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Very long answer. Get your coffee before starting.I was born on a little farm to a father who was a carpenter and a mother who was a housewife. No, this isn’t the story of Jesus.Anyways, my first memories were of escaping my room and the confines of the house as a three year old and running around the farm by myself as my poor mother struggled with isolation and my two younger sisters. I’d spend my days chasing cows, sleeping in the long grass with the cows and occasionally getting myself tangled in barbed wire. I still have the scars on my eyebrows and eye lids from that.We moved into town by the time I was 5 and lived in a rundown old house on a big block until my father built a new place out of red bricks. I remember helping to knock down the old place, pretending to be an insecticon with my back legs as I smashed panels and kicked out windows.I’d always wake up early and read until it was light enough to go outside and into the tangled expanse of the rear yard, which had been used to dump the rubble of the first house in a great horseshoe hill shape. I’d make tree houses and little bows from our fig trees. I’d watch the chickens scratch in the dirt of their enclosure and sometimes I’d wander off across the fields because our house was at the edge of town.My parents had decided I should play music so I took up violin and they say I was pretty good at it. I never really like it though, I was more interested in learning about bugs and fish, not to mention dinosaurs and dragons. Once when I saw the next door neighbours kids throwing rotten nectarines at our chickens I vowed revenge because the chooks were my friends. (I didn’t have many friends) so I jumped over the fence and chopped down their fruit trees with a hatchet. Of course I got into trouble and my parents made me busk for money until I could pay the neighbours back the cost of the trees and fruit…their kids never got in trouble though. I hated playing violin after that.School sucked, I didn’t like being in a big class and once when I got bitten on the eye by a mosquito and it puffed up really bad my parents were called to the school because the teacher thought they were beating me. You might think that meant the teacher cared for me but she didn’t, she just enjoyed causing trouble. I found out last week she’d died recently and that gave me mixed feelings.I made a couple of friends, mostly through my parents’ friends. The Empire Strikes Back had just come out and I was Star Wars crazy, I tried playing with a couple of boys I saw with the new shiny toys and they decided they hated me. That little episode may have been responsible to the 12 year bullying I experienced from those same kids, I’m not sure.I liked the library at school. I’d read Tin Tin and Asterisk comics and when I was in year 2 I read through the entire Narnia chronicles. I loved The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. When we visited my Oma and Opa I rattled on about it, it wasn’t long before a copy of the Hobbit appeared in Opa’s library and I started reading that although it was hard at the time.Dad was still working away a lot of the time so I didn’t get to see him too often. I ’d play with my sisters a bit and took up soccer, I loved slide tackling other kids but never had much interest in scoring goals.We moved to Victoria when I was ten and lived in a seaside town called Portland. I had two friends, they were brothers. Almost every weekend day and some weekdays as well, we’d go fishing. Riding our bikes, modified to carry buckets and rods down to the piers where the sheep transports pulled in. We’d crawl under the docks and fish for squid in the dark. Sometimes we’d catch conger eels to sell to the lobster fishermen as bait. Conger eels take a long time to die so we’d beat them to death with hammers on the rocks next to the dock. The tourists who came to the docks to see the ships landing were probably horrified to see three ten/eleven year old kids smashing a three metre eel to death. We just wanted to trade the eel for the lobster…which we’d use as bait to catch fish. Kids don’t really understand the idea of how expensive lobster is.I only lived there for two years before we moved back to my hometown in South Australia. Everything had changed. All of my friends were at different schools and I was this shy, fey looking kid who liked to daydream and talk about fishing. I didn’t feel close to many other kids but made friends with a group a year older than me who were into Guns and Roses and skateboarding. Skating in a country town sucks, the’re no concrete or hills, just pitted bitumen, except for the school which is where we’d skate most weekends.My Dad had stopped moving around for work so much and we lived in an apartment that used to be part of an old hospital, there were catacombs beneath it that were crazy creepy. I spent a lot of time down there. There was a creek down the back next to a rail line and I’d spend a lot of time after school catching minnows, shrimp and yabbies that I’d then keep in a couple of fishtanks, I’d sketch pictures of them and read about them in my Opa’s library that always had books about the things I’d chatter about…I didn’t make the connection between the books and my Opa…I feel pretty dense about that now.When I was in my first year of highschool we moved out of town again, to a block of land six k’s away that my Opa had bought years before. It had a pine tree plantation on it and was supposed to be our families nest egg, but then the Ash Wednesday bush fires had happened and burnt it to the ground. Because of the volcanic soil and limestone the fire services had to run a grader across the whole property to make sure no fires were smouldering below ground, so it was six acres of hilly rock spires with pine regrowth jutting out at odd angles. A perfect place for snakes, lizards and bull ants, not to mention rabbits.My dad built our home there, our real home. Once the frame was up we lived there for six months without power and with water heated by a combustion stove. The hillbillies on the hill we were. I loved it, I’d read by candlelight and couldn’t wait to get home after school so I could range across the land chasing rabbits and finding bee hives. I had a bow I’d shoot at things but was more interesting in pilfering apples from the neighboring farms. My wildness garnered me a few friends who enjoyed the freedom of staying with me over the weekend as many of their parents were pretty strict.At school, things weren’t so great. I was still getting bullied by the kids from primary school and now their siblings joined in too. I spent a lot of time avoiding the “jocks” and reading in the library. Being outside meant having to deal with other kids. To make matters worse most of the other boys were growing fast and I was still small and skinny, not to mention weird. I’d hang out with my friends on weekends but during the week I felt pretty lonely, the only real exception being soccer practice on a Tuesday and Thursday where I’d train with the under 14s, the under 17s and the B graders. Mum would pick me up after work and we’d have pasta because I was ravenously hungry most days.My mum worked at the school where I went and everyone liked her. Everyone liked my sisters too, they were blessed with charisma and academic ability but I just felt stupid all the time. Mum kept telling me how clever I was but by the start of year 11 I felt like a failure. To make matters worse my sisters got scholarships to go away to a private school. I got one too but refused to leave my few friends for an unknown future. Better to be a loser in a small town than a massive loser in a big city, yeah?At the end of year 11 I had my big fight. Baart Groot's answer to What was your first fistfight like?Year 12 came and I studied art, drama, English, Geography and spud maths. I was doing okay for a while then dropped my bundle and flunked math in the final exam. B to D, just like that. Mum wasn’t happy. I did okay in dram though and learnt to enjoy wearing masks. At the end of the year mum cajoled me into applying for