Business Ideas

[mudflap]

Easiest way to get gold off of computer parts that I have seen.

so that's like $90 today.

[mudflap]

some things I've learned searching for a job with the usual websites (linkedin, indeed, careerbuilder):

- most jobs being currently advertised are fake -you'll either hear nothing, or you'll get an automated rejection letter.
- most folks (hr and otherwise) say a computer screens all the resumes before they ever get to a real person. Everything is filtered based on key words - the computer takes the job description, and looks for key words in your resume to try to find a match ratio, then filters the resumes that don't match as well and throws them out.
- some companies keep a list of "open jobs" up, just to make it look like they are growing. But if you look at the economic numbers (subtract about 150k to get the real number, because Harris's department of labor is lying - no seriously: every jobs report has been revised downward for over a year) - anyway, most months have only seen 100k jobs filled - that's not a growing economy, that's just kids getting out of high school and finding their first job. so nobody is hiring, or very few companies are hiring. I've applied for at least 1 job every day since april - about 180 jobs. I haven't had one interview. not one. Half of the time, I hear nothing. The other half, it's a rejection notice. Maybe 10 rejection letters came from what looks like an actual person. compared this to 2013, the last time I was looking - I was getting interviews about half the time, and rejection notices the other half.

- it's still "who you know":
Ok, I manage web portal for some clients to check info about their customers - I don't want to give away my industry or job. This web portal was provided to my former employer by a 3rd party, but they allowed us to brand it as our own. I also maintain an Android app, and a proprietary platform written in C (I don't code, I just read logs from the code).

Anyway, my former employer was bought out by a competitor. They said our division was doing the thing they wanted to do, so "we're not going to fire anyone," and then every 60 days, they've proceeded to fire everyone around me. And finally they fired me. No one is trained at the new company on supporting clients who use that portal. No one asked me for training. No one would even tell me who I was supposed to report to at the new company. So for the past 6 months, I've just been doing what I've always done -provide support to the clients, and the internal customer care folks. They've also decided to stop supporting the android app and the other platform. There are a few thousand customers still using those platforms - now with no support. I was in the middle of some support tickets when they fired me -locked me out of my computer, read me my rights. didn't even get my one phone call, lol.

Today, one of the directors contacted me and said she is desperately trying to get the new company to bring me back at least as a contractor. lol. I think I'll demand $100/hr to help them out.

I also got a "severance package" worth about 1.5 months worth of pay.

Plus I get my final paycheck.

Plus today: the 3rd party platform CEO contacted me and said they were interested in hiring me as a project manager - doing the exact same thing I was doing with my former employer. <- this is "who you know".

I have a 1099 job lined up for Monday (maybe) installing industrial shelving for $600.

And a log cabin guy says I can help out on a cabin they are building up the road for $30/hr.

----
I told my wife: if all of this pans out, I get my hoophouse, right? She said, "yes, and I get my wrap-around deck."

nothing is for sure. I could be jobless for a while. Or I might have some income next week. who knows....It's an interesting situation, for sure.

[Fred]

For someone with a little time on their hands, some money is free for the finding. Buying a monster box of half dollars, pulling out the silver ones, and selling the rest back to the bank. Banks use automated rollers that do not differentiate between silver and sandwich coins. Same with quarters.

But even for pennies, this guy got $14 worth of copper out of a penny monster box. Course you just sell the worthless pennies back to the bank for a penny each.

