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A thought on unemployment benefits
Wayne.B wrote:
On Sat, 14 Aug 2010 12:13:42 -0500, Jim wrote: My wife just got cold called to go sell road signs for $70,000 a year plus expenses and benefits so some people can still find work. Sure she did. And I just got a cold call offering me a great opportunity to sell phone booth services to local merchants. There are definitely jobs out there for people with the right skils and are willing to work. I was talking on the phone today with a Marine Refrigeration and Air Conditioning company in Naples, FL about a repair and parts issue with our trawler. Apparently they thought I knew what I was talking about since they offered me a job sight unseen. I politely declined and money was never discussed. Around here A/C and refrigeration guys charge about $85/hour, same as diesel mechanics which are also in short supply. There's always unfilled jobs, even in a deep recession. And retired guys are always being offered jobs, even in a deep recession. Those already working are offered jobs, even in a deep recession. Jobs are like musical chairs. When the real unemployment rate is probably close to 20%, there just ain't enough chairs. No matter how you spin it. Jim - I'll sit down now. |
A thought on unemployment benefits
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A thought on unemployment benefits
wrote:
On Mon, 16 Aug 2010 23:25:10 -0400, Wayne.B wrote: On Mon, 16 Aug 2010 22:53:32 -0400, wrote: I have people trying to get me back into the computer business from time to time but I would rather do just about anything else. There is certainly a lot of opportunity but it is not hardware, it is just integrating PC software. Plenty of windshield and telephone time, frustrating support structures and buggy applications. I would rather work on a shrimp boat. ;-) Maybe. :-) My diesel mechanic used to own a small fleet of shrimp boats at FMB but gave it up mostly as a result of low priced imported shrimp taking the profit out of it. I think the best computer opportunities are with networking and security but I'm kind of enjoying retirement. Here in SW Florida there is a crying need for small system integrators. Small businesses have a kludge of PCs running systems that do not talk to each other. If you could assemble a suite of small business software that also included POS, security, inventory, payroll maintenance logs and scheduling, there are about 200 gated communities who would beat a path to your door. Maybe. But it's doubtful they would pay the price. A "professionally" integrated system and supporting it is very costly, if you mean writing and supporting software. There's alway resident PC "experts" to knock down any such idea down and say they can cobble together various cheap software packages to do the job. And they do. Might not be elegant, and might be troublesome. Guess what. So are "professionally" designed integrated systems. They just cost a lot more, and the price usually just increases as the customers demand "customization." Intuit's Quickbooks does a lot of what you mentioned. You could fairly easily work out an integrated system with stock Quickbooks within its customization scope, writing work procedures for integration of module data where necessary, backups, security, etc, etc. Then try to demonstrate and sell the installation, work procedures, support and training to the small business. There's licensing issues to consider, but that looks to be the business owners responsibility. You can probably get by with a relatively simple contract. For one thing it would have to spell out you won't be responsible for expenses caused by Quickbooks bugs. I can guarantee they'll crawl out. Maybe DePlume could be your lawyer. I have the feeling that if that was a profitable use of time, plenty of out of work IT people would be attempting it. But you should knock it around at your wife's company. Might be doable. The biggest impediment to selling personal software services to small business has always been the resident PC "experts." Always has been. Seen it in my own family with business owners. You do your best to keep overhead low and pro software people are expensive. Even the bad ones. Hey, there's plenty of resident PC "experts" right here. Just ask Harry. Everybody's an expert now. It's the Age of Experts. Jim - Don't ask me. I don't know. Ask an expert. |
A thought on unemployment benefits
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A thought on unemployment benefits
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A thought on unemployment benefits
wrote:
On Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:00:43 -0500, Jim wrote: What they are doing now isn't cheap. They don't really have any experts but the board does fall for whatever "magic bean" salesman who comes by. That is how they got so many different, incompatible systems. Makes it even worse. First you have to prove the malfeasance of the board members who are getting kickbacks from those salesmen, or prove a conflict of interest. It's usually there. Might be just the free lunches at nice eateries the winning salesmen lavish on the right board members. Might be the salesman is a friend of a very good friend. But it's probably there. That's how bad systems come about. Could be they are all just incompetent to make such decisions. That would be a lucky coincidence, because then you have a chance to sell them a decent system on an honest basis. That probably means tossing all the other systems out. You'll make a lot of friends. Good luck. Try to stay a decent man when you get into marketing. Jim - I gave up sales when honesty didn't work. Bass-o-matic. http://www.hulu.com/watch/19046/satu...ive-bassomatic |
A thought on unemployment benefits
bpuharic wrote:
On Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:27:57 -0400, wrote: On Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:15:36 -0400, Harry wrote: One thing that nobody talks about is the number of marginal employees an employer has the luxury of letting go of in times like this. Or the good ones close to vesting in a company pension. Companies have pensions? That surprises me. IBM pretty much did away with pensions in 1996. i just joined my current company 2 years ago. they have a pension...which i'll get 500 in 10 years Nice! |
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