Uni, I did just to make her happy, thinking I wouldn’t have a chance but only missed out by half a point.I wasn’t worried though, my Dad said I could work with him as a builder and so for a few weeks I did, digging holes and shifting bricks and doing all the shitty jobs he could think of. I couldn’t understand, my Dad loved me so why was he being such an ass? I wasn’t a confrontational sort, but I called him for it.My Dad changed my life with what he told me.He explained that once, he’d wanted to be an artist and he’d even gone to art school briefly. But he’d gotten the shits with the order and expectations and had quit. He’d become a builder and that was that. My Dad, big, strong, quietly spoken and my hero had quit…and now he dug holes and planted posts. He didn’t want me to have that life because at around 40 it was beginning to hurt him and I wasn’t half as big as he was.He told me I should go back to school. So I did.I studied harder, not too hard but hard enough to get into Uni. It helped that all my friends had finished so I had few distractions besides girls that I pined after.I moved to the city at the end of 1995 and started Uni. I’d chosen Arts because I had not a clue what I wanted to do with my life. I like learning but hated being told what to do. I took history, English, politics and Classics…not really a road to employment. Mum moved from our hometown to the city to support us and my sister was also starting uni after finishing dux and prefect at her private school….I’d slopped through. Not exactly a golden child.There was a camp before uni started where all the freshers meet each other and my Mum cajoled me into going to “meet people”, I went just to get her off my back. When I was waiting to go I was sitting on the steps outside the apartment and I thought about my life up til now. I watched the two Iranian girls on the balcony opposite, thinking how beautiful they were, I could never get girls like that…or any girl I thought. The one time girls had liked me was when I was acting in drama, I had acted as a confident guy, a man with chutpah. The Real Inspector Hound the play was called.Fuck it, I was going to get the girl, I was going to act.I went to that camp and acted like a god. My weird clothes, combined with my fey confidence had a couple of girls hooked on me. They put my hair in pig tails and I dressed in purple velvet flares then all the freshers had a party at the local seaside pub. I was out of control and I loved it.At one point, after vomitting in the pub kitchen and staggering out to the main bar, girl in tow I shouted. “I’ve spewed and now I can’t kiss her any more.” sloshing my vodka over the giggling girl next to me. I then proceeded to pash her again, much to everyone’s delight.My persona was set and I spent first year of Uni acting my way to notoriety, I snogged and groped my way through dozens of girls, all the time wondering if I was ever going to have an actual relationship, while not attempting to pass any classes at all. My antics were wildly popular with the private school kids and I quickly made dozens of fair weather friends. Some even mistakenly thought I had gone to school with them and included me in their “remember when” stories of high school.By second year the gloss had faded and I withdrew from the limelight, having identified a few friends who were much more like I really was, even if they hid it well. They became some of my closest friends to this day. We played Warhammer and drank together, with me putting on my “party mask” three days a week and acting the clown to garner us the attentions of girls in night clubs and at parties.My Mum announced she was leaving my Dad.It hit me like an axe to the face.My Mum was leaving my Dad. I knew things had been hard with the moving away and the isolation but what?What?Mum concentrated on her work in the city but back in my home town Dad was struggling, he was tired of his job and being in the house alone sent him to drink. I basically walked away from any involvement and fixated on being drunk….that was easy. Third year of Uni was a blur of alcohol induced stupidity and barely passed exams but Uni was over. I didn’t know what to do.My friends who had studied science or engineering or law got jobs in their respective fields, my sister got engaged and I was glad the attention was on her. My youngest sister had moved across the country to pursue studies and I barely talked to her. I saw my Mum occasionally but it was forced and difficult, my resentment towards her grew.Sometimes, I spoke to Dad on the phone…that was really hard.Mum and Dad reconciled and the last year was wiped from my memory, I moved in with a friend and lived on a couch drinking home-brew beer and eating cheese sandwiches. I couldn’t find a job but I partied five nights a week. I could still live through my revels which was something.(Writing this all is really tiring)(Okay, I’m back)It was at the start of my second year of “Not much” that I was sitting on our shabby couch watching WWE with a room temperature beer in my hand when the phone rang. It was my uncle, which was surprising as although we got along well we weren’t exactly “chatty”. The conversation went something like this.U “Hello, Baart. I have a question for you.”B. “Uh, okay.”U. “Do you want a job?”B. “Uh, yeah.”U. “It starts in a fortnight.”B. “Heh, cool, okay.”U. “You’ll be teaching English.”B. “Uhhh Okay.”U. “In China.”B. “…………..”U. “Baart?”B. “Yeah, uh, okay…hold on.”(To housemate)B. “Hey Dj, you okay with me going overseas for a bit? I got a job.”DJ. (swigs on beer) “Sure, dude. Sweet.”That’s how I got my first decent job. (I’d done casual work as in hospitality but nothing of real interest)In two weeks I was in Shenyang, China. I didn’t have any money and was staying at a Uni without any clue of what my job entailed. Within a day I was teaching a group of pre-uni students grammar and conversational English.Strangely enough, I was a natural at it.Over the next few months I lived in Shenyang, I experienced my first sub-zero winter, had the local noodle shop owner proposition me to marry his daughter and began my love affairs with both China and teaching.Mum and Dad broke up for good, I didn’t know where she was for a couple of weeks and I was really angry about it. Dad was in a really dark place those days. But I couldn’t deal with it so I just left it all alone.When I moved back to Australia I wanted to study teaching, but it was December and applications to Uni in Adelaide had closed. I was crushed and prepared to spend another year of my life not doing much.My youngest sister rang about a week after I had gotten back, I was living with Dj again and had slipped easily into the old couch and homebrew beer.My sister was all business. University of Canberra still had applications open. She’d mailed me the forms express and I should apply. I could live with her or my childhood friend Michael who had moved there to be with his fiance.Within a fortnight I was living in Canberra with Michael and his fiance, shortly after a girl called Yoko moved in with us. She was obsessed with me and while it was nice at first the eventual death threats and suicide threats and arson threats got to me and I moved out to live with my sister.I spent a year in Canberra, it was good being near Michael because he’d always looked after me in school. I felt pretty safe which was good.My teaching practical was a disappointment. Three students assaulted me on the first day as I walked to the train station. I went into a rage and floored them, then walked back to the school and reported myself. I had to take a three week break until things calmed down, which affected my grades. My second practical was non-violent but still a disaster. My supervisor went on long service leave after two days, leaving me to be looked after by relief teachers who hadn’t been informed there was a trainee teacher taking the class. The students were furious and complained. I almost failed the practical but argued that without any support or curriculum I was pushing shit uphill. I got a conceded pass.I hated Canberra. My ‘lil sister is a real go getter