[Seed Starter]

some things I've learned searching for a job with the usual websites (linkedin, indeed, careerbuilder):

- most jobs being currently advertised are fake -you'll either hear nothing, or you'll get an automated rejection letter.
- most folks (hr and otherwise) say a computer screens all the resumes before they ever get to a real person. Everything is filtered based on key words - the computer takes the job description, and looks for key words in your resume to try to find a match ratio, then filters the resumes that don't match as well and throws them out.
- some companies keep a list of "open jobs" up, just to make it look like they are growing. But if you look at the economic numbers (subtract about 150k to get the real number, because Harris's department of labor is lying - no seriously: every jobs report has been revised downward for over a year) - anyway, most months have only seen 100k jobs filled - that's not a growing economy, that's just kids getting out of high school and finding their first job. so nobody is hiring, or very few companies are hiring. I've applied for at least 1 job every day since april - about 180 jobs. I haven't had one interview. not one. Half of the time, I hear nothing. The other half, it's a rejection notice. Maybe 10 rejection letters came from what looks like an actual person. compared this to 2013, the last time I was looking - I was getting interviews about half the time, and rejection notices the other half.

- it's still "who you know":
Ok, I manage web portal for some clients to check info about their customers - I don't want to give away my industry or job. This web portal was provided to my former employer by a 3rd party, but they allowed us to brand it as our own. I also maintain an Android app, and a proprietary platform written in C (I don't code, I just read logs from the code).

Anyway, my former employer was bought out by a competitor. They said our division was doing the thing they wanted to do, so "we're not going to fire anyone," and then every 60 days, they've proceeded to fire everyone around me. And finally they fired me. No one is trained at the new company on supporting clients who use that portal. No one asked me for training. No one would even tell me who I was supposed to report to at the new company. So for the past 6 months, I've just been doing what I've always done -provide support to the clients, and the internal customer care folks. They've also decided to stop supporting the android app and the other platform. There are a few thousand customers still using those platforms - now with no support. I was in the middle of some support tickets when they fired me -locked me out of my computer, read me my rights. didn't even get my one phone call, lol.

Today, one of the directors contacted me and said she is desperately trying to get the new company to bring me back at least as a contractor. lol. I think I'll demand $100/hr to help them out.

I also got a "severance package" worth about 1.5 months worth of pay.

Plus I get my final paycheck.

Plus today: the 3rd party platform CEO contacted me and said they were interested in hiring me as a project manager - doing the exact same thing I was doing with my former employer. <- this is "who you know".

I have a 1099 job lined up for Monday (maybe) installing industrial shelving for $600.

And a log cabin guy says I can help out on a cabin they are building up the road for $30/hr.

----
I told my wife: if all of this pans out, I get my hoophouse, right? She said, "yes, and I get my wrap-around deck."

nothing is for sure. I could be jobless for a while. Or I might have some income next week. who knows....It's an interesting situation, for sure.

I 2nd your experience on the job front. That's reality right now. And you're a tech worker... I see supposed jobs in software, IT, renewable energy, and AI mostly but still no interviews for you? Crazy times!

[Fred]

[mudflap]

some things I've learned searching for a job with the usual websites (linkedin, indeed, careerbuilder):

- most jobs being currently advertised are fake -you'll either hear nothing, or you'll get an automated rejection letter.
- most folks (hr and otherwise) say a computer screens all the resumes before they ever get to a real person. Everything is filtered based on key words - the computer takes the job description, and looks for key words in your resume to try to find a match ratio, then filters the resumes that don't match as well and throws them out.
- some companies keep a list of "open jobs" up, just to make it look like they are growing. But if you look at the economic numbers (subtract about 150k to get the real number, because Harris's department of labor is lying - no seriously: every jobs report has been revised downward for over a year) - anyway, most months have only seen 100k jobs filled - that's not a growing economy, that's just kids getting out of high school and finding their first job. so nobody is hiring, or very few companies are hiring. I've applied for at least 1 job every day since april - about 180 jobs. I haven't had one interview. not one. Half of the time, I hear nothing. The other half, it's a rejection notice. Maybe 10 rejection letters came from what looks like an actual person. compared this to 2013, the last time I was looking - I was getting interviews about half the time, and rejection notices the other half.

- it's still "who you know":
Ok, I manage web portal for some clients to check info about their customers - I don't want to give away my industry or job. This web portal was provided to my former employer by a 3rd party, but they allowed us to brand it as our own. I also maintain an Android app, and a proprietary platform written in C (I don't code, I just read logs from the code).

