Do you have a "real" job? [Archive] - HHO -Web Hosting Forums

keyweb

03-17-03, 07:43 AM

My partner and I started our business way back in 1996 (the stone ages on the web.) At that time I was a full time electronics engineer (hardware and software design), and I never even envisioned that it would eventually turn into a full time job. By Sept 1998 I was putting in 18 hour days between my full time job and our web business, so I made the jump and quit my engineering position and went full time into our web business. It was rough for a while financially, but eventually it paid off--now I commute to my puter room (right past the coffee pot) every day, and really enjoy my work. No travel (unless I want to travel with our travel trailer.) I certainly do not regret the decision. We specialize in on-line stores, especially in the quilting industry. I spend my days writing and upgrading the software (many, many thousands of lines of Perl.)

dynamicnet

03-17-03, 09:17 AM

Greetings:

We started in June of 1995; this is a full time business for our PA corporation.

Take care.

Barbara

03-17-03, 12:23 PM

Yup, by day, I masquerade as a mild-mannered systems engineer, and by night, I do the single mom thing. In my "spare" time, I try to get my hosting business off the ground.

nameslave

03-17-03, 01:41 PM

Originally posted by Barbara:

Yup, by day, I masquerade as a mild-mannered systems engineer, and by night, I do the single mom thing. In my "spare" time, I try to get my hosting business off the ground.
My salutation! I thought we only see this in movies. No offence intended. ;) Your post actually led me to click on your cultforum.com website, but I guess it's down.

James

03-17-03, 02:10 PM

by day i am a clerk at a food store been there for all most 10 years.
by night i run the business. hoping to switch to the business as soon as possable.

interactive

03-17-03, 04:55 PM

I'm a full time highschool student, part time college student, and part time web dev'er/programmer. How I find time to surf these boards, I'll never know.

allan

03-17-03, 05:15 PM

I am neither a fulltime or parttime hosting provider :). I do work fulltime as a security engineer, and part time as an author.

Cyberland

03-17-03, 07:04 PM

My t-shirt has these words on it:

“I’m retired and this is as dressed up as I get”

So I guess you could say by putting in 17 and 18-hour days, it’s kind of a full time job here.

ALapo

03-17-03, 07:22 PM

Originally posted by Chicken:

I teach 3rd grade, unless they don't pass the state budget, then I'll be flipping burgers.

:offtopic: I'll take a #6 extra pickels :D

MMiz

03-17-03, 09:10 PM

I am sorta shocked at many of your responses. I understand that many of us are "Hosts," but I was wondering if anyone had a traditional occupation. To me it makes sense to do hosting "part time" while pursuing a more traditional job with more job security. Others may feel differently, but thats where I was coming from :)

Jan

03-18-03, 02:33 AM

I am on the government payroll :banana: They pay me to look for work :cool:

DarktidesNET

03-18-03, 04:12 AM

Originally posted by MMiz:

I am sorta shocked at many of your responses. I understand that many of us are "Hosts," but I was wondering if anyone had a traditional occupation. To me it makes sense to do hosting "part time" while pursuing a more traditional job with more job security. Others may feel differently, but thats where I was coming from :)

You do this part time you're cutting off your customers, unless you outsource all your support, but that costs more money and our support ratio is next to none (maybe 5 requests a day ?) why pay someone $250 a month to take care of 2 hrs tops work.

As for "job security" I don't see how you're going to fire yourself. What are you referring to? Going fold? Any business takes that chance, if you fail, it's not for you.

I used to work in a factory, for 3 years, job security there? HA! I was fired for making too much money. What they did is if you got out your quota (40,000 folders -- I worked for Oxford Pendaflex making legal folders) you got paid 1 hr extra per 7,500 you put out. We often put out 75,000-80,000 a day, meaning we were getting checks of around $950-1250 a week.