and was always doing things. I didn’t manage to make a single friend in Canberra so I moved back to Adelaide as soon as I could…partly because I’d met a girl who was awesome. Pity she had a boyfriend at the time.But that didn’t last and I was ready. I moved in with my Mum and her new boyfriend. He was an arsehole alcoholic and he was dragging my mum with him. I couldn’t move out soon enough. I got a place with DJ again and we fell back into party mode. I didn’t know anyone with influence so I couldn’t get a teaching job anywhere. I ended up working a checkout in a supermarket from midnight til 8am five days a week. I didn’t mind but I could feel the pity from my Mum. I hardly saw my Dad at all and was happy when I had to work over the holidays because it meant not seeing my family.My relationship with Nikki went sour, my angst and anger had blown out and I was deceitful, manipulative and cruel. She broke up with me and I spent almost a year trying to get her back. To her great credit she remained civil and eventually we settled into a friendship although I was bitter for a long time. I was such an arsehole and I’m sorry for that.I continued on that way for another year and a bit, I had a few failed relationships, still partied too much and felt a bit lost. People would stop on the checkout and say “Baart, you’re really clever, why are you here?”That pissed me off. Heaps of the people in the supermarket were top folk, I hated the way people judged us and I hated how we were the butt of every joke about working class people. DJ moved to Queensland to work up there and my friend Daniel moved in. Daniel’s a genius, reserved, insightful and the main reason why I’d managed to evolve my relationship with Nikki into a friendship of sorts. He was struggling to find meaningful work as well. My work hours got cut and I descended into black moods.Daniel said he might like to go overseas to work. That sounded like a good idea and we decided on Japan, I guess I had wistful thoughts of Yoko in Canberra because she’d told some awesome stories. We got jobs with a big English teaching company and were all ready to go when I had a bad feeling. I told Daniel I wanted to pull the plug on Japan and so we looked elsewhere for work.In a tiny ad in the local newspaper was an advertisment asking for teachers for a city in North East China.Shenyang.Serendipity? I didn’t know. But I knew it was right. We went to an interview and I charmed my way to getting the job. A month later, a bitter dispute with the landlord and my life’s belongings sent to Daniel’s Dad’s house and we were away.We worked in a school called the Shenyang Beida Jade Bird School. It was a custom built private school that could house 5000 students, it was like an airport and we were there in its first year.It had 200 students.Our contracts had been signed so we couldn’t be fired but instead of having twenty classes we had five each. It was cruisy and although the pay wasn’t as good as when I worked in China the first time it was a lot more than the local teacher got.After two weeks of working there I went to Sophie’s Bar Sophie's World Bar Tours - Shenyang, Liaoning Province, ChinaBaart Groot's answer to Do you have a valentine?It changed my life.Short story, I met my wife and we moved back to Australia once my contract finished.I went back to work in the Supermarket after telling my wife I was a qualified teacher. For the first year and a bit times were hard. We didn’t have much money and I could tell that my beautiful wife wasn’t happy. We fought often.She was entitled to free English lessons as a spouse and so went to TAFE (community college) to organise them. While I was sitting on the couch pondering my life and wondering if I’d made a terrible decision a woman sat next to me and asked if I was there to study.I laughed, perhaps bitterly and explained I was there for my wife. We talked for a while and the conversation turned to how we met, which of course turned to my role as a teacher. The woman turned out to be the Director of Studies and for whatever reason she asked if I had a resume.My wife, my dear sweet wife, had cajoled me into printing out resumes at the local news agent that very day…so I did. The DOS took my resume and walked away, leaving me wondering what had happened.The next morning I was rudely awoken by the phone, thinking it was my mother I declined to answer but I checked for messages soon after. I didn’t feel like talking to her at the time. I felt guilty every time I did.It was the DOS, she needed a relief teacher by 11am. I rang back and confirmed I would be there.And I was.I taught level 2 grammar and writing from a book. My students were adults, refugees from Somalia and the Congo with a couple of Bhutanese women thrown in the mix. I went home elated thinking I was on my way.The phone didn’t ring for two months after that. I was crushed. My wife got a job in the supermarket with me. I didn’t know if I was proud of her or if I resented her. It was dark times.We made the best of it though, we lived in a little unit without much idea of the future. We scraped together the money to put my wife through a business degree and she was acing it…of course.People told me I should be doing more than working on a checkout. One lady, a large kindly woman was encouraging, saying I should try to get work at a high school. I pooh-poohed the suggestion. Who would want me? At work I was cheerful and polite, at home black moods shaded everything I did. My wife was miserable and I hated myself for my part in it.Then the phone rang again, it was the DOS. She said that the students had really liked me and offered me 20 hours a week teaching ESL at $65 an hour. I said yes of course.Life changed for the better after that. We were able to bring my wife’s parents over for a holiday and I had work my wife could talk about proudly. She finished her degree with high honours and launched herself into the world of work.Somewhere along the line though I had been damaged and try as I might my dark moods would return periodically, hurting our relationship and leaving scars. My work at TAFE was comfortable but government regulations changed and I could only get first fifteen, then ten hours per week. I took extra jobs, I was still at the Supermarket on the weekends and I took a tutoring job too, then I got some relief work at high-schools.I enjoyed working at the highschools but it was sporadic and when an opportunity presented itself to work for a private language school as a DOS I took it. I’d tutored the owner’s kids and he’d promised good pay and career progression. I worked for him for a year doing random admin as he went off trying to enrol students. We got a couple of study tours but I wasn’t happy doing admin when I just wanted to be teaching.A friend of my wife’s suggested a company that was looking for an Education Manager. I visited it and again it was a start up. But the owner was a successful businessman who’d become a millionaire during the http://dot.com bubble. He’d sold in time to make the best of it and had a bunch of electronic learning products to use alongside classroom lessons. I took a job with him and for three weeks enjoyed the lifestyle of a junior exec as we travelled and hob-knobbed with government officials and private moguls. But it wasn’t to last.We didn’t have a student population yet so I was co-opted to do marketing. I had to sell the products we had to Unis, spruiking their educational potential to Professors and Doctorate students. I was hopeless. My attitude had always been that a good product should sell itself but our program wasn’t where I wanted it. My boss grew resentful and many meetings ended with him screaming at me and the other employees or with him complaining about how ungrateful everyone was. He’d kick chairs around, insult us and generally act like a spoiled child with too much power. I’d stew over the abuse at home and I was constantly angry. I wanted to quit but knew we couldn’t afford it. We wanted to buy a house.We saved enough for a deposit for a small, semi-detached house in a poor suburb. It had a big shed and bigger backyard but