Anyway, my former employer was bought out by a competitor. They said our division was doing the thing they wanted to do, so "we're not going to fire anyone," and then every 60 days, they've proceeded to fire everyone around me. And finally they fired me. No one is trained at the new company on supporting clients who use that portal. No one asked me for training. No one would even tell me who I was supposed to report to at the new company. So for the past 6 months, I've just been doing what I've always done -provide support to the clients, and the internal customer care folks. They've also decided to stop supporting the android app and the other platform. There are a few thousand customers still using those platforms - now with no support. I was in the middle of some support tickets when they fired me -locked me out of my computer, read me my rights. didn't even get my one phone call, lol.

Today, one of the directors contacted me and said she is desperately trying to get the new company to bring me back at least as a contractor. lol. I think I'll demand $100/hr to help them out.

I also got a "severance package" worth about 1.5 months worth of pay.

Plus I get my final paycheck.

Plus today: the 3rd party platform CEO contacted me and said they were interested in hiring me as a project manager - doing the exact same thing I was doing with my former employer. <- this is "who you know".

I have a 1099 job lined up for Monday (maybe) installing industrial shelving for $600.

And a log cabin guy says I can help out on a cabin they are building up the road for $30/hr.

----
I told my wife: if all of this pans out, I get my hoophouse, right? She said, "yes, and I get my wrap-around deck."

nothing is for sure. I could be jobless for a while. Or I might have some income next week. who knows....It's an interesting situation, for sure.

I 2nd your experience on the job front. That's reality right now. And you're a tech worker... I see supposed jobs in software, IT, renewable energy, and AI mostly but still no interviews for you? Crazy times!

yup. October jobs report hit on Friday: just 12k jobs were created under Harris. anyone who votes for her deserves to get fired or laid off. probably the worst jobs report ever, if it's even honest, which I don't think it is. Imagine if it gets revised downward next month by 100k jobs like every other monthly report for the last year +....

I've done a few odd 1099 jobs - one was to replace the rubber bumpers on the locker doors at a Home Depot - you know: those lockers where if you order something online, they stick it in a locker and you can pick it up anytime. It paid $100, so I figured an hour's work would be ok to do it. Another was running some alarm wiring for a new costco. I was up on a scissor lift 25' up while manuevering around new tv's on pallets trying not to tip over or squish anything. That one paid $300, but it was an all day job - 10-6. I might be cleaning a robot tomorrow for $250....

I was going to pound rebar into logs for a guy building a log cabin this week for $300 a day, but one of my coworkers contacted me yesterday and said my old job wants me back as a contractor....apparently they didn't know there was an entire platform I was supporting that they now know nothing about! I woulda told them about it.....but they never asked me about it in the 6 months since they bought the company. I didn't even officially have a supervisor that entire time to report it to, so the yolks on them. Now they have a few thousand customers using a system that nobody in the company has any idea how to run. Sure I can do it as a contractor now, but I think it's going to cost them a lot more than it would have, had they just kept me on. or asked me what doing my job actually meant. Am I being bitter here? lol...

I had 2 interviews (the only two interviews I've had since April) with the company who provided that platform I mentioned above - I would've been doing something similar for them like what I was doing with my previous job, but that job dried up - they said they changed plans and are no longer hiring. I mean, with only 12k jobs created in October, this isn't surprising - the gov. is the only place hiring - gotta make missiles and bombs to help the Harris wars, dontchaknow....

Meanwhile, I ran into a guy from church at a CVS - he thinks we were supposed to run into each other. He says he lost his job back in 2012 - he actually laid himself off as a supervisor to save 3 other guys' jobs. They, in turn, built the company back up, and ended up hiring him back on. so you can see he's extremely Christ-like. Anyway, he said he always remembers a story I told in EQ one time about leaving early to get somewhere so I had time to stop and help folks broken down on the side of the road if needed - he asked for my resume, so I sent it to him, and within 2 hours, he had responded with a reply that he had forwarded it to 3 different companies he has contacts at to take a look and see what they can do for me. Says he's just super impressed with me

Which is really touching actually. Here's a guy who tries to live by the Spirit, is super humble, doesn't believe in chance meetings, says he'll do something, and then actually does it. where do you find that in the world today?

