The Lexicographer's Rules

Susan Walker sent me a note telling me that my entry for repot inspired her article at Fox News about making a career change. (Source Link)

Mr. Grant Barrett,

How does one even begin to post a comment to a professional Lexicographer who has a full command of language and has his very own Lexicographer’s Rules?…

I guess you just say “Thank You.”

Today I was working on 8 customer units in my home (I am, I will proudly say, a 6th year home based Freelance Computer Help Technician).

All were in some sort of scanning mode giving me plenty of time to surf the net, research problems, play poker on-line, read the news, read mail, etc. today...So I was multitasking and net surfing’.

To make a very long story a wee bit shorter, I ran across a posting on Free Republic you made way back in 2003. (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/958885/posts#comment).

I’d read this posting somewhere before not very long after you wrote it as it was extremely familiar, and had already been instituting many of your guidelines & suggestions for quite a few years. I could actually have written it if you had not done so first as many of our attitudes, actions, and feelings about the business and its model were more than just similar, but more like exact. (Free phone & e-mail support, research and learn constantly, no charge for travel, go anywhere & do anything even if just for the experience of doing so, educate, educate & educate the customer & never fearing educating your customers would run you out of business, etc).

I read it again in its entirety today. I have spent the last year culling my small business customer & home computer user customer list of the repetitive (though reasonably profitable), “dead wood”, and have decided to branch out and take that next step - “Re-Pot & Recharge,” so to speak.

One can get very comfortable working in your own business setting your own hours and not advance to the next level as the years go by and the customer list grows & grows. Sometimes it gets downright overwhelming. Your words re-read brought me to a much needed decision point in my life.

I’m taking that long awaited vacation to recharge the batteries and re-evaluate what is next and what move is best when I return. I’m booking the room, the flight & packing my bags. I just e-mailed those accounts remaining on my customer list, and worked out a deal w/ an honest competitor to service my customers while I re-charge. (No worries, he is the same one I referred those other customers to. I trained him and helped him get established in the business over the last year, and he’s very honest so I can trust him).

I still get referrals on an occasional basis from the very first customers I ever charged in my business so I know the model is right and works...I just need to make that next competitive step. I want (no I need), - to shoot for the larger contract, a project that will challenge my mind a bit further in the near future.

I’ll still continue build custom business & gaming computers for anyone from Portland, Maine to San Diego, CA -Seattle to Miami and all point in between, as I so love that aspect of what I do. When I finish a business machine or custom dual boot or multi-boot gaming machine and ship it I get that prideful feeling of actually creating something from nothing. My craftsmanship and tech support is second to none...Those things are like children to me.

Yes, I’m suffering a bit of freelance computer tech help burnout. The tasks of what I do daily are getting a bit too repetitive at this stage in life and though I really pride myself on the “very very cheesy” computer troubleshooting slogan “No night too long, No coffee too strong, To get to the bottom of exactly what’s wrong.” Those troubleshooting problems that used to keep me up nights researching and solving are a very rare thing these days.

Most of the computers I work on now have my own format & maint. utilities setup on them, are updated on a very regular basis and virtually maintain themselves now. The customers were given the tools to clear crapware, spyware, and the like and properly taught how to use them regularly by yours truly. Sure, I still get many daily maint./troubleshooting calls, but it usually is a simple user setting problem or Anti-Virus subscription date missed or a virus cleaning needed because of it.

Again, I say Thanks!

CGL Computer Consultants
Kingman, AZ.

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