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I see what you mean. It is glib to say that opening a brick-and-mortar business is a walk in the park. However I supposed that if one is interested in such a ve

I see what you mean. It is glib to say that opening a brick-and-mortar business is a walk in the park. However I supposed that if one is interested in such a venture then they would already know that it's not easy. Heck, starting a software business and decided to grow to your first hires and worrying about making payroll is just as taxing. What I meant was that for a disenfranchised programmer perhaps they do need to get out of programming for a while. And if you're thinking of taking a pay-cut to trade for some happiness then one suggestion is moving somewhere cheap. I'm not a guru... it's just the best thing I could think of. I could afford a 650k house in the city or I could afford a 200k one on a commuter line in a less-desirable city. Seems to me that if I needed to take a pay-cut then I'd be better prepared if my costs of living were lower than if I had locked myself into the expensive city house. But maybe not?

chromatic 13y ago
Seems to me that if I needed to take a pay-cut then I'd be better prepared if my costs of living were lower than if I had locked myself into the expensive city house. "Just pack up and move somewhere cheaper" is easy advice to give, but it doesn't apply to every situation. Not everyone has that luxury. By the time you reach the mid-point of your career, you may have one or more of a partner, a partner with a professional career, personal obligations in your area, a mortgage, a mortgage you can't get out of without losing a lot of money/credit rating, aging parents, children, ailing family members who live with you, medical conditions which limit where you can live, ex partner with children not willing to move, et cetera. Alternately you may already live very frugally. When I was fresh out of college, I couldn't have imagined any of those circumstances applying to me or anyone I know. Now I've seen them happen to many of my peers and colleagues.
- agentultra 13y ago
  First, big fan of your work. :) Second, given the right set of circumstances you could find something wrong with any given suggestion. I wasn't trying to be flippant. Life is complex and I am struggling to find answers to many of the same questions as you. Best of luck. Update: also should apologize if my suggestion was in poor taste. I realize it's not the kind if advice that works for everyone.
perigrin 13y ago
"Heck, starting a software business and decided to grow to your first hires and worrying about making payroll is just as taxing." Actually in my experience it's not. Again about 5 years ago I started my own software company. About a year after that I brought in a friend as a partner. We did consulting for the next few years, and my partner ran into an idea for a product that we couldn't pass up. (We're releasing to our first round of beta-customers this week.) During that time we've had several employees (part-time and full-time), great contracts, not-so-great contracts, and one contract that made me curl up in my bed for a week and refuse to speak to anyone for two days. My job has still been significantly easier than my wife's over that same period. I've had to deal with maybe a dozen clients, she's had hundreds in the 3 years she's had a retail location. Our operating budget monthly outside of payroll is measured in the hundreds (handful of linodes, github account) her's is an order of magnitude higher. She has to travel extensively around our metro area (we happen to live somewhere with crap public transit so lots of driving), spending some weeks as much as 30hrs in her car alone. I work from home, or when I'm feeling audacious from the park near my kid's school. Just today she called and told me though that she'd visited a place where part-time employees had to be badged in, and she was incredibly happy to be self-employed seeing that. I've spent the last few days feeling the grass was greener with a salaried job. Knowing your next paycheck is gonna arrive is a really nice luxury. Being able to take two weeks off without having to worry about how you'll make payroll is a really nice luxury. Listing here for you all the reasons why being self-employed sucks has ironically reminded me that I really am doing this because I want to. So yeah what you're saying overall about finding what need to do and doing that is entirely true for me, but it isn't necessarily "easy". I certainly didn't realize how hard it would be before I started.

chromatic 13y ago

Seems to me that if I needed to take a pay-cut then I'd be better prepared if my costs of living were lower than if I had locked myself into the expensive city house. "Just pack up and move somewhere cheaper" is easy advice to give, but it doesn't apply to every situation. Not everyone has that luxury. By the time you reach the mid-point of your career, you may have one or more of a partner, a partner with a professional career, personal obligations in your area, a mortgage, a mortgage you can't get out of without losing a lot of money/credit rating, aging parents, children, ailing family members who live with you, medical conditions which limit where you can live, ex partner with children not willing to move, et cetera. Alternately you may already live very frugally. When I was fresh out of college, I couldn't have imagined any of those circumstances applying to me or anyone I know. Now I've seen them happen to many of my peers and colleagues.

agentultra 13y ago
First, big fan of your work. :) Second, given the right set of circumstances you could find something wrong with any given suggestion. I wasn't trying to be flippant. Life is complex and I am struggling to find answers to many of the same questions as you. Best of luck. Update: also should apologize if my suggestion was in poor taste. I realize it's not the kind if advice that works for everyone.

perigrin 13y ago

"Heck, starting a software business and decided to grow to your first hires and worrying about making payroll is just as taxing." Actually in my experience it's not. Again about 5 years ago I started my own software company. About a year after that I brought in a friend as a partner. We did consulting for the next few years, and my partner ran into an idea for a product that we couldn't pass up. (We're releasing to our first round of beta-customers this week.) During that time we've had several employees (part-time and full-time), great contracts, not-so-great contracts, and one contract that made me curl up in my bed for a week and refuse to speak to anyone for two days. My job has still been significantly easier than my wife's over that same period. I've had to deal with maybe a dozen clients, she's had hundreds in the 3 years she's had a retail location. Our operating budget monthly outside of payroll is measured in the hundreds (handful of linodes, github account) her's is an order of magnitude higher. She has to travel extensively around our metro area (we happen to live somewhere with crap public transit so lots of driving), spending some weeks as much as 30hrs in her car alone. I work from home, or when I'm feeling audacious from the park near my kid's school. Just today she called and told me though that she'd visited a place where part-time employees had to be badged in, and she was incredibly happy to be self-employed seeing that. I've spent the last few days feeling the grass was greener with a salaried job. Knowing your next paycheck is gonna arrive is a really nice luxury. Being able to take two weeks off without having to worry about how you'll make payroll is a really nice luxury. Listing here for you all the reasons why being self-employed sucks has ironically reminded me that I really am doing this because I want to. So yeah what you're saying overall about finding what need to do and doing that is entirely true for me, but it isn't necessarily "easy". I certainly didn't realize how hard it would be before I started.