I’ve been helping people out here and there with their various web based projects, but lately people have been asking me to do full on web based projects. I never accept them because of how busy I am with work and school, but I have to ask the question: Can’t I just go to a meeting without being offered work?
I say meeting because of what happen on Thursday night. My mom is a part of an organization that does economic stuff and they are just starting out. As most people know, as soon as a group of people get together with a purpose, the first thing on their mind is usually “website”. So this organization was tossing around ideas for a website for some time now, but the idea’s were going nowhere. My mom asked me to come in to give some direction to their efforts, so I figured I’d come in and give my usual speech about planning and reasoning behind getting a website, and what to expect in the process.
I went in and talked to them, gave them my thoughts, and basically answered their questions regarding the simple stuff like servers and domain names. As soon as I stopped talking, they immediately starting offering me the work! Telling me that they’d pay me, and how they thought my “ideas” were good, etc.. When I kept turning them down, they looked at me like I was crazy. “How could anyone turn down money?” I basically told them I’d offer my expertise in a volunteer capacity, but nothing more simply because I’m too busy with school and work. At the end of the meeting, people started handing me their business cards in case I change my mind. I wish I could take on all this work, but I need to get school worked out first.
So what’s the deal? Is this going to be a continual thing? Will I go to meetings just to find work that I don’t really want? Freelance people are always looking for work, and I don’t want to be like that. I want to finish up school and get back into software development. I like Java, and the software engineering principles that go along with building Object Oriented software.
Now, if I were a consultant that would be a different story. I’ve seen how much money consultants can make and I’d definitely want a piece of that! Again, I can only focus on school right now. The work is out there, why aren’t there more computer scientists? I just do not think they see this as a real career option right now. Maybe at the top of the web 2.0 bubble, there may be more people coming into computers as a career. Until then, I can enjoy the work and high salaries that come along with it.
