Re: BBC Puzzle

I spent the first half of last year fixing up my house and sold it in November. After we put it on the market I got bored, mainly because I couldn't make messes anymore, so put my resume on Monster. It took about three weeks to find a contracting job. I've certainly not been bored (averaging 60hr weeks).

Why incorporate? My accountant buddy told me not to bother even doing a DBA. I'm contracting, but on a W2. Most companies won't pay on a 1099, so that makes it even more difficult to make a "business" work to your advantage.

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Keith

Incorporation is good if you are going to be dealing with large companies or government agencies. One of my old specialties is audio/video and networking, and our local school district just got a bond measure passed to build six new schools. Since I have my PE, I can bid on the contracts to design and consult on them. Also, my wife can be the official 'owner' of the business, which makes us woman owned by a minority (disabled, since she is blind!) and that gives us extra points...

Charlie Edmondson Engineering

They want a PE to design audio/video/networking system? Wow... when I was in school the only guys who worried about the PE were civil and mechanical engineers!

Contracting through monster? Interesting. Do you think it's a good tool to find contractors for clients? After all, there still isn't a good consultants and contractors database anywhere.

Won't pay on a 1099? Never experienced that before, ever. A 1099 is a very normal process.

Strange that I can't see Charlie's post. I did finally axe the gmail domain so I can't see those but not his ieee.org domain.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

It's worked for me. I got the job I'm in now in about three weeks. I wasn't even seriously looking. I now get calls all the time, though I'm not really interested in another contracting gig (I could stay here for a while, if I wanted). I'm hoping to get a full time position shortly.

It's normal, but apparently it opens the employer up to all sorts of liability. My last employer refused, as well. We had to hire through an agency, who then paid by W2. It's the same where I am now (on the other end).

The Usenet is like that.

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Keith

[...]

Good luck with that. The EE market is good these days.

In my consulting agreements I include quite clear wording that the other party won't fear to be stiffed by tax and other authorities. Never had a problem. If they work through an agency then the agency wants a cut of the pie and so it'll cost the company more.

The popular readers have quirks as well. For example the Thunderbird filters barely work on newsgroups. While it chopped the whole gmail domain it still lets another domain pass even though it's blocked by the same (!) filter. Oh well, blocking gmail alone has cut the spam to a trickle. Good enough, for now.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

It seems to be. I'm not having any trouble finding work and not really trying very hard.

Yes, I've seen that done too. The companies won't pay on 1099s themselves. We hired a contractor in '00 that way. He didn't care that the agency (who he'd never worked for before) took their 20% cut.

Yes, it's in many ways unfortunate that there is no money to be made writing common Internet applications. I've found a few newsreaders (and emailers) that I like, but are no longer supported. Bugs are everywhere and tend to get worse.

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Keith

Right. It's almost as if the telephone does one's marketing all by itself these days (by ringing a lot).

I'd be quite hesitant. Once, the client would have to pick up those 20%. Secondly, your whole book keeping can become unglued if the majority of your work is W2. Suddenly the whole expense scenario might collapse because the regs are quite different for employees.

IMHO it's best to either work W2 (for an employer or your own corporation) or 1099, not mixed.

I wouldn't mind at all to pay a reasonable fee but I guess that goes against the grain of the public license idea.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

You're working for people who would hire a corpse...

My- that is one detailed factoid there- how does your small brain hold all that useful information. Hold on, it was not a lot and it was not useful, 'splains it...

LOL- you sound just like a little girl writing about her experiences at summer camp...what a friggin femme!

[snip]

Fred!?!?! You mean your company hired Keith ?:-)

...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | |

| 1962 | America: Land of the Free, Because of the Brave

Well, if I wasn't a corpse when I was hired in, I sure as hell was one when I left...leave it at that:-)

...

Go apply for a job at the unemployment office. ;-)

Good Luck! Rich

So you are a welfare queen, like Slow'. Figures.

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Keith

Just because we don't have to work 75 hours weekly, like you do, to do a maybe 2 hour job, does not make us welfare queens.

Hi Jeorg, Strange that you didn't see my post. I am now using Agent instead of Netscape, but the server is out of Verizon. I just use the IEEE alias to help filter the spam a bit...

Charlie

A PE comes in helpful on any government contract, even for low voltage systems. They pretty much want that entire building signed off for compliance with codes and standards. I ran into the same thing back when I was working on toll roads. Everything that I designed had to go through the PE's hands for sign off before it could go on the road...

Charlie

No, you're a welfare queen because;

1) You live off others 2) You're a queen

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Keith

Looks like you're not getting back from work until late, eh, pussy troll non-producer? Just because you're stupid, and therefore not very capable, which requires you to work 10x-100x longer than an able person, does not mean you're not a welfare queen. The people you're working for, again, are unscrupulous garbage like yourself, they probably considered you a find because 1) the more hours a mental midget like yourself works, the more they can bill the government, and 2) you're too stupid to get bored and used to plodding away endlessly on pointless projects, so you'll be there awhile...

Is pussy striking out again, pretending to be such a clever wit? You don't convince anyone, it's all the same witless simple-minded crap from another useless sniping pussy troll. You don't know anything about electronics, and you're too stupid to learn, so why do you post to SED?