New Adventure Advice

Peter Nachtwey said:

This is not the best of time to start a business. Many of my sources are predicting a rough end of year and 2023. Usually there will be little demand for new systems. These require huge capital expenditures.However, there will be opportunities to keep machinery running and to do upgrades.

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Not in the US, but a large project for a brand new reactor has been dropped and spending frozen on upgrades unless they are safety related.

cardosocea said:

Not in the US

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This meaning isn't clear.

but a large project for a brand new reactor has been dropped and spending frozen on upgrades unless they are safety related.

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OT RANT.
I hear in the UK that many have the choice between "heating or eating" so the UK has put a cap on heating bills. Mine are about $500/yr but I use natural gas. I city council wants to do away with natural gas.
Nuclear power is going to be the way out of the energy mess. I thought so long ago. In the last 1970s I was a RCO or reactor controls officer on a nuclear submarine. Then 3 mile island happened and our local nuclear plant was having difficulties and it eventually was shut down. I was too early.
BTW, the reactor controls used real relay logic back then.

Peter Nachtwey said:

OT RANT.
I hear in the UK that many have the choice between "heating or eating" so the UK has put a cap on heating bills. .

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Don't get us started on the "UK Cap"....They are making sure that their mates/backers in the big energy companies do not lose out. Just us poor taxpayers will have to pay back the subsidies that are spilling into the company profits. Other countries in the EU are putting proper caps on energy prices.

Meanwhile industries have to fight to get good energy deals, so this will severely hamper investment.

Never mind that Suppliers like Rockwell and Siemens cannot get parts for projects, with deliveries of many items between 6 months to a year.
Mind you, my colleagues in the US of A were recently looking for a Guardmaster part, could not get one, asked me, I got it from RS Components here and sent it over. After I nabbed it, RS had it on back order with 17 weeks delivery.

Yes here in the UK it's a sore point, we only import about 10% of gas, we have gas & oil fields in the North sea, however, as the price is fixed at world prices we suffer although on gas we could survive (well at least in the short term), Electricity is another matter, the generation of this was nationalised, then passed to private companies in about 1990, since then, the companies have closed power stations and started buying off Europe, again it seems these company investors just want to sit back & let others do the work, enjoying fat profits. Another thing is obviously climate change, this bugs me, yes we need to do something but we are currently looking at possible blackouts during the winter as demand is likely to outstrip production, then of course the move from gas & oil to green energy by next decade cannot happen, imagine 20 plus million homes using electricity instead of gas, millions of cars charging, industry getting rid of gas. the grid system will never be able to cope let alone being able to generate the quantities required, the current grid system has had very little upgrades (although we pay higher prices in standing charges) for the maintenance of these systems.
Let's get real, even if other sources of clean energy come to fruition within the next decade, it is unlikely it will be availlable to supply the expected demand. So basically, we are just like the preverbial christmass turkey $u££ed

Peter Nachtwey said:

This meaning isn't clear.

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Sorry, I meant to say that I'm not in the US or work for a US company. Though we have sites there.
The reason for the reactor to be put on hold is not so much energy prices, but drop in demand... because economies are cooling off, particularly if you made stuff for Covid related apparatus.

Peter Nachtwey said:

Nuclear power is going to be the way out of the energy mess. I thought so long ago.

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I have the same opinion, but there are a lot of people that cannot accept perfection is the enemy of good. I'd love for us to turn on a switch and have "free" green energy pouring out, but that's not how it works so we have to buy time to figure that out. Nuclear is and was the answer decades ago. 3 mile island and Chernobyl helped massively the turn to gas and here we are.

JohnCalderwood said:

Never mind that Suppliers like Rockwell and Siemens cannot get parts for projects, with deliveries of many items between 6 months to a year.
Mind you, my colleagues in the US of A were recently looking for a Guardmaster part, could not get one, asked me, I got it from RS Components here and sent it over. After I nabbed it, RS had it on back order with 17 weeks delivery.