They hired a lot of temps who worked through temp companies, that got no benifits, and could not make the extra money since they were not full time on the company, but rather through a temp service. This saved them thousands.

As for anything else, if you know what you're doing, you shouldn't really have a problem. If you run your hosting company like a lot of people do you will fail, but the ones who do it properly surely don't have any money issues, nor do they hate their job. That's what it boils down to.

I work about 30 hrs more a week than I did at the factory, but I'm not working in 100+ degree weather, I'm not cutting the crap out of my hands, nor am I working in oil/fume based plants that are hazardous to my health. I don't make as much there, but I'm respected by my customers, and soon will be making far more than $1200 a week with the campaign my partners and I are launching to local companies.

If you just buy a $99 server and think you'll make it then yes, you won't. If you take out thousands in loans to actually get what you need, and quality, all legal, investors, whatever, then you're either going to take off, or flop. If you flop it's just not meant for you.

I don't think I could start a bank or a gas station, even with 5 million in funding, it's just something I wouldn't be good at. Same scenario, doesn't matter which business you bring up.

If you were to research a lot of big companies (Dell, Microsoft, etc) you'd find most were started by putting tons of work in for peanuts but if you have the will you can make anything successful. Just don't sell yourself short because everyone else does.

Chicken

03-18-03, 06:15 AM

Originally posted by ALapo:

:offtopic: I'll take a #6 extra pickels :D
Would you care to upsize that for only 99c more?

L.A. Times, March 14, 2003:

Layoffs Possible, Schools Warn
As many as 30,000 people are receiving notices. Actual job losses are expected to be much smaller.

In a precautionary response to the state budget crisis this week, school districts across California are notifying tens of thousands of teachers and school administrators that they could be laid off next year.

As many as 30,000 teachers and administrators are receiving the so-called March 15 notices this year, according to estimates by education officials and organizations.
A few of the teachers at my school got this "letter" and in theory, all of the teachers in a certian category (credential category) will get it, which means me too. It doesn't mean that everyone will be laid off, however it doesn't make one feel wonderful either way. I'll post the letter once I get it (for some reason, I haven't gotten it yet). It comes by certified mail, so you can't miss it. :(

MMiz

03-18-03, 07:16 AM

Chicken,

If you dont mind me asking, what type of education do you have? Do you have a college degree? I know I had a teacher back in High School who taught in California public schools without a degree or a teachers certification, this was probably 8 years or so ago, but am wondering if they now require such.

As I met with my advisor I was a bit puzzled to see that there is currently an oversupply of English and History educators, too bad Im not good at math :(

Barbara

03-18-03, 09:44 AM

Originally posted by nameslave:

My salutation! I thought we only see this in movies. No offence intended. ;) Your post actually led me to click on your cultforum.com website, but I guess it's down.

Thanks for the salutations. :)

Yup, it's down while we're changing forum software and servers. We out grew the old software we were using (Ikonboard) and we were maxing out our allotted transfer each month as well. If you'd like, I can let you know when we get settled in our new "home".

felix220

03-18-03, 05:17 PM

Originally posted by Jan:

I am on the government payroll :banana: They pay me to look for work :cool:

How thoroughly Australian of you .. :beer:

[don't shoot, I'm kidding around]

Jan

03-18-03, 08:51 PM

I know you are kidding :) I often tell people I am a dole bludger :p: I would much prefer to be working and actually earning real money. Maybe I should go into the hosting business to get rich quick huh? :D

allan

03-19-03, 02:30 AM

Originally posted by Jan:

I know you are kidding :) I often tell people I am a dole bludger :p: I would much prefer to be working and actually earning real money. Maybe I should go into the hosting business to get rich quick huh? :D

No, no, no reselling domains names is where the money is!! You can buy the domains for $10, turn around and sell them for $35!!! That's $25 profit!!! You'll be making millions inside of a year!

