Education vs The Job

In reply to madmallard:

Nope, not self employed. I like the benefits of the idea, but probably couldn't hack it. I'm pretty self-directed and have a good idea of what is needed to complete projects and organize a team, but as far the field specifics, I still don't know much about how to build a geospatial database from the ground up, nor do I know anything about programming/development, which is how many contractors/consultants get their start.

That being said, my former employer paid big money to contractors who I know for certain I could match their productivity and skillset without the language barrier we had with them.

I think if I needed/wanted to be self-employed I'd get into installing accessibility equipment (chairlifts/stairlifts/elevators/ramps), as my brief experience of that field showed me it isn't overly complicated, but its as much sales as it is installation.

My dream job(s) is still probably teaching technology education, but I enjoy what I do now, and it pays down the debt quickly.

Really the only thing I'd want out of self-employment would be giving myself 1-2 months off a year. My employers treat me alright otherwise.

ON-TOPIC: College-debt vs Entry Salary, I'm lucky that I don't have much debt, but I also have never owned a new car and don't own a house. Utility Mapping is a solidly middle-class income across the board, but many of my peers in the industry are burdened with a lot of debt. My co-worker made the mistake of taking a similar route as I (didn't get a "career" until 33), but he's got a lot more education debt. He's a bit more demanding of a higher salary, and could care less about vacation. I feel bad for him, but I've been in the field for 5 years longer then him so I know he'll get where he wants to be...with patience. Nobody in our industry will ever be rich, and to think that is foolish.

In reply to PHeller:

That's a fairy tale.

Nobody who is self employed will ever be able to take 1-2 months off a year. Absolutely impossible.

I think you are in the right place.

But you are right about accessibility assists. I've done some of it (and should have done a LOT more). I've been in business since before the ADA existed (and was on an advisory panel for the NAHB leading up to it). It was well understood (by construction professionals) to be one of the best things ever to drive business. It has proven to be the case (although it has been absolutely terrible for handicapped people).

In reply to SVreX:

Right. If I was self-employed and took 1-2 months off a year I'd either have to have a very good relationship with my clients, not need much income, or I wouldn't be self-employed very long.

I think depends greatly on the industry.

My buddy who does Accessibility takes a healthy amount of vacation, about a month a year, but he does it during the off months and works 4-10s in order to give himself a few long weekends.

ddavidv wrote: I was a 'gifted' student (that term still makes me want to hurl). Destined for greatness of course, yet the public education system couldn't figure out what to do with me. This was before everyone was diagnosed with ADHD and drugged out on Ritalin. I wanted to take auto shop; I mean c'mon...my entire life revolved around cars and I spent every spare minute reading magazines about them and browsing the Auto Locator. But noooo, I was too smart for that. Teaching me a trade would have been a 'waste'. So I graduated, didn't go to college (for reasons noted before) and then stumbled around in mediocre paying auto parts jobs until I found insurance appraising. If not for that 'accident' I'd still be behind a parts counter making $35k and wondering what went wrong.

That's all what I did but I ended up doing what I wanted to do, to begin with. Working with cars is the only thing that really motivates me, and besides, everyone always told me that I was so smart that I could do anything I wanted

The whole "this kid's a window licker, let's put him in vocational auto" attitude is why we get so many parts-swapper failures of techs, or guys who burn out after a year or two when they realize they can't hack it. And thus the greying of the industry. I'm nearing 40 and I'm usually one of the youngest people at the regular training classes we attend.

Here is my take on the whole subject,

I totally agree with a lot of what MTN said. You have 3 choices in life really:

1. Start your own business and then who cares if you completed college or not.

2. Don't complete college or don't even go. Then you can either work your way up the rungs and keep moving upwards at a very slow pace or don't move up at all.

3. Go to college and get the degree for the area you are looking at doing.

I've tried all 3 of these paths along my journey through life. I'll tell you, the first one was the hardest road and the path for me to the least rewards. Unless you have some great idea that some company is willing to spend big bucks on, you will work more running a business than you ever will in the corporate world at least if you are doing it right.

The second path was a really tough road for me too but I was able to make it work out decently well. Where it limits you is mobility. If you get laid off or don't like your situation it's a lot harder to land in the same spot that you were before. I got caught up in the big downturn in 2002 and was laid off. I had been with the company 3 years and worked myself up from hourly to a nice management position overseeing the business operations team. It took me 4 years to get back to where I was because I wasn't able to get a job in my field and had to take a lower position and work my way back up to where I was before. No one wanted to hire me at the same job I had been doing really well because there were other candidates with a similar resume but a college degree and I hadn't finished mine at that point. So I took an entry level job and started up the road again.

