Flutterby™! : Aaargh, Part deux

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Aaargh, Part deux

2003-11-02 21:48:05.561227+00 by Dan Lyke 1 comments

After expressing frustration with my job, some options opened, one of which is a short-term development project that seems interesting and challenging and that seems to fit nicely schedule-wise into current employment projects. I'm currently distracting myself from trying to figure out exactly what the number is that would make me a fool not to take it, and filling in all the numbers for

(salary + equity risk) * (months of job + expected time to find work after) * (1 + self-employment tax rate)

And coming up with numbers for all of those things is damned hard. Especially since after that previous post I had a chat with my boss about some of my frustrations, and we're doing okay for the moment (and we're good drinking and hiking buddies outside the work environment anyway), so... Anyway, one of the really tough numbers to come up with is that "expected time to find work after", I'm up against the fact that in my last few job changes that's been a negative number, but I keep running into folks who are talking double-digit months.

Risk assessment is hard. I've always sucked at the freelancing thing in the past, but I need a change, something to kick me into new ways of thinking, and in the next few years I want to be involved from the ground floor in a guidance role on some innovative product development. No answers, just (possibly dangerously) musing out loud.

[ related topics: Dan's Life Work, productivity and environment ]

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#Comment Re: Aaargh, Part deux made: 2003-11-03 00:06:24.248332+00 by: aiworks [edit history]

I know that Federal SE tax is 15.3% (of course it's more complex than that, but it's a good high end estimate).

Expected time to find work will depend on many factors (geography, what part of the year you're looking, etc...). You mention that you've had a negative number for that in the past. I would think that taking that number into account would make a lot of sense: it shows how long it takes for you to generate some interest. Perhaps you take the absolute value of the average of this number from the past and then add some on to be safe.

I suspect you have a handle on the values for months of job and salary variables.

Equity risk might be a tiered value: how far ahead will you let someone else get. There's a big difference between getting paid in advance versus lagging behind some.