the house was small. Police helicopters hovered overhead at night and we double checked the locks whether we were home or not. The abuse at work continued.My wife’s career was taking off. She was now the store manager for a skincare brand in a swanky suburb and she was killing the sales targets. I was very proud but also resentful that my career was shit. I was almost always angry except for when I escaped with my friends to play wargames. My wife grew resentful that the only time I seemed happy was when I was with others. Our relationship worsened.After a year and a half of abuse at work and trouble at home I was at my emotional and mental end. I was constantly angry and I imagined killing my boss almost every day on the way to and from work. He threatened to strangle me one day and I lost it, standing over him and shouting. I could see he was terrified of me. I hated myself for getting that way.I needed to escape. From my work, from my boss, from my wife who I loved but who was a reminder of how many ways I’d failed.I applied for the army. I’d wake up at 3am every morning to train, then I’d go to work. I’d come home and I’d train, then I’d go to the shed by myself. I started to calm down and things improved a little for my wife and I. I had a goal. That helped.I had to travel to Melbourne for the army interview, I lied to my boss and took a sick day. I flew over, on a Tuesday morning and took a written test, then a physical then waited for the results. If I passed I’d have a panel interview.The results came through. I was allowed to go to panel. I was interviewed by a military psychologist, an army teacher (which was what I was applying for) and a line officer from the UK. My answers impressed the psychologist and the teacher, I charmed and smiled and quipped my way through. Only the line officer looked unimpressed. I decided I didn’t like this jumped up grunt but that didn’t matter. He didn’t matter.The interview finished and I was confident I was in. They took a long time deliberating.I was called in.“No, you’re not going.” I was told. “You’re not going for the right reasons.”What? I thought? How did they know what my reasons were? The psych and the teacher looked a bit forlorn, the grunt looked amused. I was furious. How dare that fucking grunt take away my escape?I left and took the flight back to Adelaide, I felt numb. My wife had prepared a special dinner to celebrate. I couldn’t eat it. I wept all night and the next day I went to work.I wanted to die. The abuse at work continued. I wanted to kill myself in an explosion or in a fire or by drowning, I didn’t care. We argued and I drank.My phone rang and it was a friend from my hometown. We’d barely spoken for years and years. I’d almost forgotten him. He invited me to go fishing on the beach half way between Adelaide and Millicent. At a place called Salt Creek.My wife told me to go. Bewildered and bereft of ideas, needed to be away from it all I went.We caught sharks and told old stories of primary school. I found out about all of the bullies that had tormented me. The main bully had committed suicide, he’d become consumed by the hate that drove him to torment others. We shared a bottle of green ginger wine and I spewed afterwards, I felt mighty contemplative.At the end of the weekend I went back to Adelaide with my sharks and decided to change.I talked things over with my wife. We decided I couldn’t at my job and that I would go back to TAFE, I’d try and get work as a highschool teacher.I quit the following week and went back to TAFE cap in hand. They were glad to have me but I needed other work. I got a couple of days as a relief teacher. I went back to study and did my Masters, hoping it would land me some sort of opportunity. My study was around dealing with conflict between ethnic groups in the classroom, it was a great success. Unfortunately I couldn’t avoid conflict at home and still argued incessantly over bullshit. A big fight, a week of peace and then two weeks of lingering tension repeated ad infinitum.The occasional relief teaching started to yield results and in 2012 I got a term contract at a school for young migrants. It was great and I liked it. With my confidence growing a bit I put feelers out for longer term work but continued to work at TAFE.In the Easter holidays, on a Wednesday as I went to work on the bus I got a phone call. It was my wife. She’d seen a snake in the garden. She was terrified. I couldn’t afford to skip work so I told her to call a snake catcher even though it would be expensive bordering on crippling. I told her I’d leave my phone on and to call me if anything went wrong. Calming myself down as best I could I went into class.Two hours later, just as we broke for recess the phone rang. I dashed outside and answered.“BeiNi? Are you okay?”“Hello, my name’s Michele, I’m the Principal of #@$#@ school. We’re looking for a teacher and I was wondering if you’d be available for an interview.”I didn’t know how to answer. I croaked out a strangled “Yes” and went back to class, I can’t remember anything else about the day.I attended the interview, my wife kissed me on the cheek for good luck and I put on my best shirt and tie.Arriving at the school I was ushered into the Principals office to be confronted by a person I’d never expected.The big woman from the supermarket.She had been my customer for years on end, had observed me dealing with people from all over, rich and poor, educated and not, foreign and native. The interview was a formality, she wanted me at her school.I taught there for three years until declining student numbers and the principal’s retirement saw me without a job. Those years built my confidence and my ability and my relationship with my wife grew stronger again. I spoke more with my family and stopped drinking so much. I felt useful, like I mattered.When my contract was not continued in 2015 that all crashed again. I spent six months without stable work and thankfully my wife did have that. I was back in relief teaching and occasional work at TAFE, I felt like I was starting again. I was angry and my bad moods returned once more. We had terrible fights based mainly around my pride and stubbornness.June 2015 and I had given up hope for the year already. I came home to a message on the answering machine asking me to call another school. I did so, thinking it would be relief work.I was put through to the principal, they needed an ESL teacher and my name had come up when a deputy had walked into the office and seen my name listed amongst dozens of others. She’d worked with me before and thought I’d be a good fit. Did I want the job?I was back in business. I aced the interview and started at my current school. Every Christmas holidays I nervously waited to see if my contract would be renewed but I wasn’t left hanging. The quality of my life improved and in 2016 my wife said maybe we should try for a baby, things were better now.She fell pregnant quickly, much to our amazement and joy. We announced and her mother came over from China. Her pregnancy made her moody though and I found myself fragile from my past. We argued bitterly, made worse by the stress of her mother being there and my inability to communicate with her. At one point we considered divorce. I was an emotional wreck and dangerous to my unborn child.I saw a doctor. I needed help. The doctor said I had generalised anxiety disorder and had probably had it for some time. He prescribed medication. I took it gladly.The pills made me sweat, gain weight, gave me headaches and occasional confusion but it saved my marriage and as a result my life, not to mention that of my child. Over time I adjusted to the changes in me. I could no longer drink coffee or alcohol and I needed to watch what I ate. I learned to temper my moods better.When my baby girl was born it was difficult for my wife. She struggle with PND and I struggled with the change in her. My Mother in Law was a godsend, she gave us time together alone which meant our time with baby Eva was better.My baby was often distressed. She screamed all night, sobbed during the day drank little milk. The doctors