Steve Firth
It's a pittance compared to some bits of IT. With the amount of outsourcing and offshoring going on, there's not much icing left on the cake - nice of course for those who can stay up there and eat it, though. (Or perhaps the amount of icing has remained constant but those up there are greedier.)
Give him a medal 502Alex Heney You haven`t noticed it conciously, but it does happen. It`s tiny little fractions of a second, milliseconds - nothing more. but throw a few...
I know two people who've retrained as driving instructors. Both claim to be much happier as a result. Any stress is of course self-inflicted. They also cite being their own boss as a major plus. Each had reached the point where they did not *need* to keep earning what they had previously been used to, which may be a critical factor.
The accountant cost element seems very low. You can do the book-keeping yourself but then you get whacked more for the signing-off. Many freelancers figure it's easier to pay for everything to be done by an accountant.
Clearly, getting shut of the franchise may make the biggest difference. Both of my acquaintances are independent. But both had reasonable networks of contacts to help them get started.
-- "The buck doesn't even slow down here!"
