For almost a year now, I have been working locally. However, last Friday I rolled off.

This means that I am due to be scheduled for a new project, apparently one in Minnesota.

At this point though, I am simply not willing to travel. Business travelers, my heart goes out to you. Modern airplane travel is a great abomination. Commercial jets are massive energy consumers and they don't even have the common decency to provide a plain-Jane passenger with a modicum of comfort; unlike our friendly buddies Air Conditioner and The Passenger Car.

Also, travel dislocates an individual. Some of the worst excesses of personality I have seen were acted out on the road. The type of person that enjoys this lifestyle for a long period of time is often not a nice person. Often, they tend to drink inordinate amounts of booze, combined with large amounts of heavy grub. More often than not this is at the client's expense.

In the past, I have let my managers know that I do not wish to be staffed on a traveling project. Unfortunately, there are few local projects.

When I heard yesterday that the next project that wanted me was not a local project, I let them know of my refusal to travel.

I'm not sure what reaction I expected, but not the one I received. My manager used a word that almost made me laugh, insubordination! That's such a ridiculously militaristic word.

Yeah, I understand that you think travel is in my job description, and me refusing to do so is 'against the rules' so to speak (interestingly, I never signed any documents of employment with HP that indicated travel is a requisite part of my job), but how is it INSUBORDINATION? I'm sorry buddy, but as far as I'm concerned, I am your equal, and hence insubordination is not possible. Just ask me to leave the company; isn't that the standard practice? Just tell me there are no local projects and ask for a resignation.

This is precisely the sort of thing I was discussing when this website was barely neonatal. (example 1, example 2)

I feel very insulted by this usage. Yeah, I'm some stupid punk kid on the bottom of the totem pole, but that's a little too much. It's almost as if my manager felt the need to shove my face against the hierarchical institution of HP, like I didn't get it or something. He seemed to really struggle with the idea that I could decide to not bend in the wind. I really don't get how being true to yourself can be considered 'insubordination'. We all have our own lines in the sand that we must draw, and their locations might very well change.

It's fine if you tell me that I no longer have a place at HP, but don't tell me that I'm 'insubordinate'. That implies you had the right to give me orders, rather than the ultimately temporary state of me granting you the privilege of doing so in the first place.

You know, after reading the Wikipedia entry on insubordination I think that maybe being insubordinate is a label that's going to work out for me.

It worked for Douglas MacArthur, Hunter S. Thompson, and Howard Zinn apparently. I'm in good company.

I currently work in an extremely specialized industry. When people ask what I do, I usually just say I'm in the IT field. But I don't deal with information technology as a whole - I simply deal with one small part of it. I deal with data-warehousing and business intelligence. But further more, I am even further specialized in my areas of expertise regarding data-warehousing practice: I work mainly with a single, proprietary tool used for these purposes called 'Informatica'.

So, when my computer breaks do I fix it myself? No, I end up calling tech support just like any other asshole (this is partially due to the BS 'common operating environment' and loads of annoyance-ware that HP puts on my computer, but that is neither here nor there).

Supposedly the reason I'm not supposed to fix my computer is because of the efficiency produced by 'division of labor' (from Wikipedia):

Division of labour is the specialisation of cooperative labour in specific, circumscribed tasks and roles, intended to increase efficiency of output. Historically the growth of a more and more complex division of labour is closely associated with the growth of trade, the rise of capitalism, and of the complexity of industrialisation processes.

Division of labor is what results for the 'cog in the machine' experience that I'm sure we've all had at some point or another. If you read the aforementioned Wikipedia article, we find that several economists and sociologists feel the same way about the division of labor, even Adam Smith who is easily seen as viewing the division of labor as an economic engine, wrote that division of labor could lead to 'mental mutilation' of workers. As I'm sure you can imagine, folks like Karl Marx have an even dimmer view of the whole matter.

Ludvig Von Mises, an influential Austrian economist, absolutely loves the division of labor. According to Mises:

The greater productivity of work under the division of labor is a unifying influence. It leads men to regard each other as comrades in a joint struggle for welfare, rather than as competitors in a struggle for existence. It makes friends out of enemies, peace out of war, society out of individuals.

