending an e-mail asking how someone is doing.
That would be a sure way i ban you in my supplier list and never call you again.
You won't. That would be like alienating the only dentist in a 200km radius >:D
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A big thank you to all who contributed to this. Very interesting comments. There are different driving factors in different countries. The US health system quagmire is not something we have to deal with in Australia, so that isn't a factor in the free health insurance issue.
It seems personal traits are a key factor. I am not an introvert; rather an extrovert with good people skills for an engineer, despite being a few sigma away from the centre of the bell curve. I have many contacts too. One of which might be a stefanh who replied to this post.
Since the original posting, my former employer has asked me to stay on part time for a couple of months as part of the transition period at a higher hourly rate, due to a critical project I am involved in and for contingency until they find another engineering manager. Transitioning is a good idea, as it gives me time to get other wheels in motion. Good engineering managers are quite rare because most engineers want to do just engineering, rather than the management tasks of servicing several levels of interrupts and returning to the task scheduler without having a stack overflow.
What is important is what you WANT to do rather than what you HAVE to do, particularly when you are relatively financially secure.
I think the key attribute, alluded to by some replies in DISCIPLINE. That is, discipline on record keeping, discipline on work effort, discipline on organisation.
Thanks for the good wishes too. Much appreciated.
- regards, a different Dave.
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In other words, people with/without insurance are typically treated and are for sure treated in emergencies. Those with insurance pay for themselves and pay for those without insurance via inflated prices.
One big deal is that people without insurance pay FULL PRICE for treatment. If you have insurance, then they negotiate a lower price for everything, from open-heart surgery to an aspirin. These negotiated prices can be astonishingly less than the full price, in some cases TEN % of full!
In a sense, those without insurance, but who CAN pay, pay for those who can't pay!
A few years ago I had surgery and stayed about a week in the hospital. I still have the printout of every single thing for which I was charged. It's mind-boggling.
The kicker was difference between the "full price" and what the insurer deemed "reasonable," and the latter was about 20% of the former. Of course, I owed 20% coinsurance on what the insurer negotiated, and that was still quite a chunk of change.
A large problem with health care in the US is that the "full price" is not knowable. For a routine screening, I called up a few clinics in my area, asking how much it cost. None of them would tell me. All they would say is, "what insurance do you have?" It's unbelievable.
There are a lot of people in the US who decry this notion of health insurance that covers regular doctor's office visits and checkups and that sort of thing, preferring that you buy a lower-cost/high-deductible "Catastrophic" (or "Major Medical") coverage plan, which kicks in only for something major (surgery required, cancer treatment, whatever). Everything else, like the yearly check-up, would be paid for out of pocket.
That can seem reasonable, especially given that the true cost of health insurance runs around the $20,000 a year posted earlier. Sure, go to the doctor, get the checkup, get the care you need because you are sick, and pay as you go. Except that, with few exceptions, doctors offices can't even deal with a cash customer. Everything is oriented around billing insurers and getting reimbursements. Ask your doctor what it would cost for that yearly physical. I bet they don't even have a price for that.
One more thing about that $20,000/year premium. It was mentioned upthread but it really bears repeating: the employer-based health-insurance system we have in the US really skews the argument. People who have that coverage pay a fraction of the true premium, so they think that insurance isn't that expensive. Those who do not have the employer-coverage option are faced with bearing that true cost, and many people in the former group (with employer insurance) don't see that.
Further, what the employer-covered people might not realize is that the extra cost of the premium is really a benefit in lieu of salary.
It's a total clusterfuck.
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Go to Cuba for health service, Canadians do.
I had a bunch of crowns done in eastern Europe, Paid full price.
The dentist even told me he was using some compounds sourced from Australia.
All up it was about a hundred euro per tooth... same work here in Australia would have been about AUD1400 per tooth... an order of magnitude higher.
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Until recently we weren't even allowed to go to Cuba. Also from where I am on the West coast, Cuba is around 3,000 miles away. It's a bit silly to think that an industrial nation like the USA with such a huge economy can't compete with a tiny third world nation like Cuba in terms of health care. Maybe some day we'll get our collective head out of our ass.