OT: marketing your business

[Jimmie_Ohio]

You wouldnt go to a proctologist for a nose job...

Depends on where your head is... Some people I know would need to.

 

[testsubject]

This is all good stuff. It is making me rethink my plans of possibly going it on my own after I graduate (Dec 2007).

 

[CaseyK]

Hey Bob, how's it going? About 15 years ago, I thought about having an office in Joliet. Since I lived in Bloomington, there was great passenger train service, and it was close enough that I could drive. I was young(er) and energetic, and optomistic (beyond belief). I don't know how it would have worked. But I always thought there was enough business in the neighborhood to support me!

I can't help but think that there would be plenty work in your area and nearby. Actually, in a 30 mile radius, it should be phenominal!!!

But, you can't ever be too cautious. In your "hometown" there is a company with a 3-letter name that I can't remember, the seem to always need a controls guy, 'specially if he travels (READ: flies)!I was getting a lot of calls from Mokena and Romeoville for quite a while, but they've slowed down lately.

I'd say "Go For It"!, but I would want to have another project or two lined up. Actually, I would like to be able to work on two or three at the same time, say, each one 20 hours a week.

Down here where I am, is the three highest counties of unemploymeny in the midwest, in not the country. Places are posting wiring jobs at minimum wage and getting a selection to choose from. Factories that were advertising $18/hr for electricians, are now posting $14. Engineers? Those are the guys that work for the railroad.

Hope it works out well for you. But with the "Big City" Degree, you have a lot of new opportunities.

Maybe, teaching "Stoplights" at "Lewis"???

bestest regards.....kc

 

[testsubject]

Casey,

I am doing pretty good. I quit the job I was at before. My boss had hired someone to replace me about a year ago and he is pretty much up to speed so I felt comfortable leaving them without being the cause of the company going bankrupt.

I have a new job now which I am not sure I am going to stay at but it was a means to get away from the old one. It is rather funny how I got it. My daughter is friends with the owner's daughter and when my daughter mentioned that I was going to school, he asked her to pass on their website to check out. I did and now am working there.

I am now officially a Field Test Engineer. This company enters new ComEd substations and test all the equipment prior to lighting it up with electricity. So there is a lot of wiring checks, terminal checks, transformer checks, checks, checks, checks.... What I like about it so far is that it is not too mentally tasking and I will not be called out at all hours to fix something. Plus, they are very flexible with the hours worked. This works well with me finishing school. But I am not working with PLCs anymore. At least not directly. There are devices in the substation that operate similar to PLCs which are called relays by everyone here and they do have PLCs made by Modicon that everyone here calls SCADA. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to program either one. Any discrepancies I find have to be documented and then sent back to the engineers to have them make changes. Then those are sent back and re-entered into the device and it is checked again to see if the changes worked. There are layers and layers of bureaucracy here. That is one thing I am not used to having to deal with.

I guess I am afraid of losing all the skills I have developed over the past 15 years due to inactivity. This summer, I plan on just converting wiring diagrams that I can get from work into ACE type documents so I do not forget how to use ACE. The PLC I hope to keep up just by reviewing how the relays are programmed and seeing how they work.

It should be an interesting first year...

After all that, I do not think I will be contributing as much here but will still troll periodically to see what is going on.

Bob