@Ian – Fascinating comment Ian and sorry that I didn’t get to this reply earlier. You know, I’m not sure if I’m saying that you have to start your own business and jump in with two feet! When I started my design company, I didn’t do anything with it for a long time. In fact, I think I didn’t work with anything that you could call a client for the first year or two.

BUT, what I would do is give people a card and tell the people I knew. And just passing along that word was enough to get ppl to respect my time more, and eventually just TELLING ppl I had a company was enough to start getting business were I would’ve been stupid NOT to pursue it! Weird huh?

I love fixing stuff for my close friends and family. It’s all the other people that I get bogged down with. Like you said, I would find my days off would be packed full of projects for other people . . . all free ones. Moms computer breaks, I don’t mind spending hours fixing it. A co-worker has a laptop that wont play a game, I don’t mind looking at it (we’re such a small work force here, we’re all friends anyways). A person I go to church with has a computer problem, well I’ll give you a very good rate . . . but it’s not free.

Thankfully I’m actually so busy at work that people have figured out that I don’t have time to work on stuff . . . for free anyways. And like you said, most people that I have charged (even my modest fee) are happy to pay me (usually more then I asked for). But there are always people who just . . . I dunno . . . think I don’t have anything else to do, don’t need sleep, that I just have HOURS during the day to burn away.

Then there are the people who get it. I just spent hours on the phone with my old Lighting professor from college (who now has her own computer repair and instillation business). She’s very good at repairing computers, very good. But no so much on setting up servers, domains, DHCP and the like. So she calls me, offers me a good hourly rate (especially considering that my knowledge in that area is also limited) and we talk through a server 2008 setup. I’ve helped her with stuff before (as she has helped me with stuff), usually a 15 minute conversation about this that or the other or an e-mail here or there. But being a professional, she understands that big projects are not free . . . even for friends. The first thing she said, after telling me she needed networking help, was that there would be a good hourly rate in it for me. That was nice.

I don’t think I have the discipline to start, and keep, my own business though. I don’t think I could make it work, at least not as my main source of income. You guys are awesome for taking that leap, I just don’t think I could do it. Like sky diving, I don’t see the need to jump out of a perfectly good plane.

When I started my business people stopped asking me questions which has been fantastic because the weird thing was, after working for a large council doing the usual work week people thought it was fine to call in the evenings or weekends and expect me to be enthusiastic about their problem and fix it on the spot.

Oddly many people don’t seem to think before they pick up the phone, they don’t think “this doesn’t work, I won’t bother Pete with it now because he’s working with this stuff all day I’ll maybe text and ask or something tomorrow”. But start a company and things seem a little different.

Personally, I wouldn’t want to work for anyone but myself now and I’m sure you’re the same Bush.