Unfortunately, right after you make your first million monkeys will come flying out of your butt :D

Jan

03-19-03, 04:55 AM

I will look into it Allan, do you have a referral link so I can help you on your path to the monkeys? :fork: I will retire at $999,990 :banana:

Chicken

03-19-03, 06:37 AM

Originally posted by MMiz:

Chicken,

If you dont mind me asking, what type of education do you have? Do you have a college degree? I know I had a teacher back in High School who taught in California public schools without a degree or a teachers certification, this was probably 8 years or so ago, but am wondering if they now require such.

As I met with my advisor I was a bit puzzled to see that there is currently an oversupply of English and History educators, too bad Im not good at math :(
Sorry for the dual conversation, but I think it isn't too confusing to follow...

MMiz, I have a bachelor's degree, but not in elementary education. Thing is, that you can really have any bachelor's degree, that isn't the requirement. The requirement is a Professional Clear Multiple Subject Teaching Credential, which is what I don't have. I'm working towards a Professional Clear (which means you are done with everything), and a Masters of Education (Crosscultural Teaching).

It seems Math and Science are in short supply. however a few other areas which were in short supply are now overpopulated. The other quirk is that teachers who didn't start the year with a Professional Clear, got this letter. So it really doesn't matter that you got it even a month after the school year began (though your prospects for retaining your job for the next year would be significantly better than someone who hasn't finished).

We got more good news yesterday! Our school is under construction and they are building new buildings, one of which is where I currently am (which I knew). What we didn't know is if we were going to get classrooms or not. As of now, I will have to move around again (not have a classroom), every month (they call it a rover). I did this for the first two years and hated it.

Top it off, during the second week of April, just before the move (which scheduled 11, 12, 13), a team of people from the state is coming to audit a very important element of the curriculum (everyone is stressed over it), and CAT6 standardized testing (the big one) starts on April 14th.

Unfortunately, what makes teaching so difficult and challenging, often isn't actually the teaching. :(

Dapon

03-26-03, 04:01 PM

Originally posted by Chicken:

I teach 3rd grade, unless they don't pass the state budget, then I'll be flipping burgers.

I feel for you Chicken. My wife is a 2nd grade teacher in the Colton school dist. (Southern Calif.) and the budget cuts are unreal. I never knew how much of their own money teachers had to spend until I married one.
I do hosting as a fulltime job. I have an office and a full staff to worry about. Now with the budget cuts I just have one more thing to stress about. Thank you Gray Davis.
(Actually my wife is tenured so her job is pretty secure.)

OKIHost

03-26-03, 04:52 PM

I do light admin work on a winnt network for a medium site retail store in Boston, I mean really light as in I come in at 10:30am and sit on my ass usually till around 11:00pm and go home. I do this three days a week for a long 12 hours day, but I can sit in my office all day and do tickets, talk to customers, im with customer etc so I don't really consider it "part-time". It's really a great job compared to what I have done in the past such as driving a cab, working in a print shop, pc tech, helpdesk(another sit on your ass job) so I don't have much to complain about plus it gives me and my wife pretty damn good benefits which is one of the main reasons I stick with it along with the extra cash coming in.

Chicken

03-26-03, 04:54 PM

Originally posted by Dapon:

I feel for you Chicken. My wife is a 2nd grade teacher in the Colton school dist. (Southern Calif.) and the budget cuts are unreal. I never knew how much of their own money teachers had to spend until I married one.
I do hosting as a fulltime job. I have an office and a full staff to worry about. Now with the budget cuts I just have one more thing to stress about. Thank you Gray Davis.
(Actually my wife is tenured so her job is pretty secure.)
Yep, I know Colton... used to live in Redlands when I first came out here. Sounds like your wife most likely doesn't have anything to worry about, as the non-tenured will be the first to go. Everyone is expecting class size reduction to be unreduced :( I do understand about spending your own money, as it is just expected. Just the other day the principal was telling us about a test prep. book we should all get for the kids (with our own money, another $30 down the tube). The one we use wasn't good enough for the SAT9 (but the district keeps buying them anyway), and is totally off for the new CAT6 (but the district still buys it and the principal still requires us to give the tests and turn in a report every week on the results). It's only the most important thing to the district and every school, so it figures they wouldn't spend the cash to get the book to help us get the results they want.