So about 7 years ago I decided I wasn't going to let that happen again and I went and did night school and got my degree. Busted my ass and paid a lot more than I would have if I would have just gotten it in the first place. Working full time, I at least didn't take on a lot of debt and my job covered part of it. Even now, I still need to get PMP certification (Project Manager) to be able to get back into my position with another company easily.

It's not that you can't get what you want. It's more a matter of you will have to work twice as hard to get it and it'll come a lot slower than someone with the right papers.

As a professor of mine mentioned, a degree is just a key to the door. It takes having the right combination of keys open up the opportunities you want and each lock is different.

Probably a subject for another thread, but the prospect of 1-2 months off a year is one of the biggest draws of self employment.

I'm thinking about a career change sometime in the next 5-10 years and something that allows me more free time is high on the priority list. Like teaching.

Zomby Woof wrote: Same here. We had tech schools when I was a teen, but I wasn't allowed to go. My best friend wasn't so bright and was a bit of a trouble maker, so he was. He was also doing a co-op in a shop at 15 and working full time as a mechanic when he was 17. Our current school system is the biggest waste of my tax money that I know of. The whole time my kids were there, I told them, don't worry about your grades, just pass and get out.

That is so true. Your main goal in HS is to get through despite it being pointless,because it sets you up for the fact that life itself is kind of pointless!

I too was one of those underachievers who was slatted to go to college and not encouraged to take any shop classes even though most of my out of school activities involved a motorized device in some form of deconstruction.

When I was doing grade 13 (It was a Canadian 5th year of HS) I was called in to the Principle because I had forgotten to attend school for like 30 days. My grades were fine and all, just preferred to be in a friends garage building drag cars, so I did not go. When interviewed, I kinda winked and mentioned that just between the two of us, could we not agrees that HS was no place for an intelligent human being?

That did not go over well.

An English and Engineering degree later, I can pretty much say the same about post secondary education. But the pieces of paper did open doors for me.

Is HS really that bad for you guys up there? Or was this just for you specifically?

Sure, when I was in HS a lot of it was a waste of time. But more of it wasn't. Specifically my math classes.

ProDarwin wrote: Probably a subject for another thread, but the prospect of 1-2 months off a year is one of the fantasies of self employmentheld by people who are not self employed.

Fixed.

Streetwiseguy wrote:

ProDarwin wrote: Probably a subject for another thread, but the prospect of 1-2 months off a year is one of the fantasies of self employmentheld by people who are not self employed.

Fixed.

I don't necessarily think so. Some businesses like a barber, yes, definitely. But others, it isn't. My FIL, for instance, easily takes that much time off--but he is also working on his vacations. He primarily does work via email and telephone, with maybe 1/4 of his time customer facing. He works from his home.

My uncle built a very successful business as well. He probably takes about 2 months of vacation when you factor in all the long weekends, half days, and days that he's taking care of his dad. But again, he is working on his vacations. He also has a trustworthy group of employees who know what they're doing and can handle things while he is out.

Obviously neither started out like that. They both had to work long and hard to get there.

You guys act like the likelihood of having off 1-2 months a year for a self-employed worker is as common as it is for those working in corporate America. I've met people who lived both lives. I guess the biggest difference is one had kids (corporate guy in sales), the other's kid were out of the house and he had retired early.

Streetwiseguy wrote:

ProDarwin wrote: Probably a subject for another thread, but the prospect of 1-2 months off a year is one of the fantasies of self employmentheld by people who are not self employed.

Fixed.

Only fixed if we are all making the assumption that the goal is maximum income. Pretty safe assumption in the US, but if you are ok with making 70%, it is not hard to get 1-2 months off per year. Self-employed or not. 2 months off in a row is harder, but still not impossible.

OR, be self employed and ok with making only 5% of the income. Then you can take every day off.

rcutclif wrote:

Streetwiseguy wrote:

ProDarwin wrote: Probably a subject for another thread, but the prospect of 1-2 months off a year is one of the fantasies of self employmentheld by people who are not self employed.

Fixed.

Only fixed if we are all making the assumption that the goal is maximum income. Pretty safe assumption in the US, but if you are ok with making 70%, it is not hard to get 1-2 months off per year. Self-employed or not. 2 months off in a row is harder, but still not impossible.

This. My employer won't let me take a 20% pay cut and work 4 days a week. Most employers wont. They also won't let me take a 8.333% paycut and take a month off in the summer. If I am able to become self employed, that becomes an option.

I make decent money now, and I enjoy doing so. I save much of it so I will one day have the financial freedom to either A) retire early or B) take a pay cut and do something I enjoy or offers more free time (or both).

Applicant: I have a degree

My boss: So does a rectal thermometer, and you know where that goes.

True story

In reply to bmw88rider:

I heard an interesting quote the other day. I think it applies by the 80/20 rule.

"School teaches you how to be a good employee for someone else to make money off of you."

I know plenty of people who are self employed (and had lots of money, how they got it was a mixture) that will take off a month here or a month there. Not two months in a row.

