Monthly Archives: December 2010

Working from home

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It seems that many people dream of the at home job. Imagine being your own boss, income being in direct relation to your work ethic and drive. Never do people think of the down sides of working from home. I know I didn’t when I first made the plunge.

Since the age of 15 I have always worked from someone else, since the age of 14 I worked in advanced web programming (beyond HTML/CSS). Web design and development was once a hobby and I had never thought it to be a full time job nor working from home and getting paid.

As I progressed in the business world, making more and more money each year, I also progressed in my programming skills. Everything seemed to be all in place until one day a friend of mine asked me to work with him in his web development business.

At first I worked on some of his clients part-time and then worked full-time at a bank. At the time he had an office and I had driven there a few times a week to work. I had seen his life, creating his own work schedule. Making good money and being his own boss. Each day he determined what he would work on, if he even had planned to work that day. As long as he finished clients by the deadline life was good.

I dreamed on the life he lived. Because of this dream, I started to hate my current job and look forward to this part-time web work. Then one day, he had mentioned that he had a plethora of work to be done, enough to keep me busy for months. The next day I quit my job.

Ever since I’ve been chasing my tail, working everyday and meeting client demand. Each month has been a race to acquire funds or finish projects in time. I gave up my old boss and steady hours for up to 8 bosses (clients) at a time and 16 – 24 hour work days. Though I am a lot happier doing a job that I love, I’ve obtained a lot more stress in my life. I know know the down sides of working for yourself. And from home (the office idea stopped when I started taking on clients for myself rather than through him).

Top 5 reasons why I dislike working on my own:

  1. Day and night I feel like I should be working. I no longer have that detachment from work. When I had left my previous jobs I no longer had thought about it. Now, even a holiday can make me feel guilty for not working.
  2. Knowing where the next paycheck will come from no long exist. I used to get a steady paycheck every two weeks. Now I have to search for work and hope they pay me a decent amount. The stress of finding money is always over my head, even when I have found plenty of work and have a fully bank account I still worry about further down the road.
  3. No more routines. I have to stay motived on my own to get work done. It’s hard to balance work and life when there is not clear cut work day. Especially when working from home where it’s so easy to be distracted by family.
  4. Sick days are a thing of the past. Now if I get ill, I lose days worked. There isn’t anyone else to take my place to finish the work. Sometimes I’ll go a few days working very sick just to get something done. Where normally I’d be in bed sleeping.
  5. Sociability, I no longer have co-workers. Meeting new people and have a place to go is gone. I now work from home and I’m limited to meeting only clients and people at late night dinners

Top 5 reasons why I love working from home:

  1. I always get a good night sleep. If I stay up too late one night, I rarely have to worry about getting up early the next day. This is only not true when I have a meeting with a client.
  2. Freedom. When a random friend comes to town, it’s not a federal case to stop working for a few hours to see them. It’s easier to drop something and work on it later as long as the deadline is met.
  3. Working in my PJs. I do less laundry getting up and working in my pajamas. It’s comfortable. Though, it’s been suggested to me that getting up and dressing for business puts me into work mode and that I’d be more productive.
  4. Easier to relieve stress. If I get stressed on a script that won’t work. I can easily just take a break, watch a movie, walk my dog, or take a nap. Sometimes it’s easier to just take a step back and clear my head to solve an issue.
  5. My income is directly in relation to my motivation and efforts. I can make as much in a year as I want. Though, it may depend on clients and demand. But I can charge what I need and I usually can find a client to fit that need. Where as before I was limited to a set budget. (it’s a good and bad thing really)

Before you think about working from home. Think about how your life will change. Think about your income and every factor that will change with day to day life. Make sure you are self motivated enough to get done each day what you need to. Or else one day you’ll be searching for a job, and take the first one you can get.

Is it always better to know the truth, even when it hurts?

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I have seen members of my family and friends hide the truth to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. I’ve also seen people hiding facts about life in order to avoid preventing someone else from being let down or feel as if they are letting someone down.

