IT professionals, where do you work?

[raneman]

My name is John and I am a computer/network tech for the Metropolitan Library System, the IT offices are located at the Ronald J Norick Downtown Library. Another user on this board, Hipsterdoofus is my coworker.

[pdjr]

Thanks to VPN, I do most of my work out of my house. Only on installs or bad programs that require a person there to reboot do I leave the cave.

[MadMonk]

Thanks to VPN, I do most of my work out of my house. Only on installs or bad programs that require a person there to reboot do I leave the cave.

So, do you work for a company, own your own biz or do you consult/contract? Not many companies I've had experience with let you work from home for the majority of the time.

[pdjr]

I have a small business, and I work for another company from home (based in OKC) for the benefits. I'm keeping my plate full after jumping off the corporate gravy train a few years ago to spend more time away from airports.

[hipsterdoofus]

Nice, pdjr, how can I get in on that gig? :-)

[pdjr]

Work hard, create email/voice relationships with the names on all of those business cards in your pocket, take risks, save whatever you can and apply my formula for the perfect small business:

1) Identify a market/service/product that you live and breathe and know back to front.

2) Study that market/sevice/product for unmet needs or missing links.

3) Wham! That's the perfect small business for you. There are specific tax advantages for running a small business in addition to or in lieu of a full-time gig.

Taking the leap of faith and giving six months notice paid off for me financially (not at first though), emotionally and physically (no more Botox injections in my armpits for sweating problems, it was just stress after all that money, ugh).

And don't burn bridges unless they need it due their unsavory and often scandalous foundations.

[hipsterdoofus]

I have a small business Idea, but not sure how i'd get it started. Basically being the "IT department" for small businesses. Kind of a monthly payment type thing on their part.

[Karried]

pdjr, you are someone I want to talk with... we are going through the same steps you just outlined. Scary doesn't begin to describe it some days! We are not in IT although I am Cisco Systems trained, not that I know a damn thing about it and couldn't program a router today if you paid me.

I actually went the route of independent contractor and now do real estate. My husband just started a company (commercial construction estimating and installation) but wow it is a lot of hard work just getting started. But, anyway, thought I'd let you know I commend your business strategy and outlook.

[pdjr]

Thanks karried. Feel free to send me a PM if I can be of assistance.

[gbyte]

Well, I'm another IT person currently working at Creative Labs but sometimes do some small projects for my brother who works for Uptime (selling server-side storage equipment mainly)

I currently do system design for internal/external systems and interfaces and do development work in Java/SQL/VB/ASP and some .NET mainly working with e-commerce systems but also general information-based systems and websites


Only thing I dislike about IT is it seems most corporations just want to to abuse your knowledge without ever giving you worthwhile compensation, especially after the huge dotCom bust and now often alot of extra people to do the same job that you do (/laughs hard) for less money.

I'm thinking in about another 5 years that the companies that have had really good employees will notice that most of the people they get will not be able to perform up to their expectations and have often created more work in the long run than their star employees that they let go would have got done.

But enough of that junk