You really have to ignore much of the :bs: of teaching or you'll go :banghead: :soapbox: :yikes: :crazy:

Dapon

03-26-03, 05:02 PM

Yeah Chicken, My wife teaches in a poor school so she buys more stuff than I think she should. They just had a field trip to the Aquarium in Long Beach and some of the kids couldn't afford the trip. She wanted them all to be able to go so she paid some of their way. She also made lunch for 7 of them that day and is constantly spending money on supplies. She even has breakfast stuff on hand in the classroom for the ones that don't get to eat in the morning.
She is a great teacher and really cares about the kids so I guess I can't complain. Good luck to you.

MMiz

03-26-03, 08:37 PM

I think you'll find many teachers who put personal money back into their classrooms. My mother, a teacher of 25+ years, is always buying this or that for her students. It increased greatly when her school was taken over by one of the poorest and largest in the country, but she loves what she does. People dont become teachers for the money. Many teachers, especially in K-5 have a passion and love for what they do. So when my mom goes out and buy clothing, supplies, and food for her students and assistants (she teaches special ed in the inner city), she does it because she loves what she does and finds it rewarding. I only hope that I can find a job like that.

TheGAME1264

03-26-03, 09:28 PM

A few thoughts from your friendly neighbour north of the border:

My last girlfriend was a 4th-grade/5th-grade split school teacher. she was a victim of a political power struggle in January and forced to quit (or be fired and have her licence revoked) as a result. She did, however, bounce back and almost immediately got a full-time job upon handing her resignation in. So there is hope should you happen to lose your job, Brother Bird. Besides, you're a good guy. There's always work available for good people.

Having said that, my job: I had one once. I had to give it up to devote my full-time efforts to designing and developing websites as a freelancer. I'm now in the process of very slowly hiring my first batch of people to work under me. (Freaky. The redneck kid with a small-town high school education telling people what to do. Pretty cool experience for the guy who was so desperate for work once he cleaned pig --stuff-- out of an augur for a living.)

It is actually possible to start a business on a relative shoestring budget on a part-time basis, as I have discovered, but you can't expect to jump into it immediately. I started freelance designing on the side in June 1999 and it took me until June 2002 to be able to jump into it as a full-time career move. Walking out on The Man and knowing that I was walking out on my own terms and controlling my own fate was the greatest feeling I've had in my life though.

Chicken

03-27-03, 06:42 AM

I'm not too concerned... *yet* though maybe I should be, heh.

Rewdog

03-27-03, 07:18 AM

Originally posted by DarktidesNET:

I do this full time. It's not real? I make more than both of my sisters and my mother.
Me too! My mom and sister don't work :D

Robert

03-27-03, 08:16 AM

I work at a Sportings Good as a department manager. VeroHost.com is a fully time job, and while I am at work, I have communications (via cellphone/2 way pager) with people. So it's a full time job. But I do enjoy getting out, and so far I've been lucky, my clients understand that as well.

Dapon

03-27-03, 10:00 AM

Originally posted by MMiz:

I think you'll find many teachers who put personal money back into their classrooms. My mother, a teacher of 25+ years, is always buying this or that for her students. It increased greatly when her school was taken over by one of the poorest and largest in the country, but she loves what she does. People dont become teachers for the money. Many teachers, especially in K-5 have a passion and love for what they do. So when my mom goes out and buy clothing, supplies, and food for her students and assistants (she teaches special ed in the inner city), she does it because she loves what she does and finds it rewarding. I only hope that I can find a job like that.

