Goodbye office. Asia and freelance my sweet and sour sauce
Hello!
In this article I want to tell you about my way from the office to freelancing: the motivation, the emergence of ideas, goals, milestones of the path and the experience gained.
We must start with the main thing. I am a hedonist. No, really! In a good sense of the word: the scenario “to be showered with an anaha” and for me to get blunt is not very interesting. I just think that everything in life should be cool and interesting. And if not - do so that it was.
I started writing this text on a night Thai bus from Phuket Island to Bangkok. One of the edges of Count Moscow-Bangkok-Ho Chi Minh-Mauin-Pattaya-Phuket-Phangan-Samui-Bangkok-Bali-Moscow, stretched in time for 5 months.
')
One important note: I didn’t run, didn’t cut, didn’t start the tractor.
Just once I realized that the joy of life can now be scooped with a larger spoon, and the era of the office can be changed to high level freelance.
What is a highlevel freelance? This is when you work for a normal 20-30 bucks per hour; do not communicate with customers-Gopnik; you do not throw, you do not expect kidalova; do you work with full efficiency less than 40 hours a week (who works in the office for real 8 hours and does not burn in six months?); Contributing to open-source projects as needed and starting your own ... because you want to do it!
I wanted to have an interesting thing in my life, not to depend on Russia and the tsar, to travel, to earn money normally, to have the opportunity to start something of my own if desired.
It seems there was no chance not to become a programmer :)
After a trip to the states ( WAT ) in the summer of 2007, and starting work, I began to understand that when skills and experience appeared, I would have to pull myself out of comfort and move on.
A couple of years ago I began to look at options for working in the states, I realized that with those skills I was not ready for this. The proof was the failure of the Google intern interview (although they don’t look at the skills, they are most likely driven by the tasks of careercup.com ).
In this regard, he postponed the thoughts of the "golden billion" for a while.
At a good time, in the spring of 2012, I came across the blog pumainthailand.com , the opium habrauser. His story about odesk.com added the missing cell to the puzzle - it became clear that the winter of 2012-2013 would be more interesting than the past.
After viewing the situation with the Russian-language exchanges, I realized that for me they are not of interest: dumping, greedy customers, strange approaches to transactions, kidalovo, carpet bombardment of all orders with standard offers ...
Maybe I'm wrong, but so far the whole essence of the Russian-language exchanges for me is expressed by the phrase that I saw in one of the orders:
Infu skin after a lucrative offer which is difficult to refuse ..
This is lovely!
Then I did not know about the existence of elance.com , so I focused attention on odesk.com : I got a Payoneer card, I linked it to Paypal. Preparing a profile on the exchange took time. Not with a swoop, in about two weeks I prepared a profile and calmed down for a while.
Autumn came, I began to think about going to Asia. It turned out to fly only in late December. After a month of rehabilitation and traveling, I settled in the windy (kite, windsurf) Vietnamese village of Mui Ne, I decided to seriously take on task number one: access to complete self-sufficiency through freelancing.
After diving into the job search at odesk.com, interesting details emerged :
Rating - here the situation is completely similar to ebay.com - after a few negative reviews, people will simply stop dealing with you.
Job search - the fact is that on the exchanges the efficiency of the response to work plays no less a role than the actual ability to fulfill an order. This problem is especially acute for small orders with a fixed payment (and there will be no others at the first stage, since there is no rating).
A temporary solution was found - a simple odkeeper.com service in combination with mail filters allowed you to receive 10-20 interesting emails per day.
Later, after a couple of months, I returned to this idea and created my own instant job notification service, aggregating data from all exchanges: lancemonitor.com . For me it was strange that not all freelancers use such tools in their work. I am glad that by now a few hundred freelancers have improved their approach to job search with my help.
On odesk.com, each user has a fixed number of opportunities to respond to a job offer per week: about 20 bids. This restriction cultivates a conscious approach to communication with the customer.
I do not analyze other strategies, here is my approach to the search for excellent orders and interesting projects:
One answer to a job offer takes me 10-20 minutes, it shows immediately what level I have, as well as the degree of my understanding of the customer’s needs and involvement in his task.
The dynamics of the work was something like this:
To work among palm trees, under the gentle sun and with exotic fruits on a plate ... All true, and all bullshit!
It is important to understand that working in freelancing is first and foremost a job. You will need willpower and concentration to not return home after three months with empty pockets. The point is not that work does not want to abstract. Today I don’t want to work, but I want to tomorrow. No, it can be much more interesting - you will find such people, a company, an approach to life, communication and relationships, that real pleasure from life will be constantly demolished from the workplace. Happiness is an interesting challenge, you have to set priorities and be flexible.
