Despite high hopes for the business idea that became Welcome to Help, not so much a DBA as a site name to associate with my providing support services personally, it didn’t take off and for various reasons I was discouraged and fell out of doing tech work at all.
I never took that site down, but didn’t expect to use it for the original purpose again. Had some ideas, like setting up a more generalized directory of service people, perhaps ones very small or home-based, or ones specializing in serving home-based businesses, freelancers or work at home folks. Never pursued that.
In short, I’m back. And the “test” part is that this is a test of posting using BlogDesk.
Not trying to go all gangbusters. Not unencumbered by family obligations. Not able to provide every service someone out there might possibly want. But available, giving it another try, maybe a better one, perhaps helped by lower expectations. The support services business is not what it once was, after all, exacerbated by the economy not being what it once was.
So. I’ll update this place, if not all at once, maybe even post here regularly, maybe get all social media on you. I’ll call it “my current job” on LinkedIn, which I never did even when it theoretically was. If I get a job or two a month and it helps me out, great. If I do better, woohoo! I still have to work around childcare and a part time job. The latter doesn’t impinge much on availability for services like this. The former does. I won’t be doing support as an emergency go to client site service. I just can’t. Not ordinarily. I’ve been signed up with OnForce for a long time, but have done no work through them since 2008. Part of the reason why is the need to see when a work request is timed, then plan child care, then accept it, by which time someone more flexible already has. That’s when the work is close enough, pays enough for the nature and distance involved (usually it does, not trying to sound down on anyone here), and is within my ability to do.
I don’t have a business office, storefront, or place in my residence that lends itself to having people bring their computers to me. It can even be tricky to make the space to work on machines at home, though with this new focus, I’ll be rearranging with an eye to that. With the price of gas, I may need to shrink my previously posted availability map. Though that still seems reasonable to me, at a quick review.
Will that change?
We’ll see. We’ve talked of how to make more room in this place, and one would be for me to do my computer work, this and otherwise, largely in a separate space. That could easily get expensive, and for now we’re lucky if I’m talking non-zero revenue here. I plan to put revenue mainly into business and things that help get me back on track such that it’s more viable. I’d not consider it necessary to have a storefront, or very much space. It would be easier if it were very close, even walking distance. One way or another I’d need internet access. It would need room enough so kids could hang there while I worked. We’ll see. There’s enough competition around, including someone I’d recommend, I’d hesitate to jump right into a serious storefront operation, and I have no interest in selling computers or parts.
What do I have in mind, then? I seem to be exceptional at cleaning up malware, and pretty good at speeding up systems and maintaining old machines in the face of entropy. In this economy, even as low as costs can be for new systems, there has to be a certain demand for keeping things going, as long as it’s reasonable. With no traditional overhead, I can be more reasonable than otherwise. I love helping people figure out how to use what they have… the learning aspect. Thus my attempts in the past to tie in the concept of digital coaching. I enjoy setting things up and helping people get comfortable with what they have.
It’ll shake out in those directions, presumably. Worst case, it’s a low risk way of putting myself out here and maybe making something I would not otherwise make. Even if all of it goes back into getting myself back up to date on technology.