Civilization is a product of leisure and the peace of mind that only the division of labour can make possible.

Every expansion of the personal division of labor brings advantages to all who take part in it.

It is an illusion to believe that one can maintain productivity and reduce the division of labor.

Division of labor has a lot of things going for it. At a certain point, it almost seems like an increasing division of labor is requisite for an ever-expanding economy. You're simply imagining things if you think about it any other way, at least according to Mises.

However, it seems fairly obvious that the further one increases the division of labor, the further the isolation of workers becomes, despite Mises being apparently of the opinion that the 'alienation' of workes is a purely romantic concept.

A vast array of employment possibilities, that increasingly represent large investments of time and effort towards education, further increase the anxiety that workers experience when attempting to determine which cog is theirs to turn. This is alienation of a type far beyond what Marx was ever speaking about. His workers at least could see the machines they happened to be manipulating. Today's information worker simply describes a particular 'state' that may get applied to a particular decision-ish apparatus depending upon the 'states' that others have provided. The worker may not even work on a whole piece of a 'state'. In this super-attenuated condition, why would we not expect a degree of dissolution on the part of our laborers?

Furthermore, their plight is confounded by the fact that their superiors are rewarded with the control over the division of labor. This leaves the day-to-day existence of a modern managed worker to forces largely beyond their control; either quit and figure something else out, or weasel and work your way up until you have more control over your own destiny. In my experience this can turn in on itself and stifle innovation, enthusiasm, and workforce integration.

There also seems to me that there is another argument against promoting the utmost degree of specialization; narrow boundaries of inquiry result in narrow solutions. One could analyze this with a Marxist slant. Keep the proles subjugated by limiting their worldview. Typically, the further you go up the chain of management, the more control is present over the division of labor, and therefore it is more likely that these persons possess skills of a much more generic nature. Based on the fact the most of the world's movers and shakers spend most of their time simply reading to generate new ideas, and analyzing the 'state' of the world, rather than the 'state' of a cash register or its software, limiting yourself to a particular specialty is even more limiting than it initially appears.

Personally, I believe that division of labor is inevitable. Some times, in some instances, it will be simply more efficient for one person to do something than another. While I am not concerned about the existence of specialization, I am concerned about how it is managed. Furthermore, I believe that the rank-and-file worker needs to have more control over the division of labor in their immediate surroundings, else they are left feeling alienated and 'mentally mutilated'.

I would like it recognized that specialization to the degree that we see in certain industries such as manufacturing or technology, is a vulnerability that is thrust onto the worker. The businesses that employ specialized workers do not bear the worker's cost of specialization - namely the possibility of skill and knowledge obsolescence.

It is a fool's game for the modern knowledge worker to assume that specialization is a key to success, despite it being a key to success for the global economy. The greatest rewards will always go to those that are able to 'connect the dots' and transcend the boundaries that the division of labor produces.

Our educational institutions recognize this issue - that is why there is an abundance of interdisciplinary programs like the 'Animate Arts' degree that I received. I believe we should promote as minimal a division of labor is as possible and efficient - true innovation frequently happens when the boundaries that create such efficiency are compromised.

According to Pew Internet's Digital Footprints: Online Identity Management and Search in the Age of Transparency:

One in five workng American adults (20%) say their employer has a special policy about how employees handle themselves online - including what can be shared and posted on blogs and other websites.

This makes sense in the respect that you probably shouldn't blab company secrets in public forums. You don't talk about the upcoming earnings report or the new advertising initiative that's about to be unveiled unless those things happen to be part of your job description.

However, I could give a rat's ass if I violated any policies that attempt to govern my online activities. Hell, I don't even know if such policies exist at HP. Personally, I feel that if they don't like the way I present myself online, they can shove it.

I will probably go take a look and see if they do have any such policies. If I'm going to be violating them, I'd like to at least be aware of my transgressions. The report has this to say regarding peoples' awareness of the issue:

However, a modest segment of the working public - one in ten - admits that they don't know if their place of employment has policies or guidelines about how employees present themselves online.

