Life Question: What Should I Do Now ?

After working for 12 years at the UK's biggest telco, I am moving on. In fact I leave on Tuesday.

I am leaving with a release payment as the company is looking to lower staff numbers and it seemed like a good deal.

The timescales have been very tight, and I am left thinking what I would like to do. Lots of ideas are running through my mind, and I am not looking for a solution to my own problems here, but I get the feeling from talking to people that it's quite a common thing to do in your early 30's, to pack it and start again that is.

So what did you do in your past when you started something new? What gave you the drive to go and do what you did? What did you go and do straight after you left?

Starting this thread was triggered by my own situation, but I am not really looking for answers, just experiences. Buy hey, if you have answers I would be more than grateful

Cheers

Cris.

So you are looking to change careers altogether?

I went looking for work in exactly the same field as I was when I was laid off (windows sysadmin), and found that there were a million available jobs, but two million available applicants. No actual jobs resulted from this search.

Nearly by accident, though, I took a position at Microsoft doing software testing for network-related aspects of the operating system. It turned out to be a perfect fit, allowing me to leverage all the things I'd learned as a sysadmin, while learning a lot of new technology, especially with regard to wireless hardware and software.

After my one-year contract with Microsoft was up, I found a position doing the same thing, but for a new company: NetMotion Wireless. I'm coming up on my one-year anniversary here, and I'm happy as a clam. We make VPN software that I'm proud of, and the people are just fantastic.

Don't whatever you do buy that new car now!

My ex-colleagues from the Beeb all turned hobbies and interests into full time jobs. With the exception of one who decided to emigrate to Australia and work for ABC.

Been there 3 times now. Typically I bum around for 6-12 months, get bored, and come up with something (ended up starting my own company twice).

I will be paying cash for the new Smart, I already have that in the bank so it won't cause me a problem. In fact not having bills to pay on the car may help me over the next year. I get it mid November

I think I am looking for a whole new direction. I want out of telecoms altogether. I feel at this point, with the job i currently have (working at Director level sorting escalation's for our big customers), I could walk straight into the competition. But if I wanted to do that I may as well stay where I am.

I like the idea of bumming around for a couple of months, I don't think I could stretch to 12 months I could start looking into starting a business, I like the idea of taking photography more seriously and I wish I could come up with a cool idea for the iPhone as I think the app store is a great opportunity.

For now I will go with Julf's suggestion, anyone else done a stupid thing like this before?

Cheers

Cris.

Go travelling. A friend of mine got made redundant, so he and his girlfriend took 12 months out and travelled around the world.

I recommend putting at least a loose structure around your time to start with. It's very hard to transition from a long term full time role like that to being slightly unoccupied. What's in the structure is less important. So it's fine to have "bum around for 6 months" in there, but agree with yourself up front that's what you're going to do, so you can move more gradually from a quite structured day to a free-form one.

Something like
Oct - Dec: travel, go on holiday, read, generally unwind, make a list of all the small things round the house that really need doing, do an exercise program
Jan - Feb: do all the small things round the house that really need doing, write down everything that might be interesting to do longer term
Mar on: Explore properly all the things on the maybe list

Regards

Mark

Visit empeg owners around the world and mooch off of them for a week at a time. You're welcome to hang with us in Arizona or Belize, wherever we happen to be.

Except that you can bank your pay off and have it as a nest egg, whilst you carry on earning: If you decide upon a business of your own, you'll need money, and it's so much nicer to have some of your own, rather than going cap in hand to a Bank Manager.

Whilst you're thinking what to do, you won't be running down the funds.

When I was redundant in '82, I was up and running with my own business the Monday morning after my leaving do, utilising my pay off, if not to cover all the costs, at least showing credibility in that I was prepared to risk my own funds.

I can't count the number of people I've spoken to over the years who want to get out of it and do something different: Great if you know what "something different" is and you're realising a burning ambition - otherwise you're chucking out all your training (paid for by someone else) and experience for a greater risk.

Yes this is the great worry. I do have plenty of ideas, but with the short time scales involved I haven't put pen to paper yet.

I do like the idea of keeping the nest egg, and would plan to get a job after the first month or so I think.

I think I will use my spare time in the first month to find out the ins and outs of running your own business. Any first timer advice any one could give?

Cheers

Cris

That's the reason I haven't done "something different". I haven't figured out what the "something different" is yet, beyond "not this".

If don't need store front for the business run it from your home until you know if the business can sustain a store front. Also make sure your budget includes advertising. You should also have the company be an LLC this way if something goes wrong on a job they can't sue you directly, only the business.

