u/DirtyOught

10 YOE and have had many jobs (due to startups, quick career leveling, dissatisfaction). Every job ends up the same after a few months where I only work a few hours a day. Idk why. I assume a mix of 1) I’m good at what I do 2) time management 3) ADHD + hyper fixation making me efficient 4) I never thought my stack/niche was really difficult. 

After working up to senior levels and near 200k salary at LCOL, I’m no longer using that free time to ask for more responsibilities and promotions. I’m content. Beyond this is not a good ROI at this point in my life. Instead that time goes to hobbies and personal life. But I still have tons of time regardless. 

Thus, I still feel as though I’m leaving so much on the table. I’ve literally joked to my wife how I could’ve easily done multiple of my previous jobs at the same time and it would have been fun and a cake walk and 2x pay. But of course I never wanna play do the “OE” thing. I just feel like I’m not taking advantage of what I’m good at and enjoy. 

I also dreamed of one day being able to “retire” early from working for a company and do LLC stuff contracting when I’m 45-65yo. I like what I do. I don’t dream of retiring and never working again but instead being able to be financially independent and make money with my skills on my time

Moreover, when starting a family soon, if my wife can stay at home and not work, it would be a blessing. 

I’ve been fishing with some recruiters who contact me for contract roles. I impress them and could easily get them if I perused. My only requirements would be: 1099 only via my LLC + Working hours outside my main job. 

Looking for advice or feedback on this. I’m sure some of you all do this. 

software

my main job is sweet. amazing and would never risk it for being over employed at multiple other w2s where I start slacking and raising red flags.

with that said, since I’m used to fast startups, my main job goes slow, thus I have tons of free time because I have 10YOE and am good at what I do.

I constantly think I’m just waisting my skill set. I could be making more by doing this skill in my free time for others. I had a few side gigs in the past that were nice to utilize this skill set, but I stopped and don’t really have enough local business to market myself

lately I’ve had linkedin recruiters contact me about contract/parttime/contract to hire roles that I previously always ignored. but now thinking of starting conversations with them

I just don’t know how to go about, nor what to disclose. do I be completely honest about “ill work as an independent contractor, part time and deliver exceptional work under budget (providing my past work experience) but I still will be employed at my w2 company. if this is something you’d be interested in, let me know”? to make it clear I’m acting as a freelance contractor intentionally on the side to through my LLC? this would likely only be desirable for small tiny startups but that’s the point. to avoid the w2 overemployment at two companies without either knowing I’m working the other

thoughts?

I have my personal Mac, work Mac and my iPhone.

I tend to switch between audio on all three depending on what im doing.

Bose 700 can connect to 2 devices and switches between them well. No issues. Its me having a third device that makes it hell because given that Macs and iPhones around the house are always "on" and technically still paired/connected/listening for connection, I can not disconnect. so the following happens...

Early in the day, I'm on my personal Mac connected. Then I work and connect them to my Work Mac. I shut both, and leave them in my office, and head to a different room, or sometimes even outside and try and connect to my iPhone (which has been connected plenty of times prior)... and nothing... wont connect no matter what...

I have to walk back inside to one of my two Macs and turn off the bluetooth or disconnect my bose 700 manually. every. single. time. i want to start listening to the "third" device. some days that third device is my iphone, other days its one of the macs.

absolutely frustrating. please tell me im doing something wrong

10 years into software engineering and I think I’m in the “it’s just a job” phase.

Not in a bad way. I actually like my job. I’m good at it. I finally work at a solid company that pays well, is WFH, and moves at a good pace - after years of startup chaos

Early in my career, I was obsessed with promotions, raises, moving up, code quality, perfection, moving fast, etc. 

That resulted in a thick 401k, and my current level and decent salary. 

But how, I do my work at a reasonable pace, no more, then log off, and go live my life. Often times working not a whole lot during the day if I get my work done early in AM. 

I follow tech news hardly anymore. I care less about online dev discourse. Most 1:1s with my manager are just me trying to come up with something to talk about since this has been pretty sweet. Most engineering problems after 10 years start feeling like variations of the same thing anyway. Especially in my stack. enough tech disagreements have worn me down to not even care anymore.

Idk how long this will last. Joys of a good job. It could end tomorrow. 

I just wanna do the skill that I enjoy and don’t loathe, at a reasonable pace, make good money, and max out my 401k so I can say “fuck you” and be financially independent on the past earnings.

as I say all this… it sometimes is hard because my inner self starts to wonder “am I coasting too much? I’m not used to this. normally you’re stressed or pushing towards a new goal” and now I’m targeting “doing enough to not throw red flag that I’m actually out cutting up firewood in my backyard after 2pm”

pontoon sat for nearly 1.5-2 years at 1/2 tank

did the annual maintenance on it and got it running.

then took to lake, got it in the water, and after driving off the dock for 2min slowly, we then put it at higher RPMs to see it run faster...

RPMs started stalling and then then it kicked off.

trying to restart and it would just putter out.

raised the trim a bit and were able to start and have it putter around but as soon as we put it in gear it would die off.

we kept doing so for 5min. one or two times we got it in gear but it died quickly after.

finally, after getting it in gear again, we immediately gave it throttle and pealed away and it stayed on. we got back to the dock but then lowered down to idle speed and kept it going for a while.

ended up staying near the dock. turned it off. back on. up to speed. down slow. all normal again.

bad gas in the fuel lines? something else? something to be worried about for next trip?

We have a shower drain that's smelly. P-trap works, and used a drain snake to clear any debris. It just has a film of bacteria/soap/scum inside the drain that we cannot get to without going through dry-wall in the ceiling.

Seems like a good use case for enzyme cleaner powders to remove that film of bacteria causing a smell

I'm sure Bio-Clean is $50 because it works... but do we need that or can we just do the $10 Zep/other brands? or is that wasting money

$200-400 for a normal looking one.

$100 for what looks to be a tiny mini hoop that would be stupid small.

I'm assuming there's a reason why they are expensive? Just need some direction on what to get