canadian_bacon_boy

Isn't that an adult film?

dbd33

I've been about a bit.

I was the manager of the technical section of a computer department for a medium sized organization, a department of 30 or so people. For taxes reasons I quat and went contracting (It was 1984, I was paid $84,000 but my tax home was less than fifty grand. The next year my billing rate and take home pay were the same). That was mostly technical work as a DBA with some heavily technical jobs, rebuilding applications where the source had been lost, that sort of thing.

Contracting brings a variety of tasks:

On the technical side, I wrote a program, converted it to a product, installed it in multiple installations. The installations were/are in a couple of dozen countries so there were some product localization challenges to be met, these were not so much technical as cultural, and dealing with them represented a shift to a role that might more commonly be thought business analysis than technical.

On the sales side I sold over 100 copies of my program at an average price of US$94,000. I presented at conferences, mainly in the US, and, as a result picked up work as a motivational speaker for sales conferences and distribution agreements for other software. I was able to launch the products of a UK company in the US and gain such market share that the authors of the product retired on the proceeds. Distributing another product generated sufficient revenue for the author to develop a huge cocaine and booze habit eventually killing himself in consequence.

On the contract negotiation side of the business I discounted the price of the software as much as I thought neccessary to retain an acceptable level of maintenance payment, not less than 15% of the current list price subject to various COLA and pricing increase index clauses. As a result of these negotiations I picked up work in software inventory management, that is, looking at the licenses held by a firm, reducing and consolidating them, halting payments for shelfware and so on. Since the customers are all over the world I gained an appreciation for the nuances of laws and contracts in different jurisdictions and the differing degrees of corruption that apply.

In consequence of selling into medium sized and large organizations I picked up a fair bit of consulting work, acting as the pimp for up to 100 contractors at one time. This gave me a passing knowledge of employer's liability and health and safety regulations in various locations; we no longer use anyone who wants their contract adjudicated in the UK or in California. I myself have worked in all but six US states, most of the European countries, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, other places I've forgotten.

Day-to-day I'm an odd job man attached to a project that has 30 or so contractors commuting from across the country (America) as well as maybe 20 staff working on it. The project leader gets paid around $180,000 + spectacular benefits which I suppose puts her in the top ten earners on her project. I have contracts for remote technical support of various software with companies around the world both for software sold by our firm and for other software what I know a bit about. I'm a director of a software and consulting company and so familiar with the legalities of that.

Where I am weak is in knowledge specific to Canada. It's always been my view that there's not much computing in Canada so, if you want to make a living from computers, and live in Canada, you need to find a way to bring money up here from the US. Accordingly, I've not much bothered with the firms here though we do have accidental contracts with the banks, utility quangoes, service bureaus and a few commercial enterprises.

I disagree with both halves of that. "I think xyz (person or company) is taking too long and charging too much, see if you can do better" is a common instruction to me. That usually means learning whatever the language or product is and finding a way to make it work better for less money. Pure technical stuff, though I subcontract much of it.

This organization is not renowned for high pay but it's clear to me that a contractor at $200+/hr is billing a great deal more than someone on a salary of $200,000 is earning. If they're giving it all to a pimp more fool them but the cash flowing toward the contract technician is greater.

I suggest that the staff of KPMG and PwC not only lose most of their billing rate to their pimps but they have a huge overhead in financing conspicuous clothing, memberships of "fitness" facilities and chi-chi designer laptop cases. Fine if you'd like to be Patrick Bateman but not the best option if money in your pocket is the objective.

ducktastic

Alan2005

Grow ops = Cannabis farm in UK terminology.

Wannabes = people that think they are cool just because of where they live. Vancouver is full of them.

Ok, understood. The top manager of everyone else in the office where I work could be considered to be in that role (it's very close). Not sure how much he earns, but I will guess that it is over $150k, maybe more. I don't know how many positions of that kind there are in Vancouver, but if you can find one you should be making decent money - certainly the amounts you mentioned in the OP.

People do use it. It's not that it's unreliable, but there are very few trains. A couple in the morning and couple in the afternoon. The last one home is at 4:45 and if you miss it you are stuck. I don't use it for that very reason. Annoyingly during the olympics they ran it all day - I'd consider it if they did that.

Most people drive though, and it's a crappy frustrating drive at that, full of red lights and bottlenecks. 1 hour if you are lucky (like I was yesterday) and 2 hours if not. Mostly I don't bother and work from home. This wouldn't be a realistic option for the role you are looking for though.

ExKiwilass

coworker's wife commutes from MR to DT van. It takes 3 hours of her day, on average. She drives in. They want to move to New West when they sell their house.

MR, the pitt etc. are cheaper at least partly due to the hellacious commute.

ExKiwilass

Lots of people want to live in Vancouver here, not the 'burbs. The 'burbs really aren't as sought after as places to live, hence why they are so much cheaper and the transit options are poor (except maybe inner burbs like NV, Burnaby and Richmond).

ExKiwilass

I thought it was because CN rail owned the tracks, and they need to be able to move freight trains at certain times as well.

THe Evergreen isn't going to MR or PM anyway.

JonboyE

I realize that someone's on-line personality is often very different that their personality IRL, but the thought of you doing motivational speaking made me chuckle.

Partially discharged

Oh come on..the leap from dbd to Anthony Robbins isn't that far.

dbd33

Me too! I had a laugh with it though, it was at the time of the dot com boom and the industry was awash with money, all the sales conferences were in flash resorts so I got to stay in nice hotels and got paid a fee to tell people how to sell software. I dunno how to sell software but then neither did the audience. For a while I felt like my hero, the hero to all immigrants, I thought I was Tom Vu.

(And telling the audience that I thought I was Tom Vu was something they lapped up, there's nothing Americans like better than the idea that people aspire to be them).

The4BellsLondon

huh - thought it was going to pm vaguely?!

ExKiwilass

Port Moody? Yup, but not Pitt Meadows or the ridge.

The4BellsLondon

doh - pitt meadows pm not port moody pm!

canadian_bacon_boy

Sorry, were we conducting a job interview? In 1984 I had just left primary school so I will have to take your word for it. But I will say using the word "pimp" when describing resourcing within the business will not put you in a very good light. I contracted for 10 years but gave up as it can leave you resentful and hollow.

I prefer to build relationships and invest in organisations that will invest in me so that we can achieve our core values which is to better our lives (mine and the organisation as a whole).

canadian_bacon_boy

Sorry to disagree with you but the last west coast train leaves downtown at 6:20pm.

http://www.westcoastexpress.com/sche...ageID=SCHEDULE

Cost wise seems very reasonable for a monthly pass. Certainly cheaper than my commute in a car at the moment.