RE: Engineers As Consultants Pt. 15: How to Take Vacation

amgalbu — Wed, 07 Jan 2015 10:54:47 GMT

Everything would be absolutely right... in a perfect world

After applying (almost) all the suggestions, for some strange reason, I got a DEFCON5-level call in the morning of my first day of vacation (typically when I'm in an airport). The call has two effects:

1. makes my wife hangry and making me

2. makes me think all the time about the issue/question

That's a consultant life!! [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-12765b7b-cb51-4b92-883c-b9dbfeae18ae/contentimage_5F00_938.png:16:16]

RE: Engineers As Consultants Pt. 15: How to Take Vacation

DAB — Tue, 06 Jan 2015 00:36:28 GMT

Great post.

You highlight a several very important issues.

First, you need to communicate with your customers all the time.

Second, if you plan a vacation or two, make sure all of your clients know that you are unavailable.

If you see a conflict or potential issue, the sooner you bring it up with the impacted customer, the quicker you can resolve the issue and still catch your plane.

As long as you work in any business, you are ALWAYS beholden to your customers. Being on your own just means that you are now the boss. Whooppie.

Running a business is much more time consuming than just doing technical work. Happy customers are good customers. Unhappy customers are ex-clients.

I know several consultants and most know the business cycle to know when the best time for vacations lie. They help limit conflicts by not scheduling off times when their customers need them most.

As with any successful endeavor, planning pays dividends in many ways. Know your customer and his business cycle. You need to support both.

Great series.

DAB