The ongoing tyranny of self-employment

So this year marks 4 years in self-employment. To be accurate, in July I will have been employed for either myself or my company for 4 years.

I actually incorporated last summer, so I think technically I am no longer self-employed but am an employee of my corporation. I'm the CEO though, so I'll say I work for myself.

We had several large projects lined up for March. For different reasons both of these projects were put on hold by the client and we were left with little to do. I had to lay off one employee and everyone else went into really low hours mode. I shifted into full-time proposal writing and after a really slow March and April have emerged with a ton of work.

So now I'm very busy again. I am at work now (on a Sunday - just taking a break to update my blog). I've been working a lot with a very cool technology called Flex from Adobe. We had a bit of a rough go with a Flex project over the winter, but the work we are doing now is really solid and I am enjoying it a lot.

So here's the tyranny: it seems as if there is no consistent way to traffic the amount of work that comes in. We are either really slow and I am living with no paycheck so we can keep the business going, or we are buried and I am working all-nighters and Sundays to try to keep up.

Poor Nancy is very supportive but all this is really tough for her too. When I am slow she likes it because I am home and helping with the kids and working on the house, but money gets really tight.

When I am busy, we can eat out, but I am rarely around during the day and not often home to help with bed time.

I keep hoping that by investing in my employees I can create a team and a process that will somewhat insulate me from the wild swings - maybe we are still too small - but this doesn't seem to help much, or as much as I'd like.

We'll claw our way through the next several weeks and come out with some nice projects completed and some money in the bank, then we'll see what happens.

For those who know our family, we are all well. Emma is a bright, beautiful second-grader. Corben is a handsome, playful preschooler. Abby is as "two year old" as they come, but very sweet. Matthew is a very pleasant infant who makes us all smile. Nancy is working resource now (one day a week) and you can see what I'm up to.

I am still running the drawing class, and trying new media which is always fun. I've been playing a lot more guitar. I play in the church band and will be going with Sports Outreach (Kathy, Keith and hopefully Jill) back to Cabo where I will lead worship again this summer. Also this summer our whole family will be going to camp. I'll be a counsellor and photographer for the camp. Nancy will be the nurse and hopefully the kids can have a great time hanging out.

Leave a comment to say hi.

What the...?

Well friends, as some of you may have noticed I have been absent from blog-land for quite some time. I have been putting my thoughts into Facebook.com - I've found it very easy (particularly since I can use my cell phone and just send quick little instant messages that update my status as often as I like)

Twitter has also bee heavily utilized since it is also very quick and easy to post to.

For those who don't have me set as a friend in Facebook, I thought I should update this page so I can give people a general update.

My life has gone completely crazy, and is now on a sort of a rebound.

I incorporated my business this summer, then over the next several months moved into an office and hired several new people. I had a big project which I thought would afford me the opportunity to really develop my team and set me up as more of a manager versus the one doing all the work.

I did not time my decisions well. I ended up trying to build a team, train them to do the work I needed, while I still needed to do a majority of the heavy lifting of getting the work done. It was a very dark time for me, I had a really hard time keeping my head up and feeling as though I could get through the challenging time and move back into normalcy.

My time with my family completely disappeared, I stopped drawing, I didn't have time for anything but work and it was miserable.

In the past few weeks, though, the folks I hired this summer have really started coming together and getting stuff done. I also am now contracting a more senior-level developer, who I hope will help me with the more difficult tasks that I end up facing as a programmer.

We are in the midst of a very big project with a fast turn-around, so this will be a good test of our team. Our baby will likely be born the week before Christmas, so we only have a few weeks until things go bananas for us - and I am really shooting to have the big project done before then.

If we haven't posted this information already: we are having a boy. We are still deciding on a name - that seems to be much harder for us this time (not sure why)

I also wanted to say "thanks" to Steffen - who sent a very cool, thoughtful postcard to our family from Australia.

Post comments if you aren't on facebook and would like to see me update my blog more often.

.peace.

Status

So I want to have a different kind of life. Today I find myself - again - under a deadline that I wasn't anticipating with all the normal work I had previously lined up for today.

I don't want to end up working all night. I'd love to stop at 5, work on the yard, play with the kids and go to bed at a decent hour. Right now, though - as I look forward onto my day - I don't see a way to make that happen.

Our lives are a sum total of the individual days we live. Today is only one day, but it looks a lot like many other days in my life, and the accumulated result is a mess. So I need to try and live today like I want to live every day - as best I can - and change this pattern.

Lord help me.

Therapy

So here's my latest blog idea: self-help.

I have things I want to do differently. More to the point I want my life to be different. The bottom line with changing your life (in my opinion) is making a decision then sticking to it.

So here's how I hope blogging will help me. I will work through the process of making the decisions here, then use this as a space to sort of hold me accountable to my decisions.

I want my life to look more like list A and less like list B

List A
Play with the kids
Spend time with Nancy
Fish and camp
play music
draw/paint
Take photos
rest
take time off
invest in friendships
be frugal
read

List B
Work all the time
Worry about money
Deal with poor planning
Stay up all night, or most of the night
Surf mindlessly when I get stuck
Over commit

I want to thank Steffen for his comment on my last post. Very nice photos Steffen. Let me know how you, Frank and Meike are all doing and tell them I said hello.

Wishing

I have been (and this will come as a HUGE surprise) really busy lately.

Taxes rocked our world this year. It sucked. I'm trying some things that should help next year.

I went to drawing class tonight after missing a week. The model was great, she goes to church and we had an interesting conversation about church. It was interesting mostly because while we were talking I was drawing with the rest of the class and she was modeling. 'Interesting' is a good word in those situations.

I want to paint and draw almost all the time. Life doesn't allow that though, so I take what I can get.

I find myself wishing I had some close "confide in" friends. I have a lot of people around me that I care a great deal about, but I think that close friends are missing.

I need to get back to work. If you read this leave a comment so I know this didn't disappear into the black hole of the internet.