Ask HN: Is it possible to work part time? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to work part time?

#21

Post by patio11 » Sun, Oct 03, 2010, 3:32 AM UTC

j_baker wrote: post #17

patio11 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No employer is going to let you work part time. Stop thinking like an engineer and start thinking like a lawyer: this, like everything else in your contract and HR handbook, is ultimately negotiable. I mean, heck, my day job put it on the table while trying to prevent me from leaving, and I was a Japanese salaryman. (They had a couple of offers -- another one involved more work and less pay.) Any particular company m…

"They had a couple of offers -- another one involved more work and less pay" Just out of curiosity, what was the reasoning behind that? Was it something that could have ended up being a good position, or was it a hand-wavy type thing?

He heard my concerns about work/life balance and family issues, and thought "10 months on, 2 months off to go see family; you won't be a salaryman anymore, so material conditions will worsen as a matter of course" would be among the better alternatives to the company losing me.

I had more compelling options.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to work part time?

#22

Post by fleitz » Sun, Oct 03, 2010, 6:42 AM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #5

wccrawford wrote: post #2

Yes, it's called 'contracting'. No employer is going to let you work part time. There's a lot of time and expense involved in finding and maintaining programmers, and they'd rather have a full-timer instead. As for starting your own company, those always take more time than a full-time job if you want to make any money.

No employer is going to let you work part time. Stop thinking like an engineer and start thinking like a lawyer: this, like everything else in your contract and HR handbook, is ultimately negotiable. I mean, heck, my day job put it on the table while trying to prevent me from leaving, and I was a Japanese salaryman. (They had a couple of offers -- another one involved more work and less pay.) Any particular company m…

I'd just leave it at everything is negotiable. Agree with your sentiments 100%. Also, if something like that isn't negotiable then it's probably not a place you'd want to work anyway. It's very indicative of a "seat in chair = productivity" mentality.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to work part time?

#23

Post by gizmomagico » Sun, Oct 03, 2010, 6:54 AM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #4

Yes, I work part-time essentially all the time these days. (I run a small software business and consult on the side, average 20 hours or so a week, and take off pretty much any day I feel like.) If I wanted to, I could sustain this lifestyle indefinitely. I'm told that many consultants do something like this. If full-utilization for a consultant is $200,000 (and that is by no means a ceiling), then 50% still puts you…

How do you find your clients, and is your consulting/contracting work something a mere mortal could pull off too?

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to work part time?

#24

Post by fleitz » Sun, Oct 03, 2010, 6:56 AM UTC

Start by floating the idea by the people paying you. Your situation and the people in your life (clients, partners, etc) are not going to be the same as everyone else so it's not going to be very relevant to your specific situation. Try transitioning rather than starting from scratch. Perhaps it's better that instead of working 2 to 3 days a week, you're working 6 months out of the year. Try going down to 4 days a week, then 3, then 2, etc. The less drastic the change the more receptive people will be to it. It's also going to be better for you as you'll adjust to the new work schedule and income over a longer period of time. You mentioned cutting expenses, just do that, you don't have to ask anyone, less expenses will make the transition easier and is never a bad idea.

You should be prepared with the concessions you're willing to make to make this happen and this will likely be asked when you float the idea.

Also, consider that you've moved up Maslow's hierarchy of needs and re-evaluate a lot of things in your life that may no longer be relevant. I'd bet you're transitioning from esteem to self-actualization. This could make cutting expenses much easier than you think it is because you no longer derive much happiness from materialism.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to work part time?

#25

Post by rms » Sun, Oct 03, 2010, 8:38 AM UTC

I did it. My ecommerce company is doing well enough to comfortably support two people (ramen profitable --> pizza profitable --> casual dining profitable... we're just short of casual fine dining profitable, but if linear growth continues we'll be there in 6 months).

I'm not sure that I have very many useful lessons for other people, other than that it is possible to make money by selling stuff online while doing your own supply chain/order fulfillment. It took more than three years of SEO growth for us to hit critical mass.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to work part time?

#26

Post by CyberFonic » Sun, Oct 03, 2010, 11:26 AM UTC

I have done what you suggest and having been living the "ideal life" for over 10 years. The biggest challenge was to our cost of living to about 30% of what it was on F/T work. First time I attempted the change, I got broke fast and had to get some contract work to pay off the bills and credit cards.

Once we established the required habits, we ended up with a small nest egg which has come into handy.

Although I do have to take on short consulting gigs to top up the fund, they are becoming less frequent as I we get better at managing.

The only difference is that P/T work for employers hasn't worked out as expected. Instead, I take on project oriented work which lets me bill for completed work and have deliverables and milestones that fit with the other activities. Sometimes it is tough to say No to work that has deadlines that would require working F/T or more to deliver on time.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to work part time?

#27

Post by patio11 » Sun, Oct 03, 2010, 2:06 PM UTC

gizmomagico wrote: post #23

patio11 wrote: post #4

Yes, I work part-time essentially all the time these days. (I run a small software business and consult on the side, average 20 hours or so a week, and take off pretty much any day I feel like.) If I wanted to, I could sustain this lifestyle indefinitely. I'm told that many consultants do something like this. If full-utilization for a consultant is $200,000 (and that is by no means a ceiling), then 50% still puts you…

How do you find your clients, and is your consulting/contracting work something a mere mortal could pull off too?

If I'm not too busy tonight with Business of Software prep work and dinner, I'll write something on my blog about it. I'm a mere mortal whose skillset is very, very difficult to hire for. That describes lots of people on HN, although the skillsets are probably different.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to work part time?

#28

Post by gizmomagico » Mon, Oct 04, 2010, 5:28 AM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #27

gizmomagico wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you find your clients, and is your consulting/contracting work something a mere mortal could pull off too?

If I'm not too busy tonight with Business of Software prep work and dinner, I'll write something on my blog about it. I'm a mere mortal whose skillset is very, very difficult to hire for. That describes lots of people on HN, although the skillsets are probably different.

Cool. It would be interesting to hear more about this.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to work part time?

#29

Post by udfalkso » Mon, Oct 04, 2010, 6:23 PM UTC

I tried a couple of times to get startups that were actively recruiting me to pay me 3/5 the salary in exchange for working 3 days a week. I wanted to devote some more time to some side projects and to just generally do whatever I wanted with my time. Sounds similar to your situation.

Nobody was interested in this. They would offer me very, very generous packages, but only for full time work. This part time idea was a no-go.

Startups have this dream that every employee is in ALL THE WAY. They think it will be bad for morale if the other employees are working their asses off and you don't show up now and then.

In my opinion, this is silly. Either my services are valuable or they're not. If they are, then they are also valuable in part. But, perhaps not.