Telling the truth and being honest are signs of growing up. A lot of individuals fail to realize this fact. As a child I would hide things from my parents because I was fearful of their disapproval or the fact that I knew I shouldn’t be doing it. As an adult I’m able to express and do things I one hid. I don’t have to lie to my Mother about where I’m going or where I have been. I don’t have to hide the fact that I will drink a glass of wine or a couple beers; I am an adult now and I know I’m free to make my own choices.

When my little sister does things, at the age of 20, she still hides them from my parents. I can’t quite figure it out yet. Nor can I figure out why she tells me some of the horrible things she does to boyfriends and friends. It bothers me that she won’t tell a majority of those who are closest to her the truth about what she is doing yet she expects to be treated like an adult. Telling the truth is acting like an adult, it’s standing up for what you believe in and then following through with it.

Which brings me to my next question, does it not hurt someone to lie to them even if you’re hiding the truth? When someone finds out later on about the truth will it not hurt them worse. Not only were they lied to but you also did something they may not find appropriate…. it’s like a double kick in the face.

It is better to know the truth, being lied to is never fun. Trustiness is build from the telling of the truth, and creates a strong bond.

Tell a girl her dress doesn’t make her look fat, the fact that she’s fat makes her look fat isn’t telling the truth. It’s trying to hurt someone. Telling her that the dress doesn’t look good on her is telling the truth. So there is a fine line. It’s a matter of growing up, and just knowing where the line is drawn between hurting someone and telling the truth.

Don’t lie to me, even if it’s about minimal things. This is how I lose friends. I’d rather know my haircuts sucks than to have everyone make fun of me behind my back.

One small amount of truthy hurt, can prevent a large plethora of pain.

Business Plan Update

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A while back I said I had set up some daily goals and methods for keeping track of them. I was able to do so for a couple days but I soon fell out of it.

Some of the goals I have been sticking to but a majority of them I have not been. It saddens me to admit to it, I figure I’ll give it one more go. I’m going to start off where I left off with my daily logging and goal tracking to see if I can manage it.

I know it’s hard to change habits even when you need to.

I hope I’ll have better news next time I do an update.

First impressions

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First impressions are very important to meeting new people. But I think those who tell the population are wrong about what the reason behind it is. The first impression is most important because it’s you’re once change to make someone want you around, not because it defines you as a person.

Seems like every time I meet a new person, girls particularly, over time they change. This is not a good change either – you know the one where they feel comfortable around you and are okay with farting. No, the change that takes place is an evil one.

For some reason, at first, girls want me to think they are sweet, innocent, and dumb. While guys want to feel smart, strong, and stable. I find both of these to be wrong 95% of the time. Girls are usually bitter, conniving, and dumb; guys are usually dumb, scared, and running with the punches hoping not to be hit by a fist.

It hit me today that this was the case. I met someone new a few days back and over time she’s remained the same person to me, hasn’t quite changed yet. While to my friend she was her true self  (I’ve observed them speaking – sometimes without her knowing)… or so it seems. I can’t quite tell if she knows who she is well enough to act normal around someone. I feel as if she continues to act the part of which she believes I see her as until she knows she has me trapped as a friend before changing to her real self. Or she is just so fake, she acts like someone else around different people.

This is the same with guys. New friends, or friends of friends try to act different towards me than they do to the normal crowd of friends that merged our meeting. Seems like they act different to them as they do to me. To me they act like I mentioned above, but to their long lived friends they act weaker.

I’ve decided to believe that ever person I meet is lying to me, and to consider their personality the complete opposite to that of which they’re displaying. This way, I’ll treat a sweet girl like a slut, a slut like a sweet girl. A jock as a nerd, a nerd as a jock. I’d like to see how they react, and if I can bring the true being out of them sooner. This way I don’t waste my time with people…. I’m too busy for it. I’m no longer going to let a first impression count when meeting someone new.

New lease on life

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I took some time today to put a plan together. A daily goal list to be completed everyday, and a list of each task completed each day along with what I will accomplish the next day.

This way I feel I will be more organized and have a better overall happiness. Organization makes me happy and I’ve let it slip past me. I’m making goals, making me a better person to me and hoping it will pay off in the end.