Back on the chair, and better in the chair at a normal table, convenient, comfortable, cool working place, normal lighting, stable Internet ... All this will have to look! Daily office pleasures are usually not enough, they begin to appreciate. Especially the internet. A 3G modem that works well is already a success.
By the way, travel and work are almost completely incompatible. With an hourly rate you can work seriously if you move once a month or two, but not more often. In addition to the obvious difficulties of the working environment, there are unobvious things such as having to look around. It's just hard to come and sit exactly on the spot, without having run in a couple of days around the district.
Communication Lack of communication is very bad for the mood and motivation. Being a rather easy and sociable person, I still had to reconsider, improve, facilitate the approach to new people.
Want to become a tanned turquoise? There is nothing easier, and saw this:
Mise en scene: Bali, ocean, waves.
Groundhog Day: Riding on the surf early in the morning, removed 8 hours for Russia (i.e. communication in Russian), surfing in the evening, dinner, sit on the Internet.
And so for several months in a row ... Thank you, I would work better in the office than this.
When people ask me how I spent time in heavenly Asia, I laugh.
This is not your vacation for two weeks, this is your life. With all the fears, reproaches to himself and fate, cockroaches and chips, dreams and realities. Just in the new scenery. A little less emphasis on the material, a little more questions to yourself.
How did you live in paradise Asia in winter?
How did you live in the paradise Russia in spring?
How did you live in heavenly Ukraine in summer?
In this article I want to tell you about my way from the office to freelancing: the motivation, the emergence of ideas, goals, milestones of the path and the experience gained.
We must start with the main thing. I am a hedonist. No, really! In a good sense of the word: the scenario “to be showered with an anaha” and for me to get blunt is not very interesting. I just think that everything in life should be cool and interesting. And if not - do so that it was.
I started writing this text on a night Thai bus from Phuket Island to Bangkok. One of the edges of Count Moscow-Bangkok-Ho Chi Minh-Mauin-Pattaya-Phuket-Phangan-Samui-Bangkok-Bali-Moscow, stretched in time for 5 months.
')
One important note: I didn’t run, didn’t cut, didn’t start the tractor.
Just once I realized that the joy of life can now be scooped with a larger spoon, and the era of the office can be changed to high level freelance.
What is a highlevel freelance? This is when you work for a normal 20-30 bucks per hour; do not communicate with customers-Gopnik; you do not throw, you do not expect kidalova; do you work with full efficiency less than 40 hours a week (who works in the office for real 8 hours and does not burn in six months?); Contributing to open-source projects as needed and starting your own ... because you want to do it!
Background
- 5.5 years in server-side Java and web technologies, of which 2 years in IBM ESB integration
- Moscow, office work
- 27 years old, single
Motivation
I wanted to have an interesting thing in my life, not to depend on Russia and the tsar, to travel, to earn money normally, to have the opportunity to start something of my own if desired.
It seems there was no chance not to become a programmer :)
Idea
After a trip to the states ( WAT ) in the summer of 2007, and starting work, I began to understand that when skills and experience appeared, I would have to pull myself out of comfort and move on.
purpose
A couple of years ago I began to look at options for working in the states, I realized that with those skills I was not ready for this. The proof was the failure of the Google intern interview (although they don’t look at the skills, they are most likely driven by the tasks of careercup.com ).
In this regard, he postponed the thoughts of the "golden billion" for a while.
Exchange
At a good time, in the spring of 2012, I came across the blog pumainthailand.com , the opium habrauser. His story about odesk.com added the missing cell to the puzzle - it became clear that the winter of 2012-2013 would be more interesting than the past.
After viewing the situation with the Russian-language exchanges, I realized that for me they are not of interest: dumping, greedy customers, strange approaches to transactions, kidalovo, carpet bombardment of all orders with standard offers ...
Maybe I'm wrong, but so far the whole essence of the Russian-language exchanges for me is expressed by the phrase that I saw in one of the orders:
Infu skin after a lucrative offer which is difficult to refuse ..
This is lovely!
Then I did not know about the existence of elance.com , so I focused attention on odesk.com : I got a Payoneer card, I linked it to Paypal. Preparing a profile on the exchange took time. Not with a swoop, in about two weeks I prepared a profile and calmed down for a while.
