Rampidbyter Rampid byter: A byte of my .Net developing life.

Well, it’s officially sunk in. I am in the open water of the job ocean. I already had difficulty in explaining to the insurance adjustor, who was out this morning to inspect my roof, what it was I do for a living. About the time I said I am self-employed as of yesterday I received a big grin, and a “Good luck with that” comment. I guess it didn’t help right as the adjustor asked the question my wife started laughing. I’m starting to notice that there seems to be a stigma about being self-employment with strangers and family equally if you’re not already living in a mansion.

Anyways, today started out similar to yesterday with the exception that I had a roof inspection planned for 11am this morning. I had scheduled for both the insurance adjustor and for my contractor to be here at the same time. The contractor was supposed to champion the repair for the obvious storm damage as he had told me during his initial roof repair some weeks ago. Forty minutes go by with the adjustor completing his investigation, and my contractor was nowhere to be seen.

Long story short I do not have storm damage, and instead improperly sealed shingles going in three feet intervals the entire vertical length of the house. Indicating the shingles were not staggered, and due to nine years of flexing has unsealed the vast majority of the roof. Hence when the rain and wind come whipping through the water gets up under the shingle as it is lifted, and comes pooling in my garage.

Not so much related to self-employment, but a good indicator that you can never really plan for all unexpected costs during these early phases. I will keep in mind the same feelings I have now for the contractor who didn’t show or so much as call. Now that I’m getting back into a service industry I can see how much not showing up impacts one’s reputation. I think regardless of anything else that happens today that’s the lesson for the day. Just show up when you say you will, and if you can’t at least call.

As for now I’m off to cook some Ramen, and actually get to work on my first project. I have a workflow to flush out, a website to build, and payment gateway to integrate.

Today started out just like any other Monday except I didn’t wake up at 7:30am. I didn’t get out of bed till after 10am, and then spent the day taking care of Amazon shipments instead of having been in a cube for nearly three hours by that point in time. I guess it didn’t actually start out like any other Monday. Today was my first day of intentionally being unemployed. I think at this point unemployed and self-employed can be swapped around until I start having an assured, or at least promised income.

I feel amazingly refreshed. I don’t think it’s actually sunk in yet, just feels more like an extended weekend, and I wouldn’t be surprised if at any minute I start to get the realization I actually did quit my job. I can remember it all like it was yesterday, or at least last Friday. It was my last day on the job. I had an hour meeting as usual in the morning, played two hours of Frisbee golf at lunch (bi-weekly outing fell on my last day), spent two hours in meetings with consultants after lunch, and finished by fixing one last bug before I was to leave. A lot of people came around shaking my hand, asking me to stay, and in the end giving the final goodbyes (for now.) Since it’s such a small world out there I’d be shocked if that was the last I’ll see of them.

That was the final day. I shared a few emails with my boss, talked in his office for a while, and went back to pack my things. I had made a list of things I’d encountered during my time there that were just not right. From a coding and business perspective so during the previous three weeks of my notice I made notes of things as they came to my attention. The list ended up being six pages long, bulleted, with references to patterns and practices links, and a summary at the end of my reasoning for going. I sent it as my last order of business for the day, packed my equipment one last time, and walked to the bosses office.

Come to find out he’s a fast read. On his screen was page three of the document, and up he stands to shake my hand. Oddly enough he was incredibly happy to have the document. Instantly he went into how many of the things I had noted were exactly what he was looking for (he’d requested I talk to him about these things initially – i just decided to document it) to make the business managers understand what some of the problems were with the company.

Keep in mind my list of reasons wasn’t tied directly to one person or another, or anyone for that matter. Simply notes I’d made during development of part of the core or interconnects to the core. For example one particular point was how within the core all the exception message are hard-coded (core claims they’re DB-drive still to this day) and the primary language is English. For a marketing company to have the core product used by international companies without any localization support is beyond me. I’m sure those English messages will make a lot of sense to the Spanish market, or wherever they’re intended. Things like that where these problems may go unnoticed by anyone until sales does a deal with a foreign market. The core team can once again say, “it’s extensible enough to support other languages….”, and then all hell would break loose when once again the core is found not to support the sold functionality. That got pretty old after a while.

Whenever I had second thoughts about leaving I kept looking back at the list I’d made, reflecting on the hours of wasted time spent fixing broken projects, and the isolation of the core from ever being fixed. I just smile. I feel incredibly free, refreshed, and I’m ready to start making a difference again. I miss helping people with software. I think back to my consulting time with a lot of fond memories. Once had a floor manager at a manufacturing company come over to shake my hand for saving him four hours a day making and printing bar codes when I spent a few hours to build an automated label print system for him. I miss having a visible impact with individuals and companies. One thing I know for sure is I now can get back to doing what i love. Reading, learning, and building things that help people. At least that’s the goal.

Now if you excuse me I’m going to go cook some Ramen for lunch, clean the house, and then sit outside on the patio to enjoy my day off before the real work begins tomorrow.

On September 11th the Cincinnati Day of Ruby event takes place. The event will be lead by Jim Weirich, Chris Nelson and Doug Alcorn. For someone like myself who wants to learn what Ruby really is, and how to use it in one single day this is the event for you! The cost is $25 for a full day event from 7:30am to 4:00pm with lunch provided.

I sold a few books through Amazon the last week or so. The first time ever doing so. Amazon bills a credit for about $4 for shipping the books. I made a rookie mistake by taking the first book to be shipped by UPS. The cheapest shipping available from UPS was $14 plus an added tax along with sales tax racking the total cost to over $16 to ship ONE book. Because I was at my second business day I went ahead and ate the costs, which cut my profits in half on the sale. Come to realize I could have just gone to USPS and paid for media mail. With both an padded book-sized envelop, shipping, and a confirmation number included came out to be nearly $4 even. Rookie mistake learned. USPS beats the pants of UPS in costs and quality of service for shipping. Plus they also sell stamps so it can be a two-for-one kind of deal going there.

This past Friday I did something that nobody I have ever known has done intentionally. Against all recommendations of friends and family I put in my two-week notice to my current employer. I did so without a net. I finally had the kick I needed to start giving full attention to making my dream a reality in getting my own company up and running. It’s incredibly risky, and as everyone I know is quick to point out the “economy” is horrible.

I have some neat ideas, two baked products, and one micro service I’m launching this month. I am really hoping to take on a few short-term contracts to make ends meet, and will be living off my savings for a few months. Worse case I will have spent a month or two without employment, improved my development skills, and will have experimented with several neat up-and-coming technologies.

This is possibly the scariest but most exciting stage in my life. I have never been without a full-time job in my working life. I have tried several times to get my business going but always was hindered by long working weeks, clients calling during my work hours, and brain burn-out afterhours having spent a better part of eleven hours programming at work. I can’t wait to see what it’s like having sixty hours a week (drive included) extra to do work compared to the ten hours previously burning the midnight oil.