Your Mom sounds like the same kind of teacher that my wife is, does it for the love of the kids. We need more teachers like that. It's just sad when a teacher with a degree earns $50,000/year and a car salesman without a high school diploma can earn $150,000 and up/year.

TheGame1264 (Freaky. The redneck kid with a small-town high school education telling people what to do. Pretty cool experience for the guy who was so desperate for work once he cleaned pig --stuff-- out of an augur for a living.)

Man if this was a thread for the worst job you would be right up there at the top. ;)

Chicken

03-27-03, 04:21 PM

Shows that he does what needs to be done in order to get where he needed to be. Quite a honorable character trait, one that I wonder if I'd have :D

Robert

03-28-03, 06:02 AM

Originally posted by Dapon:

Your Mom sounds like the same kind of teacher that my wife is, does it for the love of the kids. We need more teachers like that. It's just sad when a teacher with a degree earns $50,000/year and a car salesman without a high school diploma can earn $150,000 and up/year.

Uhh my uncle owns a car dealership down here and makes $50,000 in 1 month. But he doesn't get people coming back years later thanking him for what he did. That's the reward a teacher gets. Much better than cash. $$

Gotta love Mazadas!

Living Media

03-28-03, 08:36 AM

I just got a "regular" job...sort of.

Starting in May and running through September, I'll be event staff (new term for "security and crowd control") at the Shoreline Amphitheatre. Anyone want backstage passes? (kidding)

Seriously, though, this job is
1) seasonal
2) part time (four to six hours a day on event days, which are twice a week on average)
3) pays more than minumum wage (not much more, but still...more)
4) I don't have to flip burgers, which is something I've done...I'm just not suited for it
5) pretty cool, when you think about it :D

I've got other people who monitor the support queues, and of course I'll be around most of the time. But this brings in a little extra cash to help ease me through the rough spots. And it's a good networking / marketing opportunity.

I combine being a web host with teaching people - I teach my clients about how the Internet works, how to use HTML and CSS, the best ways to run a community, how to buy safely on line, how to cut down on spam, and so forth. I don't have the same satisfaction that teachers in schools do, but I have had a couple of people refer to me as their mentor. It's kind of cool! (I actually took an education course back in university, and was, bluntly, scared out of the profession after hearing about all the BS that teachers have to put up with. Geez mareez, talk about being micromanaged nigh unto death...)

JeremyV

03-28-03, 08:53 AM

Well, I suppose I can throw in my two cents.

I spent 5 years working as a network tech and did a lot of phone consulting regarding a campus network. 5 long years. It started out great, but slowly management started to change, the economy was changing, they were laying people off... and I thinking dang, I have to have a backup plan.

So, thinking along the lines of "go into what I know", something with networks or hosting was one of the only things I've ever done. On top of that I have always wanted and have run businesses anyway, I really enjoy working for myself and not some random boss that doesn't care.

So, while continuing to do consulting I spent a good year or so researching the hosting market. Trying to determine how to go about it, how to be different, and how to profit. This also came at quite a nice time because I run a few fairly large sites, one of which I sold (but the owner is a client of mine now). So for hosting and running sites for years I knew all about what makes hosts good, what makes them bad, what I did or didn't like with each host...

So, I took all of that information, saved up some money, got a few loans, and went to town :D And that's where I am now, where hosting is 95% of my employment. I do still work a few hours a week doing the consulting, but they are closing us down May 1st. So.. starting then it will be all there is. Essentially that is how it is now, because you can easily put in 60 hours a week in hosting related matters, so even if you have another job, I still think hosting is considered a full time deal.

etLux

03-29-03, 10:11 PM

I raise sheep and live in a yurt.

CompCity

03-29-03, 11:26 PM

Well I don't own a company anymore however, I'm a full-time college student working on my networking degree. In the mean time I'm studying for the CompTia Network+ and Linux+ certifications (and after my degree it's CCNA/CCNP). I'm a part-time helpdesk tech for a hosting company. After classes I'm a full-time stay-at-home dad, and freelance programmer working on a "special project".