One of the best periods of my life was when my girlfriend dumped me. It was the middle of the summer before our senior year of college and she dumped my ass cold.

It was pretty rough for a while because I was real sweet on her. Ultimately though, it was one of the best periods of my life.

Some people talk about how when they get dumped that they realize they were the problem, and this acts as a catalyst for personal growth. This did not happen to me. My personality changed somewhat, to be sure, but I did not feel at fault for the loss of our relationship.

Rather, it was just the sweet scent of all those new possibilities in the air that did me so much good. I had a lot of time on my hands, and I used it well.

I'm trying to imagine my life if I got dumped right now, and although I know I wouldn't be as content, I'd certainly be more creative.

If you get dumped, savor the moment. You get to go on a whole new adventure.

Or you can just be a wuss and lay in bed all day long. Your choice.

When I graduated from school, I believe I had about $17k in school loans. I went to Northwestern University, which is a very costly private institution. I believe that they raised the tuition rates twice while I was there. I would not have been able to attend but for the fact that the university gave me a bit over ten grand each year in free money. This was not money that came from scholarships or what-have-you, but money they just gave to me because I wouldn't have been able to afford an education there otherwise. In fact, scholarships are detrimental to this aid process; any scholarships count directly against the grant money they give you just for showing up.

Even with the pretty penny that the grant money brought in, my education was still financed with loans. Forunately, when I graduated, my parents gave me one of the best gifts I think that any middle-class parent could give their college graduate; they paid off my school loans. I did not even have to think about them. They did the same thing for my older brother when he graduated college, and I'm real glad they kept up the theme!

With the job that I got after graduating, I could have probably paid off my school loans by now if I wanted to, but not having that axe hanging over my head has been a godsend. One dollar today is about two and a half dollars in ten years. So that seventeen thousand means that my net worth in ten years will be approximately $42,500 greater, assuming I had the money to pay off the loan immediately. More likely I would have paid it off over a period of two years (at least) meaning that in ten years I will be over $50k richer than if I had to pay off those loans.

Even a small amount against college debt as soon as the person's grace period is over. A $100 right away is going to be worth more than twice that in ten years.

That is an amazing gift, assuming I manage my finances assiduously in the coming years. Financial security is way better than a car or a vacation, as far as I'm concerned.

So after I put up my initial story about my homemade bass guitar, I thought about maybe making another one on spec. I decided to ask the bass forum at Harmony-Central what they thought about this. Here's my initial post:

a while back (4-5 years ago) I built my own DIY electric bass with around $700 in materials/tools outlay

you can see pictures and a bit of a story about my instrument at http://www.maxopedia.org/?q=DIY_bass

I have a couple questions for you guys.

1. If this bass were made to a very high level of fit 'n' finish with even higher quality materials, would you consider purchasing it for yourself or someone you know?
2. What do you see as the fair value of this instrument?

I am thinking about building another custom instrument based on this design. This would be a speculative build with the intent to sell, and the vast majority of my efforts would go into perfecting the design, sourcing high quality woods/components, and producing an instrument with an extremely high level of polish.

just wondering what people think - would it be worth it to build a spec instrument?

People's responses varied. For some reason the people over at the Harmony-Central bass forums believe that CUSTOM_BASS = MULTI_PIECE_NECK. I have no idea why they think this, and perhaps a different forum would yield a different response. Here are some of the better tidbits with my responses.

is that a single slab neck? I'd be concerned about it's stability.
-catphish

Is this really a concern? Is it a must that high-end custom instruments have laminate necks? My understanding is that this issue is very contentious from a practicality standpoint. Some builders swear by one-piece necks, others don't. Personally I somewhat prefer the single-slab in terms of aesthetics. Sandwich basses are not my thing. As an aside though, the exact neck in this instrument carbon fiber reinforced. I am not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing. Perhaps if I went with an all-wood neck I would want to go laminate.