I’m dedicated amounts of time to accomplish certain task, measuring how long I work on them. Reviewing and comparing what was planned to what was completed. Finishing task and goals make me happy. Having a short term plan makes me happy.

I hope I stick to it.

Better to have loved and lost?

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Is it better to have loved and lost, than to not have ever loved at all: something to tell someone to make them feel better about the amazingly huge fan of which was just hit with a large pile of shit.

Being loved, being in love, is to never lose or to be lost. I know this to be true, because love is the act of never giving up. Never stepping down from the person most dear to you. Walk with me on my journey of logic.

Friendship

I always say, that a true friend is someone that requires only your companionship. Those who desire your friendship for other reasons are not true friends at all. For instance, those friends that only call when something has gone wrong in their lives, or they just seem to have nothing better to do. Those who call you for computer problems, or who need help moving. These are not your true friends. People who need you are not your friends. It’s the people who want you that are.

Look around at your friends, asses what they gain from having you as a friend. If the answer is nothing then they might just be a true friend. Now look at them, what do you gain from your friendship with them? What do you gain? If the answer is still nothing, don’t change it. Enjoy it.

Dating

People start dating for one reason, attraction. Guy approaches girl because he find her quite good looking. Girl responds by thinking “he looks wealthy, I’ll date him”. They get to know each other and either a bond grows or fades.

Dating is not as complex as individuals make it; it is not a chance encounter or a gift from God. Dating is simply a numbers game.

At any given point, a single individual could walk into a bar and ask every person out one by one. Eventually, someone would say yes. That’s the true speed dating. This might seem sick, but it’s true. Everyone does it, just on a long term scale. They feel as if they need to meet different people at different times to make them feel special about the gesture of a midnight smooch or two.

Find someone you like, or a group of people, and ask them out. Move on if declined. Dating 101.

Love

Love is happiness until death, and also impossible.

Conclusion

  1. Have fun.
  2. Never try your hardest, you’ll always be let down with the results.
  3. Seek the people you can stand the most, and stay with them.
  4. Don’t forget the past, BUT forgive it, and move on.

It is not possible to have loved and lost, because in love… no one loses.

When I realized I’m an adult

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Today, I realized that I’m an adult. At the age of 23, I now feel like I should be moving forward in life. I’ve been living as an adult for quite some time now, but I refused to mentally move forward. I started a business on the internet. I’m in business for myself and I just now realized what is really going on.

I spend day an night creating and designing websites for others; until today I was simply just programming, like how an artist creates a painting. Never did I stop and realize I am creating the income of several people. The websites I create and getting paid to make will be seen by an unknown number of people and will actually make some money, it’s not just a website to my clients. I am a business, I am designing a means of income for people! I mean, why else would they pay me to create these things.

It was a strange feeling to realize what I am actually doing. I started in this business as a hobby. Created several sites just for fun and for friends. Then, through a long list of happenings I started getting hired to do jobs for clients. I never stopped to consider the fact that I’m making business websites. Just a strange thought to be somewhat important.

Which brings me to my next thought. Where do I go from here? Now that I know that I have responsibilities and a need to move forward in life, it’s getting to the point where I’m getting a lot more work than I can handle on my own. Projects are starting to take longer and longer to complete to make all of my clients happy. I am not longer doing this for fun anymore, it’s simply my income rather than a hobby. I either need to expand with the growing demand of my services or get out of the game. I don’t know where to go next. I’m so used to just going with the flow and making quick for the moment decisions, there have been very few decisions in my life where I had to think long term.

So what do I do? Hire people to help me and work my self out of the programming aspect and become a manger, or continue to do what I’m doing now and never move forward in my career / grow up for that matter. I know it is time to grow up, I just wish I knew the next step.

I’m too busy working in my business to be working on it. I’m an adult now, and I feel as if I should know what to do. When I was little I saw my Dad make life changing decisions in an instant. Like he just knows what to do, very little thought… he just knows what is the right path.

Then again, life is too long to always be right. And too short to not take risk.