Post Y2K

After the Year 2000, the Y2K hangover begun.

I'd discovered that I couldn't keep doing home users - they were time and money pits. In the pre-broadband era, having to chase drivers was a huge time consuming process, so rebuilding a PC in their homes could take a day. And at $40 an hour, few could afford that. 

I needed to be be business only, and I had a number of businesses that I provided priority support for. They were good. They'd pay on time, and if they needed 10 hours work, they got it. And they were charged for it. Unlike the home users where 10 hours work mean you could charge them 3, and they'd still argue the cost. 

It was a busy year. I started my own web hosting service as well. I had an insanely expensive SDSL service installed, terminating at a dual processor Compaq 5000R server running FreeBSD. For my clients it was cheap and affordable. For me, it helped cover the $150 a month+ internet bills. 

As the year progressed, I noticed a distinct increase in the number of  "computer consultants" floating around town. Ads all through the papers. Many offering to do work for $20 hour. $20??? no one could run an IT business off that kind of money by then. I was cheap at twice that. Everyone with experience knew that you had to account for all those unbillable hours you were going to wind up doing. 

We were in a timber mill heavy area. What I discovered was that there were a growing number of mill workers who were doing odd shifts, then were bored. They'd worked out how to install Windows and decided that they were now geniuses, so they'd started advertising themselves as IT consultants.

By mid 2002, it was hard to get bread and butter jobs - the little easy ones that were good money. Quick 15 minute fixes for which you could charge an hour on your way to another one. The market was small and becoming saturated with cowboys. The only upside was when you'd get work created by them not knowing what they were doing, but even then they were often a few generations of cowboy screwed, and the effort to resolve the problem now would be cost prohibitive. 

I was over it by now. I'd done some more study and decided to move home. 

During the quieter periods I was struggling for cash, so I'd registered with Centrelink. They were a painful organisation to deal with. Depending on who I spoke to do depended on what I needed to do. One month I'd be told I'd have to start looking for jobs. A few months later I'd be told that was silly given that I was self employed, and instead I'd just need to declare my actual income (which was bad).. before being told to only declare my profit. 

In the middle of all this Centrelink mess around, I'd been pushed into "Work for the Dole", where I was given a project to work with a non-profit, which was something that was intended to take months. I had it done in 2 days (and done well), then that relationship soured. Centrelink were now not happy with me,   but I'd been in touch with someone else who'd take me on in case things were about to go sideways. I was pulled in to talk to Centrelink, to which this person didn't understand why on earth I'd ever been on Work for the Dole; I was self employed and it had impacted my ability to attempt to derive an income. 

At some point during one of those "you must apply for jobs" times, I'd applied for a job at the local Harvey Norman store that had not long been built I really didn't want to work there, and I wasn't happy about getting an interview. 

I met the franchisee, and he asked me early on something I disliked about myself. Seeing an opportunity to sink myself and get this over with, I responded "I'm an arrogant prick". He smiled and asked me why on earth I thought that was a bad thing. I took a liking to him after that. He offered me some casual work,  said I could bring in clients on my own time and I'd still get the commission and he had no issue with me working for myself still. 

Once I moved home, I'd been contacted by the store floor manager - the franchisee  had changed, and he thought I should pop in and chat to the new guy. He was a great guy, and he was offering me all the hours I could work. Hmm. Full time hours that would be paid vs waiting for phones to ring and clients to pay. Hard choice. I didn't hate the work. I didn't really like it, but I didn't hate it.

On 2nd January 2003, the franchisee offered me full time. The store tech was sick of it and wanted to move to sales. It wasn't a long conversation. 

It wasn't that much longer until I was sick of it too. Too much work, too much over entitled-customer abuse, too much slack repair agent inaction, too much helping the sales staff out, and no where near enough compensation for any of it. The floor manager was leaving and no one was putting their hand up. So I did. And I got the job. 

That was a tough gig. I went through 3 franchisees, each having periods of weeks where there was no present franchisee and I was left to keep the ship running. One franchisee was hard, but he taught me a lot, and I thank him for it. We also drank a lot. Way, way too much, way, way too often. It was a good  time to see just about everything that retail can throw at you. Thieves, con artists, dodgy bastards, thieving staff, irrational customer behaviours, abuse, the pain of contracts, half wits, morons, you name it. All in an organisation at a time when the ACCC was watching like a hawk and every second upset customer would complain to Consumer Affairs (I knew their rights, our rights and I had the local Consumer Affairs branch manager on speed dial). 

I left in mid 2007 to start work at the bottom of the IT ladder at a University. I'd been in retail too long for the credibility of my resume, and the best years were squandered doing customer service, stock control and trying to earn commission to compensate for the 13 day, often 12+ hour day fortnights. 

Still, the bottom of the ladder IT job offered about what I was already earning for a 37.5 hour work week. I had a whole lot of new expenses, but I needed to get my career back on track.