like some of the ideas, but in my honest opinion the complete finished item looks like a collection of styles that you'd expect to find on three different guitars. The elabourate scrollwork on the horn looks out of character with the generic shape of some aspects of the rest of the guitar. You should've done more to make the head stand out as much as the body does.
The electronics cavity cover could do with a re-think, It looks rushed and out of character. If I had your woodworking skills I'd make a more rounded shape out of the cavity cover and sink an acetate cover in flush with the back of the body, using CSK screws. This would look a lot more professional, and because its not aluminium, it'd be easier to shield the electrical connections to prevent shorting.
On the bright side, I'm a fan of original/quirky guitars and if I saw this one hanging up in the shop, I'd deffinately be tempted to pick it up and play. The finish looks good and I'm sure you could find a more mature or denser mahogany to recover some of the tone.
as for price, you have to bear in mind that mass made guitars are made in vast numbers, and as a result the manufacturer gets materials and components in bulk VERY cheaply. I heard that manufacturers and distributors can easily make a 400% mark up on final sale price, meaning a squire stratocaster would probably cost less than £25 to manufacture. They make so many that this profit margin is enough for the factory to cover overheads and labour. On this basis, a $700 guitar with the features on yours would not make a good value sale, especially considering that you probably spent hundreds of work hours building it and this would equate to $1200 in labour (100 hours, semi-skilled labour). The finished guitar, all things considered, probably cost you closer to $2000. However, I'm sure that if (in the unlikely instance) you actually made this guitar as a prototype for a mass market guitar, through outsourcing, mass buying and careful consideration to the number of components and manufacturing processes, you could manufacture that guitar for less than 5% of what you spent.
But at the end of the day, I'm taking this all to seriously and if practical creativity and design innovation makes you happy, then this project was a 100% success. I wish I could work wood as well as you, I've only learnt how to work metal!
- James_Russell

For some reason I just really wanted to do a scroll. I can understand where you're coming from in regards to the pastiche of styles that were the genesis for this bass. Personally, I love the design. I am a much more an artist than I am a woodworker. I've had many people flip out over the curves and proportions of the bass; I feel comfortable I've made the right decision in regards to overall silhouette. I was looking for something that marries the modern instrument to the classical one while not forgetting the stylistic conventions that make the electric guitar so playable and comfortable.

I agree that the headstock design could possibly use something more, and that the control cavity cover was rushed. I believe on the next version of the design the control cavity cover will simply be part of the bass itself (made from wood). This was what I originally intended in a vague sort of way, but poor planning reared its ugly head. As far as the headstock, I very much prefer the simple design, with the overall shape only elaborated/extended by a small amount in version 2. I would also make sure that I put a 'signature' of some sort on each instrument if I was producing them commercially, most likely on the headstock. Perhaps a striking logo or design on the simple headstock is all that is needed.

I guess I should have said more clearly that I wasn't intending for this to go into 'production' as in mass production. Even if I have a 'production design' I'm working off of, the instrument is going to lovingly hand crafted and carved by myself personally. I'm thinking more along the lines of a design aesthetic and template that I perfect so I can guarantee as much as possible that each instrument that leaves the shop is well-designed from every practical perspective in terms of playability, maintenance, and ease of construction.

As far as making a living doing something like this and getting an economy of scale going - I have no desire! However, I would like to see if I could perhaps make a small profit while doing something I think is cool and learning more about it. If I perfected my existing design and did a spec build, I would have no trouble putting a $1500 - $4000 price tag on it, but I'm curious what others think, and that's why I posted on this forum.

Also, making my first bass was very fun and fulfilling, but making another one for myself wouldn't be nearly as worthwhile. I'd like my creations to get out into the world and have lives of their own.

Nope I wouldn't buy it. I don't mind the shape, although I don't like the lower horn, but I realize what it takes to make a great bass and most luthiers perfect their trade over years and years. Maybe in 20 I will though?
- willsellout

yea! That's exactly what I wanted to hear.

I think your bass looks very nice, but I dont know you and I will not gamble 1500-4000 dollars just to see if the bass sounds good. When you get into that price range, you are competing with vintage basses, Sadowsky, Warwick, Pedulla, all the biggest names. I know I can buy one of those, and 99 times out of 100 it will be unbelievable.
- landbriancoe

If I built a spec bass and it did not match up to one of those very excellent instruments that you mentioned, I would not attempt to price it as such. I was actually sort of thinking of Sadowsky in particular, and how they take a simple design and make it something spectacular in the execution.