That leaves approximately 45 seconds a week to pass my wife in the living room and say "Hi!"... I keep telling myself it'll be worth it when I get the degree though :p.

JeremyV

03-30-03, 08:15 AM

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention I have a degree in Landscape Architecture and have never worked in that field :baghead:

I'm not real sure what happened in college and why I ended up with that degree, but hey, its a great degree to fall back on. If things I'm doing with computers ever get boring, stale, or too stressful, I just mail out my portfolio to a number of design firms and could probably have a job (albiet not a very high paying one) :banana:

Chicken

03-30-03, 12:40 PM

Originally posted by JeremyV:

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention I have a degree in Landscape Architecture and have never worked in that field :baghead:
Sooooooo you could tell me how to make my rather thrown together yard look all purrrrty, eh? Or errrr.. is that not what Landscape Architecture is?

JeremyV

03-30-03, 12:56 PM

That is a good part of it. I have done a few residential designs, and there are courses in it, but a lot of it deals with larger scale sites. Such as office parks, malls, smaller city parks, all the way up to regional planning and development. I guess it depends on what you care to specialize in. I went into it wanting to do golf course design... just never happened. Unfortunately it is a professional degree in 42 out of 50 states, so before I can technically call myself an architect I need to pass the exam, which costs a lot of money and time to study. So I'm putting that off for quite a while :D

But if you are looking for small home design, I would look for a Landscape Designer, and not a Landscape Architect. Since the architects are billed out at usually over $100+ per hour, your yard could cost you well over 5,000 dollars just to design, plus another 3,000 dollars in plant materials ;) But I know of some architects that could make your yard look like some incredible fantasy land... if you have the money to spend

Tropical Tundra

04-03-03, 11:05 PM

The full time day job is as a finance manager in a shared services center for a fortune 100 company. I have several projects that someday I hope become full time and I can dump the so-called real job! :D

no1v2

04-06-03, 02:07 PM

I'm a datacenter tech, but not for a hosting company. Does that count as "real?" :)

Edit: Btw, I don't run nor work for a web hosting company on the side, one job is enough for me.

Operator

04-06-03, 02:16 PM

This is a part time job :)

thebyp2

04-06-03, 02:42 PM

well, i am a bank manager (business banking only). i don't do this on a full time basis any more. i like the job though because it keeps me in the real world.

also, and this is a bit sick really, when i have to review accounts to see if they will be about to be fore - closed on its a good way to pick up tips on what to do, or not to do :)

Allyn

04-06-03, 09:43 PM

I don't even have a job, well, unless you count school as a job (it can be sometimes!).

I'm a grade 11 student hoping to study computer science. I hope to work with the internet when i'm out, or even sooner than that. Web hosting/design/scripting something like that :)

interactive

04-10-03, 04:56 PM

Allyn you from the states or another country (just wondering)?

suppleSupport

04-10-03, 05:20 PM

Originally posted by interactive:

Allyn you from the states or another country (just wondering)?

Allyn
New Member
POSTS: 6
JOINED: Apr 2003
FROM: Calgary, Canada
STATUS: Offline

:D

interactive

04-10-03, 05:31 PM

Oh duh, I need to learn to read.

eredman

04-22-03, 04:12 PM

I'm a postal employee by day. Don't make me mad!
lol

Protollix

04-22-03, 05:33 PM

Hosting and programming is my full time job.

I split the time between hosting and programming though, as hosting support doesn't require a full 8 hours M-F unless something really gets mucked up (interchange and cpanel is NOT a fun combination), and the hosting bit is just getting started.

Most of my time is spent on an ongoing contract with CSC working on the new Navy inventory system and the Naval Reserves training program. 5-8 million lines of code in Oracle Developer/Stored Procs != fun either. It's a crazy large contract tho, so I can't complain too much :)