said it was normal and I believed them. My wife insisted something was wrong and went from doctor to doctor until one suggested our little girl might have silent reflux. My wife got medicine and changed her diet. The change was remarkable. Our little girl grew content and then happy. Seeing her grow we grew happy. Life was a little brighter again. I spent my spare hours writing a dystopian novel and short stories to channel my angst at the world outside creatively instead of into my relationship. That gave me satisfactionWe’d been careful with our money and we decided to move. It was hard finding a house to suit our needs and I had little time to look. My wife was indefatiguable though. Baby in tow, Mother in Law close by she searched across the city. Using her ridiculous charisma and personality to get the lowdown on any possible place and to drive the best deal.In October 2017 she called me at work to tell me she’d found it. At the edge of the city in the foothills there was a house. She’d attended an open and liked it, she’d been about to drive off when the owner arrived home and she decided to talk to him. They’d hit it off and the poor agent was beside himself as my wife sidelined him in negotiations.I drove there straight after work and I loved it too. 1971 brick with raked ceilings, four bedrooms, two living areas and a small shed. I was sold.The sale was organised in a week, my wife completing the finance like a champ with baby on hip. We moved in at the end of November.My anxiety is mostly under control and I’m still at my school. My principal trusts me, I have great students and excellent colleagues. My wife is as awesome as ever and has re-entered the work force. My Mother and Father in Law live with us part time and my daughter is the apple of my eye.Life is good, thanks to a little luck, a lot of chance and the love of some wonderful women, not to mention a father who pulled himself back from the brink and is as good an example as a man could hope for.I am a lucky man.Thanks for reading.

Since the question was originally posed, the asker modified the description to say he wants to find a free developer. He doesn’t understand why a developer won’t work for simply “being interested in a topic” or project without compensation. He doesn’t offer equity, which is one way to compensate, and he doesn’t seem to want to learn how to do it himself, which is the other way to be lean. If a developer makes something by request only, without IP assignment, then it is 100% the property of the developer.He read one of those popular startup books written by a millionaire, and he wants to be a millionaire, but doesn’t want to invest the sweat or the cash to do so. Bottom line: programming takes time, energy and hard work. Few people want to do this for free. If you are doing it for equity, you need to give them a large share of ownership (like 50%). If you aren’t going to be developing, you better be doing other things of value while the developer is busy making the product.Before you embark on your next Big Idea, keep in mind less than 1% of startups ever make the millions you desire. So why would someone want to risk their livelihood by sacrificing time they could turn into salary, by working on something that someone else owns and offers little or no compensation? The value proposition for those developers who left you in the dust was too low to be compelling enough for them to stick around, period.As a developer for the past 35 years, since I was the mere age of 4, I have always had knowledge that I knew many lacked. Even on day 1 my father could not answer questions I had about Apple BASIC, and when I explained what I wanted to learn how to do, he had to brush aside my hopes and aspirations because no one knew how to make intelligent robots in 1984 with Apple BASIC.When I was in high school, I wrote moderately viral software that took the internet by storm, if you played text-based MUDs in 1993. Some other people of the same era and small group of developers became very successful when they launched websites a few years later. For instance, one of my contemporaries who was just a few years older than me launched Topix.net among several other businesses. I wasn’t so lucky. I missed out on the opportunity because he was older, and I was still in high school when Google was being founded to kill Yahoo. By the time I entered the web game in college, less and less opportunities were becoming available. Back then, though, there was no Facebook or Twitter or YouTube. These companies and their solutions simply hadn’t been invented yet, but as each one came along another grand set of extremely high value properties was closing the door on hundreds of other ideas.Then came the mobile revolution kick-started with Nokia phones in the late 90s and early 00s, and later with the 2007 release of the Apple iPhone. What was once free and clear was now organized into several walled gardens, one being Android, another being iOS, and so we found our way to today. For a brief time in the mid-90s, when the web was new, people had real hopes of starting “the next Microsoft”, but those days are dead and gone along with the Commodore64.Throughout that time I’ve had the ability to produce applications, write code, try things, experiment, take risks, and I did. Text games didn’t pan out as an online medium after Sony’s big-budget EverQuest. Mobiles apps number in the billions, so that market is also heavily saturated. Video games quickly moved from simple 2D worlds to complex, expensive-to-produce 3D worlds again closing the door. In 2017, it’s VR that has that same wild-west appeal, but it won’t take 5 years to shift into the repertoire of the mainstream companies like Electronic Arts, it will take 2. That’s a very short amount of time for a person or a handful of people to come up with a product that is a game changer faster than the big industry can.So your project is very risky, at best. Also, an idea is not worth much, it’s the implementation that counts, as well as the business investments made in the idea by the people who already have money, because that’s the world we live in. If you are a capable developer and want to make money on mobile, your day was in 2008. That doesn’t mean you won’t be able to come up with a new mobile app that is interesting and unique, but you are better off pitching to incubators than you are at trying to convince “a developer” to help you “for free” or even equity. Think about Uber and how Uber has so much infrastructure including modifying legal boundaries just to exist. And that’s just at its core a mobile app. Sure, it was disruptive, but also required a lot of money (fuel) to get (the rocketship) off the ground. It wasn’t able to gain the same amount of popularity seen by apps in 2008, because let’s face it, touch-driven mobile apps are old news.Classically, equity is not enough of an incentive to get the job done. It just doesn’t work. I know this not only from reading about startups and small businesses for years, but also from first hand experience. I once formed an LLC called Ganos LLC, and I wanted to create a series of innovative and inventive web products that would help people work and earn money on the web. I wanted to bring together designers, sales people and customers in a unique way. No matter how hard I tried, I could not find the right mix of people willing to work for equity, or even royalties, to get it off the ground. I closed the company after the final blow came from VISA, who informed us that our business model was based on aggregation, which required a large sum of money to sit in escrow and for us to move our business to offshore holding companies in the Cayman islands who pseudo-legally allowed aggregation. (Aggregation is when you add an upcharge to process multiple transactions from multiple businesses through a single VISA merchant account. This is kind of what PayPal and Stripe do. By the way they picked Stripe over Ganos to award the aggregation account to, and wouldn’t let us budge on transaction fees or monthly fees. In other words, they went with MIT and Harvard, instead of