I haven't "needed" the income since I was 30. That was a very long time ago. Few people really "need" the income, though they do need something to live on, but most want to be paid proportionately with their self-image. I have no illusions about my worth, hence, I don't see myself as "needing" that 10-figure income. I can "get by" just fine on 5 figures, though they ought to be to the left of the decimal point.

I was grateful for it when my late wife's insurance support ran out in the wake of her stroke. As you may know, the health "insurance" situation is very different here in the U.S. than in the civilized world. After her insurance stopped paying for her 24-hour-a-day health care requirement, I had to engage someone to handle it at my own expense. Though she and I had been divorced for many years, she was, after all, still my children's mother, and it was difficult for them, as teenagers, to understand what was going on. Letting the "system" throw her out onto the street would have been a bit much, I suspect.


One sure way to eliminate that annoyance is to move you to another location away from that noise.


The people with whom I've been working over the years are already "grown." I don't need to do anything to improve them because (a) they see to that themselves, and (b) they're already "up" to the job I have for them. I don't need to develop them.

When youngsters come around to ask for work, which they seldom do because I'm not "out there" where people can see me, and I use a home-office, which I've used for 20+ years, having learned, the hard, expensive way, that there's no real benefit in having a public office facility, they find that they can't do their personal business on my time, that they can't "enjoy" their media devices on the job, and they can't play with their toys on the job, they generally leave before they're even interviewed. That saves me LOTS of time.

I've mentioned before, that I've been asked to interview candidates for various positions with one client or another, and, having interviewed many youngsters, some with fine credentials from respected institutions, found that very, Very few were acceptable primarily due to their inability to process, interpret, and generate printed/written information. They rely entirely too much on tools without having learned the underlying processes. They can, sometimes, compose 10-term logic equations to describe a function, but can't reduce it because "the software does that." They can't function without tools like Mathcad or SPICE, which, while quite useful, still require some sense of what's going on.


The problem I most often encounter with "developers" under 45 years of age, is that they can't see the pattern even after all the pieces are in place.


For most people, according to my admittedly limited observation, the cellphone is an escape from their obligation to their employer, in the same way as smoking cigarettes once was. It's a way to "steal" a few moments for onesself without leaving the working environment. I don't mind people getting up from their workstation to "stretch their legs" or to "get some fresh air." It helps avoid repetitive motion disorders, and it allows them to "flush their buffers." I do mind people talking, especially as loudly as they often do with cellphones that lack the usual sidetone, such that other can hear, even if they're not shouting, which, often enough, they are. Likewise, whereas I wouldn't mind that people listen to their electronic toys, too often they're saying to someone else, "Hey, you've got to hear this one ..." or the like, or playing with their media device. That doesn't help their focus, nor does it even suggest they had any focus in the first place. The same thing is generally reflected in their performance, and I've found that those who are "plugged in" to media devices are often the ones most likely to be behind schedule. I'm not as concerned that people be "comfortable" as I am that people be productive. As a result, I engage a very few people in the work I do, and they are the ones who will produce with minimal direction and supervision. I don't want to train people. I want to gain from their skills and experience. That's why I pay them. Whether they prefer electonica or Gregorian chant is of no concern to me.

RE