Not entirely true. Depending on how you have conducted business you can be personally held liable for your actions when the opposing party pierces the corporate veil.

Something to keep in mind.

Stu

This depends on the corporate rules in the jurisdiction you will incorporate the business. In Ontario for instance, at least with numbered Ontario Corporations, only the directors are liable and then there are also limitations on the liability. Of course if it's your own company, you'll probably be one of the directors, since the named directors will usually be the primary shareholders on this type of small company. This liability extends to matters of taxation here as well. Though corporate income is completely separate from personal, including reporting methods/schedules and taxation.

Anyway, there are far more benefits to incorporation besides liability, so it's something wise to look into for your jurisdiction. You might also consider incorporation in a different jurisdiction/country depending on the type of business you'll be conducting and how you'll be collecting funds...

Make sure you have a decent accountant, or bookkeeper at least. Someone who knows all the byzantine inland revenue tricks, and can keep as much of your money out of their hands (legally) as possible. Believe me, it's worth it. The first year I was self-employed this current time around my guy turned a self-calculated £3500 owed to the government into £500 owed to me BY the government In one go he paid for his fees for the next fifteen years.

There are so many rules, and they change so often, it's a full-time job keeping up with them all. Get someone whose full-time job it is to keep up.

The one time I was a director of a limited company it was such a pain in the backside I'd avoid it if at all possible. There was so much paperwork, from customs and excise, inland revenue, works and pensions, and so on, that I had little time left to earn the money they wanted from us That said, I was dropped in at the deep end. It may well be possible to sort it out more easily, but the phone-book sized lump of papers that came through the letterbox each month was truly impressive. And worrying.

pca

The one book I recommend to anyone contemplating starting their own business is The Beermat Entrepreneur by my friend, and ex-rock star Mike Southon (aka Mike Fab-Gere).

Disclaimer: not only was Mike and his band the band at our wedding, but I have also invested in his latest venture, so I am definitely partial, but that book is one of the "wish I had read that before..." books, and an entertaining read as well.

Wow, I paid 1.5x that just to get my (corporate) business taxes prepared for a single year. I have no employees either so I don't have to worry about any source deductions or pensions or anything like that.

If there's truly one part of being self-employed I hate the most, it's the finance/accounting burden. A few times it's almost been enough to make me want to just work for someone else again. I can wholeheartedly recommend getting someone to help take care of this as PCA suggests. I have to find someone else in fact because I just don't get the peace of mind I need right now.

Happy to meet up and give you the benefit of my dubious experience, as a slight payback for all the effort you've put in to my PC problems.

Taking a couple of points:

Setting up a limited company (As it would be called here), does shield you from most things if it all goes wrong, but if you need a bank loan, you'll be lucky to get one without a charge over your house: Even more reason for keeping your nest egg. In some cases, your landlord may want a similar charge, as, in some industries, do your suppliers.

Patrick is spot on, about a good accountant: In my recollection, mine took care of just about all the aspects of setting up a limited company. If you need one, I can introduce you.

Oi! Whose nicked my avatar.

Thanks, I may have to take you up on that!

Well it all starts now. It was very strange having to hand back my ID card that I have carried for 12 years, but it now feels like the right thing to do.

I have set myself some things to do over the next 4-6 weeks....

Refit downstairs toilet
Get the Mame arcade machine working!
Read lots about setting up on your own (Julf's suggestion is on the top of my pile!)
Loose weight & and get a bit fitter
Try and get some models to pose to start building the portfolio

I have also decided to keep to my routine and leave my alarm clock set as it is. I think it would be easy to drop into getting up late and wasting half the day.

Cheers

Cris.

Wink wink, nudge nudge....

On a slightly more serious note. Do you want me to see if any of the talent at work wants some photos doing? I don't know how you'd be expecting it to work financially, but you want some models and they want some photos. What do you think?

I've done a couple of promo shoots that ended up in the local rag, however I've never really got the time to do it.

That sounds great!

I was thinking about approaching a couple of agencies to see if they have any models wanting to build a portfolio and offer to do the pictures for free if they don't charge me for the model, so I wouldn't be looking for money.

Basically I would turn up to photograph the opening of a baked bean can

I need to build up a set of impressive pictures to show people, I think this will be very hard as there are lots of very good people out there.

Cheers

Cris.

Model Mayhem was pointed out to me recently. I bet you can probably find some people there that meet your criteria.

This one too: http://www.onemodelplace.com.

There's another one that I can't think of right now, but I'll post it here when I find it.