Carnegie Mellon — not that big of a surprise, really, when you step back and think.)While the company existed, there were two other members at the time I formed the company. They both promised loyalty and commitment, and I promised to pay the taxes for the LLC and work as a lead developer. I formed the company on Bryan’s prompting, because he was very excited about the opportunity. The other member was named Woody. Woody was effectively the CTO, and I was the CEO, but I spent time doing CTO-like things and I was also the lead developer, business analyst, and the buck stopped with me at 51% equity, also known as a majority stakeholder which shifts the way an LLC is perceived legally. Bryan got 20% and Woody got 20%, and we saved 9% for “investors” naively. (Investors actually want the lion share, at 50–60%, and every time you get investment your % is cut in half effectively, unless you are special like Mark Zuckerberg.)Bryan had an MBA so we named him the VP of Business Development. However, a month after the company formed, Bryan announced he was leaving town, to go live with his parents, because he couldn’t find any paid work in our area. It took about 6 months for the company to fully unravel. Even at 51% equity, I couldn’t keep up the minimum tax on the corporation and needed to stop the company so I could collect unemployment, since I was also in the process of losing my full-time job at a Fortune 500 company. My original plan was to form Ganos, continue working for as long as I could, then when I inevitably lost my temporary contract position, create my next job by building Ganos into a revenue-producing LLC.Today, our customers probably use Free Website Builder | Create a Free Website | WIX.com and Credit Card Processing - Accept Credit Cards Anywhere | Square or one of its competitors, but at the time I was hitting the nail on the head and they were interested in our no-frills custom-designed web front-end and integrated payment system. In effect, I was combining these two separate and distinct things, but of course slow-moving venture capital groups failed to see the opportunity and it would have taken too much time to collect, for the three of us, enough customers. We saw the opportunity. We tried to seize it.However, what we found out was the problem is that PCI Compliance takes so much out of a team with all of its 342+ requirements, that there is no energy left over to go and make a website builder on top. While we found the pseudo-legal offshore solution, it may have lead to being blacklisted by VISA. So, we spent most of our time doing the website builder, and integrating it with existing payment systems, which defeated our payment offering, and made it hard for us to get customers to switch. We offered 50% the subscription rate of POS systems, but only because we were able to. When VISA told us no, we couldn’t really offer the payment part, which was what turned people on to our solution. Plus, by approaching VISA, they learned about our idea, which made it easier for them to identify a startup that was in a better position, with better advisors and more renown investors with more capital invested, like they had at Stripe.So, looking back at the work, who did the most and who did the least? I did the most work. I was responsible for 80–90% of the code written at Ganos, I made the logo, I formed the corporation, I financed the formation and was the only investor. I pitched to the local venture capital group Blue Tree Angels, and I pitched to the local incubators. I got us our first customers by actively selling local businesses on our platform. I designed the platform, the business model, and implemented the website builder.Woody, who was 10 years my junior and fresh out of college, actually built a section of the website but it was only a small section. He was skilled, and loyal, but ultimately unhappy. Then, he had some life issues and I gave him a way out.Bryan, on the other hand, did almost nothing at all. When he went to his parents house, it was like he had squirreled himself away in his own private Alamut. He would claim he would call people but couldn’t tell us who he was calling to help market the business. I asked him about his attempts to garner investor contacts, but he always came up empty handed.We had held a weekly meeting for some time, that turned into a monthly meeting and eventually I pounced on Bryan and pushed him out, and he gave back his membership shares at my request. He didn’t even have to do this. He could have held them indefinitely until the business was dissolved, or capitalized with 20% equity for almost no sweat.Woody, on the other hand, had had enough and was so distraught over his personal issues that, after Bryan left, I simply announced I was going to dissolve the company and that he was free to go.The takeaway should be that if you care about the idea, it is extremely unlikely anyone else will. Everyone is out to make a dollar, and not everyone who talks the talk can walk the walk. Your best bet is to do something simple, and try to sell it yourself, or to get help from a mentor or incubator or both, before approaching anyone for any reason. And please please please, learn it yourself so you aren’t looking the fool when it comes to those all important product development meetings.However, when I first discovered this question, before the description was added, I answered it in the same way I would any recruiter or hiring manager would ask, because the question wasn’t slighted toward “grass root” startups. Here is that answer:How do you find good developers?Apparently everyone needs a developer until they post a job and then they don’t want a developer, they want a comedian. This is the horrible, horrible truth about the technology industry, a trend which has always been bad but has been getting worse since the 1980s.In the 1980s, if you were skilled at programming computers, you were instantly judged based on your personality and put into one of two categories: genius or hacker. Now, we all know that “hacker” can mean a good thing, but ever since the late 80s and early 90s, the “Kevin Mitnik Era”, hackers have gotten a bad name.So, think of it this way: you were either a cool nerd or a creepazoid vampire.In this day and age (the post-Apple/Microsoft era) computer programmers come in four major varieties:ScientistsEngineersWeb DevelopersMobile DevelopersWhoa, wait, aren’t scientists and engineers the same thing? No. Scientists — computer scientists — usually work on projects that are academic, cross-disciplinary or at software companies that recognize and enable them to do wild projects that tackle difficult problems. They do work in teams, but are generally focused on research, or the development of compilers, parallel computing, compression or networking, some of the more profoundly difficult topics in software. Some of them teach. These people sometimes have PhDs and many have masters degrees (they were rich kids or academically perfect). Many times they are on teams of other scientists who have different specialties. They are computer and software centric, and think abstractly, to solve concrete, real-world projects.Then there are developers who are engineers. Engineers work in teams and are sometimes not computer scientists. They might be embedded programmers, or specialize in the GPU, and they tend to travel in groups. Many of them are roboticists, who want to ruin the world for humanity in exchange for a payday. Electrical engineers sometimes fall into this category, or mechanical engineers, or “electrical and computer engineers” or any variety of engineer who develops to solve problems and uses MATLAB or Python. These types tend to be proud of their engineering prose, and stick to their guns, but are not “software developers” in the sense that they don’t specialize only in software — to them, software is a means to an end. At the same time, they tend to like Python because it was “invented by an engineer”, whatever that means.Then, there are web developers. Web developers are a sad lot because they’ve spent their lives specializing in what is basically a telecom-related