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Their estimates are however all over the place. Two weeks ago received a 1756-L83EP on site that took 2 months from PO to delivery despite them giving me a 9 month lead time. Everything else is sliding more and more into the future though.

I did similar for IS barriers in the UK and shipped them to Germany. Bought the last 4 in the country. LOL

Peter Nachtwey said:

There is a lot of good advice above. I like the checking the credit score of the customers the best. Delta got screwed once by a distributor that default on $100K..

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Not long after I started I got stiffed for 15k... I hate to say it but trust NO ONE other than yourself, they dont care about you and will still from you.

I ended up getting more than 15k from them and I made them loose about twice that in lost revenue, took about 2 years but I dont forget.

ceilingwalker said:

New Adventure Advice

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Be prepared to loose sleep, have it consume your every moment that you are not passed out, if you dont drink you are about to start (heavily) if you smoke one pack a day it will now be 2-3, if your over weight... dont worry because you wont have the money to eat so you will loose weight, get a good attorney, you will need one when your wife takes everything.

But other than that its great! I started in 2005 and never looked back... remember we are your friends and are here to help

All kidding aside if you need anything you know my number and best of luck Brent!

Mark

I was in a similar situation about 20 years ago, the company I worked for went into liquidation, did a course regarding running my own company, the money just did not add up, wife & kids come first, as I was nearly 50 at the time jobs seemed to be a little hard to come by, even with my experience.
I did some contracting, this turned out to be a good money earner, however, it was a bit hit & miss, eventually got a position with a food manufacturing company, they used a contractor 2-3 days a week, I was to replace them, I was a little unsure at first, for 30 years I had been in automation working on many different plants & countries, not sure if I could be happy stuck in one place, however, quite got used to being home every night, unique position although had a boss, I was left alone to do my job. They went bust some 16 years later, I was kept on by the administrators to close the place down, I was then given my old job back with the new company, very little of the existing plant was kept, basically stripped out most, re-built new, then just after we had the place up & running, they told me my job did not exist but could stop on as a member of the maintenance team, so I had been used. as I was close to retiring, I decided to stay, not what I wanted but money ok, job easy, I actually stopped on for 18 months after my due retirement date, eventually deciding to retire, personally I would not want the hassle of running a company close to retirement, but would reccomend perhaps contracting, let others do the admin.

geniusintraining said:

All kidding aside if you need anything you know my number and best of luck Brent!

Mark

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Thanks Mark. I am just dog tired of hearing "It's for financial reasons, you have done a wonderful job here". I guess that's how corporations here in the U.S. reward doing a wonderful job?

parky said:

would reccomend perhaps contracting, let others do the admin.

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Doing this contracting would require forming a business, would it not? I can't contract without a contractors license which is company specific.

You will be getting your first several jobs on the basis of your name and references. Getting your name into the company name isn't a bad idea. If you are an LLC that doesn't incur any additional personal liability.

Two pieces of advice I always give new businesses.
1) Most new businesses fail because of inadequate record-keeping and accounting.
2) Profit and loss are easy. Cash flow is the real problem.

You will be getting your first several jobs on the basis of your name and references. Getting your name into the company name isn't a bad idea. If you are an LLC that doesn't incur any additional personal liability.

Two pieces of advice I always give new businesses.
1) Most new businesses fail because of inadequate record-keeping and accounting.
2) Profit and loss are easy. Cash flow is the real problem.

FYI, one of my old employers had a couple of folks, that had there own businesses, that we would contract to do work for us. Since we covered all the paper work and such they worked at a discount form their normal rates. This enabled us to use them and still make money. For instance you charge $100 per hour we charge $125, but have more overheard, our employees, make around $50-55, we hire you for $75. You make less, but you have no risk, and we found the work.

Having a good relationship as a contractor an automaton firm may be a good thing.