[Original_Intent]

That's an anomaly, the majority of boxes I have done in the past couple of years I would say have averaged less than 1 silver per monster box (doing quarters, halves, and dimes)

As in, unless you are very lucky or have a fast way of processing monster boxes in bulk, it is not profitable these days. Inless you get lucky and some nincompoop found and spent grandma's silver cache at the liquor store.

[BeNotDeceived]

Anyone attend or present 1mc.

[mudflap]

update on "how it's going" being "unemployed"

1. I finally signed up for unemployment - first time I've ever done that. I wasn't going to do that because I thought I couldn't do 1099 work if I did that, but I was wrong - as long as I'm "underemployed", don't spend more than 50% of my time "self-employed", and apply to 3 (ghost*) jobs every week, I can still get the money. I figure Harris owes me something, might as well put my tax dollars from the last 30 years of work....to work. And also: I thought I'd have a job by this point (3 weeks in), but no....

2. I'm starting to finally get some cabling jobs as a 1099 contractor. I've installed alarm wiring at a costco on a scissor lift ($300), fixed some portable cash registers ($100 each), a phone in a hotel room ($100), handheld scanner at a lululemon ($100). Tomorrow, I'm fixing a phone line at a dollar general and some kind of alarm system failure at a racetrack ($150 each).

3. I have to supply all my own tools. I already had my set up ready to go from when I was doing this from 2010 - 2013 - a tool backpack with all my telco tools and troubleshooting equipment. I bought a thousand foot roll of cable today for $220 (that's $0.22/ft). Most jobs pay the going rate of $0.65/ft, so I'll make that money back before I get through half the box.

4. my truck is probably the biggest problem - I was only getting 6 mpg last week. I traced out some more wiring and replaced suspicious wiring and adjusted my timing, and I guess I'm up to 11 mpg. have to go through another tank of gas to get a good measurement. I can (and definitely will) claim mileage on my taxes.

5. I'm competing against sometimes up to 10 other techs in my area on fieldnation.com, but this week, I think I started to hit my stride and I'm getting work assigned to me instead of having to beg for it so much. most of these jobs will average out to about $40 / hr:


6. I signed up for starlink satellite installation jobs, but the guy is being cagey about the job details. When I looked into satellite installation contracting in the past, it was always a "work you to death" kind of a set up: they demand you be available 12 hours a day, 7 days a week - but promise you $75k/year. I don't want to die for money though. I also looked at thumbtack where I could put furniture together for folks in their homes, but I'd have to provide my own liability insurance - not ready to do that

------------------
*Ghost jobs: there are no jobs right now in the Harris economy - not unless you know someone. Still no interviews -except the 1 where I knew the guy. lots of automated rejection emails though: "although your resume is impressive...."

-----------

So we wait on the Lord. He knows what we need.

[Momma J]

My husband (with Parkinsons) needed a hobby to keep his mind nimble. I picked up some badly used (free) yard equipment and told him that I believed he could figure out how to get them running again. He had zero knowledge of small engine repair, but he knows how to find and watch youtube tutorials.

We are now the proud owners of a 2005 John Deere riding lawn mower. He rebuilt the carburetor, replaced belts, completely rebuilt the deck. (not sure what all he replaced) but it runs smooth and cuts like a dream. When I brought it home, it would start, but smoked so heavily that I thought it was going to catch on fire. The pullies on the deck were frozen and all the bolts were rusted on.

He has now fixed our log splitter, repaired a gifted old rototiller, tuned up the push mower, and repaired a half dozen chain saws.

He is not fast, but I think it will be good for extra income if I can find discarded yard equipment and let him fix and then resell.