document service. They worry about databases and, stupidly, trendy web technologies that have funny names. Some of them are very talented and border on the Scientist or Engineer type, but the worst of these are those that have no formal training and also no formal understanding of the more advanced topics in computer science. They are followers, not leaders, most of the time, but are capable if you expect them to put together a website or use some of those technologies with the funny names like Bootstrap, Angular, jQuery, Node.js, Mongo, Joomla, Magento, Drupal, Laravel, etc. Unfortunately, people who are web developers are often pigeonholed as such and have difficulty leaving the industry, as was the case in my career.Finally, there are mobile developers. They aren’t that different than web developers, really, but have skill in developing for the two major mobile operating systems (iOS and Android). In the past, it also meant like J2ME (remember flip phones from 2006?) but that’s super irrelevant today. In many cases, early mobile developers were web developers, who liked their phones and built websites for them, and then decide to go ahead and learn the intricacies of native development. However, there is also the confusing fact that some web developers make mobile-friendly websites, and that means that they kinda do both. Kooky.Recruiters are set up to select by skill, not by experience or any other valueThe problem is that the industry hires based on skillsets, rather than on underlying foundations. Back in the 80s and 90s, software developers hired software developers, but today everyone in every field hires one of the four types listed above. Sure, you can still find places where engineers congregate, but the Microsoft Solution Provider days are over, and the small hand-crafted software shoppes seem to be, by and large, a thing of the past as new companies form not to do the service of writing software, but rather to deploy an app or service around an app or website.The hiring managers and recruiters of today are not technical people. They are technology users, who are people-people, and spend all of their time bouncing paperwork and resumes around until they have to schedule interviews, run background checks, and then “dig in” with interviewing candidates, to weed out the undesirable people, until they send a software developer into an office with someone who is also non-technical (usually a project manager or other crufty corporate executive). So, they identify candidates based on how much experience a candidate has in your resume.The other side of too much experienceI have read or been told many times in my career that I am “over-qualified” — and I think that is hilarious and nonsensical. I’m certainly not a good fit for the dishwasher and line cook positions I once held in college, as I’d probably not be able to do them very well today. I’m still a great cook, even more skilled than back then, but the years of corporate life have taken some of the verve out of my ability to run a kitchen, and my aging knees aren’t interested in being put to the test hauling boxes of lettuce up three flights anymore. So, I would consider that a position I am “over-qualified” for — at the same time, there are positions in the industry which are reserved for interns, or college-level or entry-level which just aren’t what I’m interested in. Mainly this is due to the low salary expectations, but often it’s because there isn’t enough scope to make it a full position. For instance, being only a web designer in a web development house that doesn’t produce more than a few websites a month is, well, too little of a job for someone the likes of me, though I’m fully qualified and able to complete such tasks.My problem lately is this new layer of executive experience slathered on top of 20 years of software development experience. I get a lot of advice from recruiters to hide the fact that I actually am skilled at running a small corporation and its software team.Ever since my 3D printing startup, PieceMaker Technologies, shut its doors in 2016, I’ve had one hell of a time trying to find new jobs. I actually did find one of those aging Microsoft Solution Providers very soon after leaving PieceMaker. This was like oil and water mixing, as I loathe Microsoft and at the same time am fully capable with Microsoft technologies, because I started, back in the 1990s, working for the same type of software house. When I first did this kind of work in the 1990s, I dreamt of working for Microsoft. That was dispelled quickly, however, as I began to realize what it would be like to actually work there. And now that Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer are both gone, who cares about the place that still “enters late and copies poorly” the Googles and the Apples of the world.Since I don’t live in Redwood Shores, I have never found a job in video games excepting one time, when I developed a video game for Proctor and Gamble in 2010. It was for the Nokia flip phones which were still saturated in the Italy market at the time. When I apply to video game companies, I hear a lot about about how I am best suited to a web developer role, or as an IT person, and not to be involved in a game project. This bothers me to no end, but it’s another example of job seeker prejudice based on the skills they used at a previous job.Then there’s another problem: I won awards at PieceMaker and my technology and interfaces were featured on CNBC. I have never worked at a company that, as a direct result of my hustle, has been featured with so much press. This always impresses people in the hiring manager and recruiter level, but it feels threatening to the owners of companies. They don’t want to hear from me. I think awards must spawn jealousy in the minds of others, especially people who are in charge of something that they hope one day gets recognized. What I figured would be an asset, has turned out not to be in most cases. It’s also the reason I’ve removed “Publications” from my resume, excepting when I apply to positions in academia. I’ve been accused of being an egotist simply for mentioning what I thought, when I initially won the award, would make me appear more trustworthy.Don’t let them treat you like dirt. Nothing is more insulting than being told you don’t matter. You went to school. You worked somewhere. You have friends, family, people who care about you. If the interviewer is being a jerk, figure out a polite way to change the conversation to a more positive nature. With much chagrin, I get “gut” comments from CEOs and other executives who are interviewing me like “Who the hell do you think you are [to have that opinion]?” or “So, we said we wanted you to weigh in, but you seem to be focused on what you think is the best — and even though you’ve shown us evidence that it is probably the best decision — [we simply can’t be humble enough to allow this to be a two way street so] I don’t think you’re the right fit for this position.” Why must people insist on putting experts (or themselves) on pedestals so that no one else can be an expert or show expertise? It defies logic.There is also the part of the interviewing process where recruiters tell me to play down my leadership skills, and not to mention any of my actions in my executive role (Director roles are on the same corporate level as VPs). Why should I go around pretending that I don’t get it or haven’t worked in this industry every single time I look for a job? It feels like every time I approach a new position, I have to tell my story ever more carefully because people apparently did not like the fact that I actually won awards, worked hard, hired people and helped run a team. I hired, I fired, and I worked extremely hard on something I cared about. I’d like to do that again.Are you hiring a skill over experience? Do you feel opinions that contradict those of the company (but which may be valid) should be ignored? Is that any way to run a business or to be a well-rounded person? Why must owners of companies act like they are deified? Is it to intimidate people into working for them? I