Just created a small page for packages I build: Packages Main reason for this is the making and publishing of my wiipresenter packages, Wiipresenter is nice tool for doing presentations with the WiiMote, it’s not finished yet, but works quite well already. Sadly though, the original makers don’t do much about them, but Dag Wiers made [...]
I’ve been professionally translating for a while now and I’ve had my business since June 2009. Ever since, I’ve been longing for a job with regular pay and benefits like a pension and the ability to fall back on welfare if I have to. It’s not that I hate running my own business… well maybe it kind of is. There are a few things I really wish I didn’t have to do. The drawbacks:
- Looking for work. This hasn’t been an issue for me so far, but I dread the day on which I can’t find a new project. Times are tough and I’m not very experienced yet. The irony of companies asking for experience all the time is not lost on me: I need to get experience but I can’t get a job because they all require the experience I still need. The lack of job security can really get to me at times. How will I pay the rent if I can’t find work for a couple of months in a row? I won’t and I’ll have a problem.
- Managing my money. I’ve always had a hole in my hand, a black hole no less. Money disappears into it, nothing much comes back and I wonder where the hell it all went. Usually I find out I spent it on things like that one gadget I loved or nights out in Amsterdam, stuff like that. Putting aside half of what I see coming in has proven difficult for me, even though I thought I had it all figured out. Moving to Castricum made me take money out of that account, because I needed stuff for home improvement. I need more discipline when it comes to keeping money for taxes and BTW (VAT) in my account.
- The paperwork. Since my financial skills are quite poor already, I got myself a bookkeeper. She handles my mom’s bookkeeping as well so we drive over to her house once per quarter and we dump our paperwork. I would never have got it right by myself. Of course, a bookkeeper isn’t free so I earn a bit less each month. The paperwork still does take extra time; the so-called non-billable hours can fill up that fifth day of my working week. I need to invoice, which is quite easy but still takes time and then I need to check, double-check and double-double-check whether I get paid. Which brings me to:
- Agencies, ugh! IBM pays agencies after 70 days when they invoice. The first agency I worked for told me “yeah we can’t pay you until after 30 days” (this got me into some serious trouble in June last year since I didn’t know payment would take 30 days). So I settled, neatly put ‘pay within 30 days’ on my invoice. They did pay on time, except for with the last invoice when they ‘forgot’ to add the traveling expenses.
Then I switched agencies, and I was told “yeah unfortunately we can’t pay you until after 60 days” (which -again- got me in trouble, since I moved at that particular time). I complied again, even though I don’t know if agencies can even do this. So far, they’ve consistently not paid me on time, so the term lasted (almost) 70 days anyway. I made a reminder e-mail just to make sure they actually pay me after those 60 days. It got me an out-of-office autoreply today.
I hear people who love having a company, but I don’t understand them much. Sure, you can deduct almost all VAT on stuff you buy and you get to browse at the Makro store, but those are about all the benefits I can see. If I got a regular job, it would be much easier money-wise and I’d actually be done working when going home. Also, I like job security. Though I have to say, mentioning to people that you run a business is simply awesome.
De ninja duikt op vanachter de beer…
Helaas is de ninja vaker de evil speenzoekmaker – onhandig als mama net onder de douche staat…
Uit het lijstje van hun standpunten:
Okee, dat is toch echt wel vervelend van ze, dat ze de moslims nu pakken op het eten, en dan echt de kinderen van moslims expliciet discrimineren. Kijk, hun ouders leren die kinderen, in feite, om halal te eten, en hun wordt wel ff twee keer onrecht aangedaan. Ik heb het altijd al een kutstad gevonden.
I received the 5V 3A BEC today and have been playing around with it quite some. First with a 12V SLA battery but that was soon depleted, so I switched to two 18650 2500mAh cells in serial, which works great!
I’m happy to say I have now a battery powered IGEPv2 
Het is niet zulk fantastisch weer vandaag. Een beetje nattig.