I also know people who are self employed (and this is the majority) don't have enough to take a week off.

I do not know anyone working for a company that will let you take 2 weeks off. One is the max. That is the private sector. The bosses bitch when they want to take off that week too.

Most the time an extended weekend is all most bosses will let you take without getting grumpy. IME.

madmallard wrote:

z31maniac wrote: The amount of disdain, conjecture, and hyperbole in this thread regarding education............absolutely stinks of people with no college education. /troll

z31maniac wrote: The amount of hyperbole and conjecture in this thread is hilarious. And terrifying.

In reply to z31maniac: so is your double posting from the cheap seats, hows the view?

Emphasized for emphasis.

It hasn't stopped, but seems to be getting worse.

In reply to mtn:

So, your FIL takes long vacations, but works while he is on vacation.

Sounds typical. Thanks for making my point.

If that's the definition of vacation, then I spent nearly 30 years on vacation without ever having to work a single day.

If you apply that exact same measure to a job, it wouldn't be called vacation. It would be called work.

SVreX wrote: In reply to mtn: So, your FIL takes long vacations, but works while he is on vacation. Sounds typical. Thanks for making my point. If that's the definition of vacation, then I spent nearly 30 years on vacation without ever having to work a single day. If you apply that exact same measure to a job, it wouldn't be called vacation. It would be called work.

I still don't entirely agree with you. An hour a day for two days of a week long vacation, vs. 5-14 hours a day when he's actually at home working.

I get your point. I disagree with the notion though. If he didn't own his company, he couldn't do things the way that he does.

I often wondered if in Canada employers are more likely to let you take longer period of unpaid time because they don't need to cover your insurance or the like.

Streetwiseguy wrote:

ProDarwin wrote: Probably a subject for another thread, but the prospect of 1-2 months off a year is one of the fantasies of self employmentheld by people who are not self employed.

Fixed.

Thank you. I have been rolling on the floor laughing since I read that! What next, "Get married for the sex?!

In reply to MTN. Nothing to do with Canadian schools. If you think about it, when people are born, they are programed to learn as the key to survival. It takes the full effort of the education system to kill that urge in most kids. If you were to plot the learning curve of a child from the time they were born to the time they went to school, it would look like they ran into a brick wall in grade one.

Some kids drop out. Some are not smart enough to figure its a dumb system and bask in their scholastic achievements. Some game the system and just play along and do whatever they want.

I had no use for math in HS and hence did not bother to take any courses past the bare minimum requirement; teachers did not have a clue what any of the applications might be. Somehow, I ended up with a EE degree with a Math minor once I decided that I had a use for it. My HS teachers would drop dead if you told them I had pulled that one off.

This is my view of the education system: (Note that for purposes of this thread, it pretty much also applies to the hiring process)

mtn wrote: I still don't entirely agree with you. An hour a day for two days of a week long vacation, vs. 5-14 hours a day when he's actually at home working.

And, he's on vacation, presumably somewhere other than home. Working for 2 hours a day in the morning before spending the rest of the day on the beach, mountain biking, adventuring about a new city, etc. is still a berkeley-load better than being in a home office. There are many software & web developer people that seem to be able to pull this type of stuff off even while working for big corporations.

I don't see how this is not feasible when self-employed. We have contractors that do it (engineering). One just turned down a RFQ from us because he was taking his son on a month-long trip of some sort. I applaud him.

In response to Flight Service:

That quote is 100% accurate IMHO. As long as you are comfortable with that fact, you are a step ahead. I am because my family has been small business owners and I've seen their lives and what they has to do to support that business and I'll take my corp life any day of the week.

I guess my work is different. Taking 2 weeks off is not a problem as long as you plan ahead. Working remote is not a problem either. I had a friend work from Thailand for 2 months and another friend work from Maine for the last month.

Businesses do not run themselves. Anyone who takes 2 months off from their business is getting ready to close, voluntarily or involuntarily.

There is one exception. It's what is technically known in accounting terms as an "Artisan Contractor". That the fancy word for someone who is not selling a transferable product or service, but is selling themselves. In some ways I would argue this isn't really a business (the business has no intrinsic value of it's own that can be transferred to another once the owner is gone), but that's just my own opinion.

Potters are Artisan Contractors, but so are many lawyers and some doctors (among many others).

So, IF you are an Artisan Contractor, AND happen to have value in what you offer that is enormous (like can charge $2K for an hour of your services with no overhead), AND are not married to growing the business, you can choose to take 2 months off and still have a business when you come back.

That is an EXCEEDINGLY RARE combination.

ProDarwin wrote: Probably a subject for another thread, but the prospect of 1-2 months off a year is one of the biggest draws of self employment.

I have problems with 3 day weekends. I can't stand being away from work for that long. There's WORK TO BE DONE.