
How to break out of the 9-to-5 rut? - nreece
http://blogs.reuters.com/prism-money/2011/02/15/careers-how-to-break-out-of-the-9-to-5-rut/
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bartonfink
This is interesting, and I prefer the term "patchworker" to "freelancer" so
kudos for that. I'd love to see employment in the U.S. either regress and
become much more static or move forward towards a more dynamic model like
this. In the '50's and '60's, being an employee of a company carried a certain
set of obligations. You were a "company man" and, in exchange for doing your
time and climbing the ladder, you'd be taken care of with a pension, great
health care and near-guaranteed employment. Now, the benefits are almost all
gone and that makes long-term employment with one company a suckers' game
barring extraneous circumstances. Some places hire long-term contractors, but
I don't think this is what the article is talking about as long-term contracts
generally carry the same demands on your time as a full-time job does, making
it much more difficult to keep several irons in the fire, so to speak. This
patchworking concept is, as I see it, the ideal circumstance for someone who
knows their shit and can get things done.

However, the link doesn't say very much about the obvious problem with the
model it advocates. How do you convince companies that they can, in fact, get
work from part-time patchworkers that is just as good as the work they get
from full-time employees? I understand that there is a mentality that assumes
you can't manage someone who isn't in the office, but I don't know how to
disabuse someone of that notion and replace it with a results-based view of
work. THAT, to me, is the lynchpin to breaking out of the 9-to-5 rut, and I'm
not sure how to convince a business that the code I wrote at 3 am in my living
room can do their work just as well as the code I'd be writing at 11 am in
their offices. THAT's what I'd like to see in an article talking about
breaking free of the 9-5 rut.

------
wallflower
Coders of Fortune

Seriously, I think that the more you bring together people, from organizing a
monthly get-together to a full-blown BarCamp, the more impact you have.

Blogging and contributing to open source is one way to get your name known but
nothing beats organizing a large or small regular event that is big enough to
require more than one person to organize.

There are three powerful C's:

1) Continuity - How likely is it you will see someone again. A random bar
ranks low while a monthly tech meetup rates higher

2) Conversation friendly - Is it a nightclub or a post-meeting drink at a
local watering hole

3) Context - How connected are you to the other people at the event. Random
sports bar low, tech meetup higher, conference in Iceland on the mating habits
of Emperor penguins very very high

My point in rambling on here is if you choose your collaborations and meetings
according to the 3 C's (better if you help organize an event that tries to
score high on all of them) - the better connected and more "luck" you will
encounter - and better prepared to leap from nine to five MTWTF to 9 to 9
SMTWTFS - but responsible for yourself, freelance or consulting or partner