As for selling the bass, that is a secondary consideration to crafting the bass I was aiming for when I made this one. However, one option is to place it on consignment in a high-end music store here in the Chicago area where I live. I wouldn't expect any potential buyer to not be able to play the bass before purchasing. That would be ridiculous. I certainly wouldn't buy my bass without playing it and hearing what it sounds like, preferably through a multitude of amps.

I think it takes guts to make something like that and then say "If I built more similar, would people buy them?".
- bassman1956

yea! More people need to get some guts and learn how to believe in themselves.

Just as an aside, I probably would have never conceived of perfecting my design and attempting to sell it except for the numerous people over the years that have played my bass and said they wanted one too.

so in conclusion, if you want to build a bass yourself for fun and profit. . .

Make sure you go with at least a 3-piece neck. Hahaha.

and get your learn on

Building Electric Guitars: How to Make Solid-Body, Hollow-Body and Semi-Acoustic Electric Guitars and Bass Guitars

Make Your Own Electric Guitar & Bass

UPDATE 12/19/2007: To see part two of the DIY Bass Guitar saga, please visit http://www.maxopedia.org/DIY_bass_guitar_for_fun_and_profit

So, sometime around the age of sixteen, I started getting into music. The first instrument I learned to play was the electric bass. One thing I quickly learned about musical instruments is that a decent one costs a good amount of money; the sky is the limit for premium and vintage instruments.

So, shortly after I got my first cheap bass, I was scheming to build my own home-made bass guitar. Building an electric bass or guitar is not that difficult in the grand scheme of woodworking, but making an instrument that looks nice and plays even nicer is a fine art even when you're talking about electric instruments.

I cooked up a Carl Thompson-esque design and started sourcing my parts. Even though I was seventeen when I started the project, I had enough money from working a couple shitty jobs to drop $700 on materials and equipment. I already had a good bit of tools before and I had even more after I was done.

The instrument was built as a neck-through. I did not want to buy the tools or spend the time to learn how to do fretwork and shape a neck, so I picked up a Carvin neck with a blank headstock. The tuners, knobs, and output jack are all Carvin-sourced. The pickups are Seymour Duncan, the bridge is a special brass Hipshot - that kind of sucked though because it was back-ordered for several months.

The body is made out of mahogany that I got from a local furniture builder that just happened to have some in the thicknesss I was looking for. This was actually unfortunate as the wood was not suitable for building instruments. It was mahogany, but not the appropriate grade. One thing I learned about mahogany is that the dust is essentially poisonous. Part of the reason the damn thing took so long was the sanding process... it would lay me out for the next week with congestion even though I wore a mask. I hand-carved all of the body contours and the scroll work in the horn. It's funny, because in some of the pictures I took, that horn looks a lot like a penis. I didn't realize my bass guitar's upper horn was a paean to masculinity. The finish on the wood is danish oil, and although I know that this is not a protective finish, the wood just becomes more and more beautiful over time. Also, if it ever sustains serious enough damage to necessitate a re-finishing, the process is relatively simple.

Foolishly, I did not make or buy templates for routing the pickup cavities, so they were done freehand with a dremel tool and router attachment. Perhaps this adds character. One particular challenge with the way I designed this bass was routing the wires from the pickups to the control cavity. I did this by (foolishly) buying a long-ass drill bit and just sort of 'guess-drilling' from the control cavity to the approximate location of the pickups. Oh boy howdy, do I have excellent planning. Needless to say, I didn't do it perfectly, and you can see a near-miss in one of the pictures that caused damage to the top of the instrument right around the pickup cavity. The price you pay for success I suppose.

The project took me about 2 years to complete, and technically speaking, the instrument is barely finished. I have left many of the details quite rough as you can see in the photographs. I need to replace the output jack at some point and re-do all the wiring in the control cavity. It is an awful mess and I have spared you those pictures. The control cavity cover with two different screws in it is actually intentional, and I would leave it on the 'finished' instrument. I view it somewhat as my signature although some people have suggested that I should literally sign my bass or in some way put a logo on it. The headstock is a ripe spot for some design, but I kind of like it simple.