Start
Autumn came, I began to think about going to Asia. It turned out to fly only in late December. After a month of rehabilitation and traveling, I settled in the windy (kite, windsurf) Vietnamese village of Mui Ne, I decided to seriously take on task number one: access to complete self-sufficiency through freelancing.
After diving into the job search at odesk.com, interesting details emerged :
- Rating. He must be tall always.
- There are not so many jobs for javista, especially if you are not developing an android.
- Finding a job in an unpopular specialty is not a trivial task.
Rating - here the situation is completely similar to ebay.com - after a few negative reviews, people will simply stop dealing with you.
Job search - the fact is that on the exchanges the efficiency of the response to work plays no less a role than the actual ability to fulfill an order. This problem is especially acute for small orders with a fixed payment (and there will be no others at the first stage, since there is no rating).
A temporary solution was found - a simple odkeeper.com service in combination with mail filters allowed you to receive 10-20 interesting emails per day.
Later, after a couple of months, I returned to this idea and created my own instant job notification service, aggregating data from all exchanges: lancemonitor.com . For me it was strange that not all freelancers use such tools in their work. I am glad that by now a few hundred freelancers have improved their approach to job search with my help.
Job
On odesk.com, each user has a fixed number of opportunities to respond to a job offer per week: about 20 bids. This restriction cultivates a conscious approach to communication with the customer.
I do not analyze other strategies, here is my approach to the search for excellent orders and interesting projects:
- I always delve into the problem of the customer, ask additional questions.
- I propose an approach to solving the problem, point out the difficult places, list the stack of technologies that will be used.
- I undertake projects interesting to me
- I don’t count a penny, I’m not nervous after failures and don’t rush to a new job. A lot of work, I'm alone.
- Each failure and misunderstanding with the customer is a way to ask yourself questions, how you could beat the situation, how you could get out of it win-win (presence of the rating factor refines!).
- I work honestly. I do not have fake profiles, left cards, I do not direct my thoughts to the search for a trick and ways to cut corners.
One answer to a job offer takes me 10-20 minutes, it shows immediately what level I have, as well as the degree of my understanding of the customer’s needs and involvement in his task.
The dynamics of the work was something like this:
- 10 small orders from 50 to 500 dollars, fixed prices (payment by the exchange is not guaranteed), an easy degree of dumping to attract attention. I went to the sad version of self-reliance: about $ 1,000 per month, I worked relatively well.
- The first hourly project, $ 15 per hour, is a test task of optimizing a small subsystem.
- The second hourly project, $ 20 per hour, worked 2 months, quit.
- The third hourly project, $ 25 per hour, continues to work with the first customer, now as senior / architect.
Experience
To work among palm trees, under the gentle sun and with exotic fruits on a plate ... All true, and all bullshit!
It is important to understand that working in freelancing is first and foremost a job. You will need willpower and concentration to not return home after three months with empty pockets. The point is not that work does not want to abstract. Today I don’t want to work, but I want to tomorrow. No, it can be much more interesting - you will find such people, a company, an approach to life, communication and relationships, that real pleasure from life will be constantly demolished from the workplace. Happiness is an interesting challenge, you have to set priorities and be flexible.
Back on the chair, and better in the chair at a normal table, convenient, comfortable, cool working place, normal lighting, stable Internet ... All this will have to look! Daily office pleasures are usually not enough, they begin to appreciate. Especially the internet. A 3G modem that works well is already a success.
By the way, travel and work are almost completely incompatible. With an hourly rate you can work seriously if you move once a month or two, but not more often. In addition to the obvious difficulties of the working environment, there are unobvious things such as having to look around. It's just hard to come and sit exactly on the spot, without having run in a couple of days around the district.
Communication Lack of communication is very bad for the mood and motivation. Being a rather easy and sociable person, I still had to reconsider, improve, facilitate the approach to new people.
Want to become a tanned turquoise? There is nothing easier, and saw this:
Mise en scene: Bali, ocean, waves.
Groundhog Day: Riding on the surf early in the morning, removed 8 hours for Russia (i.e. communication in Russian), surfing in the evening, dinner, sit on the Internet.
And so for several months in a row ... Thank you, I would work better in the office than this.
Results
When people ask me how I spent time in heavenly Asia, I laugh.
This is not your vacation for two weeks, this is your life. With all the fears, reproaches to himself and fate, cockroaches and chips, dreams and realities. Just in the new scenery. A little less emphasis on the material, a little more questions to yourself.
How did you live in paradise Asia in winter?
How did you live in the paradise Russia in spring?
How did you live in heavenly Ukraine in summer?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/186700/
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