Plan B Overdrive

[ChimpMaster]

<snip>
But back to plan B...

Asides from pulling in my own work I'm thinking along the lines of buying & selling . What, exactly, I'm not sure. I have more than a passing interest in antiques but I'm no expert and I'd imagine its pretty tough earning a crust even when you know your stuff.

I guess the secret of buying & selling stuff is knowing ahead of time what's going to be hot and what's not.

Food & drink is out - too much competition from trendy downshifters who don't need the money. Yep, I'd love to run a "craft" brewery but they're everywhere round here.

Maybe learn some kind of craft? Pottery? Furniture restoration? Again I see loads of people with far more talent in their fingertips than I'll ever have literally eeking out a living ..

Just need to carry on as is until I get that moment of inspiration I guess...

The problem with all of your options is that they will bring in pittance compared to your (relatively) easy contracting income.

I think going permie might be the only realistic option for me, but I'm going to hate working on-site 5 days a week for a quarter of my current contract profit.

[sirja]

I thought this might have been my way out too, but instead it left me needing to work another 10 years to make up for my losses. But I'm getting better at it now

That's the spirit, never give up!

[Gumbo Robot]

That's the spirit, never give up!

Got links to any good resources on how to get into this?

[unixman]

I was planning to take a safe permie role in a few years time and then ride it to retirement. Something close to home, something interesting.

Employer: Thanks for coming to see us today Mr. Gorilla. We like your long experience. What else can you offer this company ?

PurpleGorilla: I'm riding you to retirement.

[sirja]

Got links to any good resources on how to get into this?

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[MicrosoftBob]

Employer: Thanks for coming to see us today Mr. Gorilla. We like your long experience. What else can you offer this company ?

PurpleGorilla: I'm riding you to retirement.

There's always the Ron Jeremy option

[oliverson]

The writing is on the wall and all that...

Seem to have been experiencing a downward trend in the all round quality of the contracting experience.

Biggest concern is the paucity of roles - don't know if its a temporary thing but I finished my last proper role in February and have only managed to secure a 6 week holiday/paternity cover role. Thought it was year end / election uncertainty but it's still dead.

Rates seem to have taken a dip & I just don't enjoy doing it anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy development work - when I started 15 years ago I'd start at a company and, by and large they'd tell me they wanted x,y and z and generally leave me to get on with it. Now there is so much micro management & I get the feeling that the client thinks they own my ass. I don't like that...

I don't know if the influx of foreign workers has had an impact, whether it's my age (getting on a bit now) or if there genuinely aren't many roles out there at the moment but the last 3 months have made me realise that I've perhaps been leading a bit of a charmed life in over the last few years.

Short term, I'm going to focus a bit more on going direct & pulling in my own projects. I've got some plans in this respect and hopefully they'll come off & I'll be able to build a client base together. It'll be tough but not as soul destroying as the work I've done of late. Failing that, I'm cashing in my chips and f****g off somewhere warm to go out on a big one...

Must be having a mid life crisis or something...

This is precisely the way I feel. Be 50 in a couple of years and the thought of competing with the younger, hungrier guys in the London banking sector really doesn't appeal. A lot of these guys code on an evening, on a weekend, when they're not coding they're blogging about it, when they're not blogging they're thinking about blogging, or coding, or both. Some of us have evolved to have a life outside all that stuff but were probably as hungry back then. It's not like I'm not marketable but I keep turning down decent paying contracts, the last one being another £ 650 role. Good rates but at the end of the day you actually have to turn up and 'do something'. And that's the issue. I've just had enough coding for end clients. I have a couple of good plan B ideas but by the time I finish coding at the end of the day I'm just burnt out so I hit the pub instead. Something has to change. I've felt like this for a long time now. It's probably time to take a risk or two to get where I want to be. Switch the phone off and stop taking calls from the agents who turn your head with decent opportunities. Really feel I'm 'done' with contracting.

[ChimpMaster]

This is precisely the way I feel. Be 50 in a couple of years and the thought of competing with the younger, hungrier guys in the London banking sector really doesn't appeal. A lot of these guys code on an evening, on a weekend, when they're not coding they're blogging about it, when they're not blogging they're thinking about blogging, or coding, or both. Some of us have evolved to have a life outside all that stuff but were probably as hungry back then. It's not like I'm not marketable but I keep turning down decent paying contracts, the last one being another £ 650 role. Good rates but at the end of the day you actually have to turn up and 'do something'. And that's the issue. I've just had enough coding for end clients. I have a couple of good plan B ideas but by the time I finish coding at the end of the day I'm just burnt out so I hit the pub instead. Something has to change. I've felt like this for a long time now. It's probably time to take a risk or two to get where I want to be. Switch the phone off and stop taking calls from the agents who turn your head with decent opportunities. Really feel I'm 'done' with contracting.

Sheesh, maybe we should start a club for highly skilled but de-motivated old folk like us.

Seriously though, what you feel is exactly like many of us here. Maybe it's the 10 years of almost non-stop work I've been through.

Thing is, I do enjoy the product I work on and I'm damn good at it, but the work just isn't out there any more. I'd buy you beer for the rest of your life if I could get contracts at £650/day all day long like you can. My current contract actually pays quite in excess of that, but that's because it's an end-of-life product/contract for me

[oliverson]

Sheesh, maybe we should start a club for highly skilled but de-motivated old folk like us.

Seriously though, what you feel is exactly like many of us here. Maybe it's the 10 years of almost non-stop work I've been through.

Thing is, I do enjoy the product I work on and I'm damn good at it, but the work just isn't out there any more. I'd buy you beer for the rest of your life if I could get contracts at £650/day all day long like you can. My current contract actually pays quite in excess of that, but that's because it's an end-of-life product/contract for me

It's not about the money for me, not that I'm minted, I'm not. It's about the realisation that there has to be some purpose to your life other than turning in decent rates. Must be something in Maslo's hierarchy of needs, probably 'self-actualisation'.

[ChimpMaster]

It's not about the money for me, not that I'm minted, I'm not. It's about the realisation that there has to be some purpose to your life other than turning in decent rates. Must be something in Maslo's hierarchy of needs, probably 'self-actualisation'.

You're right, I'm getting that feeling too. I'm early 40s but already feeling that I need to do more with my life, more different and interesting things, before I am too old and unfit to do it. But I do still need to finance the home, wife and kids, which is always the hardest thing for me to fathom i.e. if I were to do something other than for top money.