Appendix A

I didn't just spring out of the womb with fully formed knowledge of woodworking - I had a lot of help along the way. One great resource was the forum at TalkBass. I put up a thread there about my project, and received some very good responses. Here are some of the more direct questions.

()smoke() - i'm sure the experience you gained is worth a great deal as well--do you plan to build another?

Well, this was something I was thinking about lately. I'm not sure I'd want to build another bass for myself, I'd probably want to sell it. Obviously I'd have to pay a lot more attention to fit'n'finish but it might not be a bad idea. If I made a different design though, I wouldn't want to sell it. It might be advantageous to just keep the design the same, and spend time perfecting it.

Handyman - Looks great! You just need to come up with a spiffy logo for your headstock now.

I think if I was selling someone a bass like this, I'd want some sort of logo on it, if for nothing else than promotional reasons. I don't know what approach I'd want to take with that either. I'm not knowledgeable about inlay techniques, which is what I see when I think of a logo on the headstock of my bass, but perhaps I'd want to take it in a different direction. However, I am somewhat ignorant of my options.

62bass - That's a very nice bass for a first job. I wouldn't worry about "high end" pickups. Those Duncans sound great. How do you like the Carvin neck? I'm very impressed with their quality. Great fret work on mine and didn't need any leveling.

I love the neck, it really makes the bass. I'd probably just go with it again even though I think it's a bit pricey.

To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the tone of my bass. It's my main instrument and it has a good sound, but it's not what I was looking for when I made it. I'm not sure if this is due to the low-grade mahogany I used, or the pickups. It seems to me that the tone of most electric basses is largely a function of the pickups.

Don't get me wrong though guys, I love my bass. I wouldn't bother taking an insurance policy out on it, because it's priceless.

Appendix B - add mass to bass headstock or bridge for sustain

I saw someone found this page by this search query: "diy add mass to bass headstock".

It's interesting, because this was one of the things I was thinking about when I was working on my bass. I really wanted it to have a lot of sustain, and that's why I special-ordered a heavy brass bridge.

I also thought about this idea of adding mass to a headstock. I decided not to to do it because it would unbalance the instrument and make it unwieldy. It's also doubtful how much sustain it would actually add. Furthermore, it necessitates further design complications and considerations. If anyone has ever done this successfully, let me know!

I would have also put the strings through the body, but I did not want to add this extra time and effort to my design when I was originally building the guitar.

One thing that really worked against me was the relatively low density mahogany I used for the body wings. Don't make the same mistake I did!

Overall, I'd say my bass ended up with average sustain.

I have never been good in dealing with those that assume they have authority. On the flip side of the coin, I am generally not good at ordering people around. It's not that I lack orders I could give, but rather that I don't feel I have that right over others.

Only the most serious of endeavors - organized warfare - truly requires a highly demarcated chain of command. Soldiers are not supposed to question orders for a good reason; they lack information. Not only do they lack information, they frequently lack the time to analyze that information and come to their own conclusions. Thus, I advance the notion that commands and orders are particularly nasty types of efficiency measures. They empower the giver and dehumanize the receiver while at the same time standing in place of true consensus.

As I've said before, the larger a corporation gets, the more it becomes like a total institution, with policies, procedures, and eminent managerial domain standing in place of consensual and reasoned analysis. These items may have been put into play based on healthful guiding principles, but by their very codification have become breeding grounds for petty power plays and other insidious inefficiencies. The letter of the law means far less than the spirit.

Businesses have the difficult goal of erecting a supportive and comprehensive framework for their constituents while still allowing them a great deal of autonomy. However, people don't generally do well inside of boxes, unless they are of their own construction.

It's my dream to be able to build an organization on the principles of true consensus. I'm not going to hold my breath.

For a while now, I've been going to work and hating every minute that I put more money in my employer's pocket than I put in my own. I spend much of time scheming ways that I can begin earning income on my own without working for anyone else than myself. If I form partnerships with people in the future, I want them to be mutually beneficial; one of my friends mentioned how we could 'work for each other.' That's exactly what I'm getting at; I want to work with people and not for someone.

Well, because I spend all day scheming on these things, I invariably end up discussing them with my co-workers, particularly those that I consider friends. Mostly this involves me talking about how although there is a lot of risk in starting your own business, it's almost a criminal act of stupidity not to, as long as you possess the requisite skills and a work ethic that will see you through to eventual success.

Well, one of my friends at work has taken my thoughts to heart. He now schemes far more openly than I do, and he openly expresses many of the dissatisfactions that I possess. His enthusiasm is inspiring, but I tend to keep a bit of a tighter lip about these things at work, although I will certainly discuss the most sensitive of information and ideas with him directly through secure channels.

Perhaps I am paranoid, but I don't really want everyone at work to know how I feel about the company and the project that I am on. I don't want any complications while I'm still working here. Corporate America is a very strange place, and that classic 'telephone game' effect is out in force. A tiny bit of dissatisfaction expressed to the wrong (right?) person can become a 'that guy is gonna leave tomorrow' when it finally comes through the grapevine to your boss. I don't want my boss to know anything about how I feel about the job unless it is absolutely necessary for me to communicate that information. If I am going to leave unless they give me a raise, I would like my boss to hear that from me first and not from some guy who might be out to 'get me' somehow. Just think about how hard it is to communicate unambiguously when you're directly talking to someone face-to-face. Even if only two face-to-face interactions are between you and your boss hearing about how you want to leave, that's huge potential for distortion.

I'm sitting on the 31st floor of the Citicorp building in Chicago looking out over the Metra train tracks snaking out of Ogilvy station. The Boeing building seems so close I can just reach out and touch it. Unfortunately, I won't be in this c-suite office for long. It's pretty nice even though I share it with two other people.

I'm worried about my future - I don't want to work for anyone else in my entire life ever, unless I'm receiving as much value as I'm giving out. Currently, I don't feel I am in one of those situations.

It's simple math, really. I work as a data warehouse consultant for Hewlett-Packard. Depending on how my company negotiates billable consultant rates, I cost the client company $75-125 per hour. Meeting my billable hours goal consists of billing to a client approximately 80% of my time in a given year. Total hours available in a year = 40 * 52 = 2080, so I need to bill ~1600 hours per year, generating $120k of revenue. This is a very conservative number. More likely, I will bill 2000 hours for the year at an average bill rate of $100 = $200k in revenue generated. If I'm one of those schmucks that likes to kill themselves to make other people rich, I could easily be generating revenue for my company in excess of $200k.

I am paid $56k a year gross salary. After company match to 401k, medical benefits free money, and my bonus, my total compensation is approx. $63k a year. Even using very conservative numbers, I am giving them a 100% return on their payroll investment.

Granted, this does not include the compensation I receive in terms of life experience, although I believe I am now in a cycle of diminishing returns as far as that goes.

The only reason that the job I have now is worth it to me is that I am receiving much more value for my time than I would likely receive working for someone else. I graduated from college with a psychology degree, but I have an engineer's salary. However, this is faulty thinking, because selling my time is no way to get ahead, unless I'm selling it at exorbitant rates (anyone want to hire me for $100/hour to do ETL design/development?) that allow me to quickly build investment income. This is still not a very good situation - even if I could receive $100 an hour for my work, I'm not sure I would accept it. Perhaps a day or two here and there to get some guaranteed income, but always selling your time for fixed amounts of money is a bad idea.

Think about it this way; you could work for 10 years selling your time for $100 an hour. If you sold 2080 of your hours in a year, you'd make $208k for that year. Now imagine if you instead only directly sold half of your time in a given year, and invested the other half of your time into a business. In the first case, you've grossed an assured $2.08 million, while in the other you grossed $1.04 million over the same 10 year period, while investing $1.04 million worth of your time into your business.

If you could invest a million dollars into a sound, reliable business, don't you think you'd end up making more than if you simply sold your time for that $1.04 million? Obviously there's no guarantee here, but you're investing in a chance to kick that $100 rate to the ground. If your business starts bringing in twice as much money as selling your time, don't think it's time to raise your bill rate?