never believed intimidation was the best way to encourage productivity. Sure, there are slackers who are distracted by their wives and babies or are just looking for a free ride — I get that — but aside from a kick in the ass, if the person is already engaged, does it make sense to use intimidation? Many, many times in the last two decades I have had a boss who was a total and complete fascist. I certainly didn’t act deified as Director of Software at PieceMaker, except in humble jokes here and there about how I was in charge — which everyone on the team knew was true in one sense and yet I was transparent enough with my employees and colleagues (my preferred term for team members) to explain to them that I do not control the universe, and at some level their jobs were at the whims of said universe. I don’t expect my boss or manager to know everything about everything, but they certainly want me to know everything about nothing, because opinions are like kryptonite and there have been several interviews where sharing my opinion meant saying “fuck you, I hate you and this opportunity” even though most of the time I was just trying to save the day.Why I’ve grown to hate recruiting and interviewing in the software industryYou might be wondering why I’m going into all of this. Well, at this specific point in time, I’m a developer on the other side of this question — and I’ve been desperately searching for some sort of gainful employment since October 2016.I was very excited when I was first released from PieceMaker. We lost our funding, there was nothing more I could do, I was furloughed and I walked on. It was not my fault, cancer killed our lead investor and I was not in charge of fundraising. All I could do was improve our product, and it was improving to a brighter day when I left. I was so tired all the time from the constant need to reach a deadline over the past 3 years, that it was at once sad and at the same time it felt as though a burden had been lifted.However, after 6 months, I’ve been so disappointed in the lack of compassion and just general rudeness of the search process and the people I’ve met since then. Each company has lived up to its expectations for a short while and then tapered off into the worst of humanity shortly thereafter. PieceMaker in a way had ruined me: I am extremely casual about my opinions because I had been in a group of trusted colleagues for so long, and for some reason the places I go and the people I meet do not want to hear one iota of personal anecdote, kind joking, or even opinions about technology in general. They just seem to want robots to come in and say “Yes I know this skill, hire me and I will do that skill and never question you, o great one” — and none of the people I’ve met since have had any compassion for my situation at all, which is probably the biggest disappointment. I’ve ground through unemployment.I think it is really important to recognize that developers have opinions, not just skills, and that it should be O.K. for them to share them in a way. Experienced developers are experts, not just skill holders. I am always courteous, and I am always trying to play to my strengths and be transparent about my weaknesses in the interviews I attend. And, despite using many different tactics, no matter what I do I find the entire job search process incredibly insulting, though I’m sure a recruiter here and there — the ones that spell my name wrong and confuse my old resume with my new resume — will tell me I’m being either overly ambitious or too sensitive, or too forward, or maybe even too high and mighty (no one likes the “know-it-all”) — but it is in its very nature a poor, poor process. It’s based on the opinions on non-experts who override the opinions of those with expertise. And each time I shake my head and I have slowly become desensitized to the realities I face moving forward. What I am supposed to do?Things you’re not allowed to tell people in an interview:You need money (which should be obvious, and this is playing the sympathy card which has worked for me in the past but the older I get the less it seems to work)Your life story (it’s just not worth telling stories at all, most of the time, only rarely will someone identify with you)Personal information (they’ll just repeat it back to you later and you won’t get the job, but, inevitably, someone asks you about your personal life)Jokes (unless it is to break the ice, and you have to be really careful because often in interviews people are looking to find fault not only in you, but also in anything you say because they’ve got political-racist-homophobe radar turned way up to super-sensitive, and I’m not exaggerating. “Why does the chicken cross the road?” suddenly becomes a study of your views on animal cruelty)TV shows (or video games, or even live theatre) you like (this always backfires with at least one of the interviewers)Don’t talk about current events, political views, your voting record, or religion (unless forced to, and it is best just be as vague as possible in your answer, be likeable, don’t reveal anything, and do so in the most optimal way, and agree wholeheartedly with interviewers even when they are being short-sighted or ignorant, if you want to land the job at the end of the day, and then try to throw away the memory of the event other than as a caution to yourself should it come up again)Don’t teach anything, even if it has to do with the technology. It has not worked for me at all lately. Don’t correct them, no matter what you do, unless you’re being asked in a way you think is non-hostile, and even then keep it short and sweet and try to pick a good metaphor instead of answering it technically. You’ll have to gauge this one carefully, sometimes its to see how much you know, being that it is a trick question, and other times it is sincere — you should be able to tell what kind of motivation is behind such a question. If you think it displays a chink in someone’s armor that you can exploit to sell them your skills, then jump on it. However, if the interviewer is the person who makes the technology decisions and has already decided, simply agree with a smile to all of their assertions and take notes, the job will undoubtedly involve them.With mixed success I have offered free consulting in the interview, but I discourage it as it always feels as though you’ve been wronged if you don’t end up getting the job. Also, this can backfire because they may not follow your advice, which can sometimes feel like they’ve slighted you, so it is best avoided. Some situations lately have been ambiguous, where I was being told I was going to lead the project, only to find out after I pitched my plan that they didn’t want my input, even though they encouraged it.Ignore any statements about other candidates or resumes.The worst questions to be asked involve making the hiring decision for you. I almost always respond as nicely and as humorously as possible that I feel they should hire me right away. Then I deflect, by saying things like “I think it’s best if I don’t answer that” or “I think you’ll have to be the one that comes to that decision, but I think you’d be right in choosing me.”Don’t threaten or feel threatened. You’ve already lost it. Ask for another bottle of water “for the road”The only times in my life that I’ve ever successfully made money in the industry is when I meet someone who needs something that I can deliver, and it is not just one skill. Usually, it is someone in business who simply needs someone smart and experienced on their team, someone who is well-rounded, and is someone who is open to learning about a new person at the same time.Going to proverbial ‘Vegas’ when you know things are sourI have done this several times and it has allowed me to rise to the top, eliminating other candidates they were considering. This means to go against everything I listed above (excepting the religion one, never a good idea, and politics is probably a bad idea unless you know exactly where you stand, like interviewing for a political organization you agree with) - keeping it civil, fun and humorous can sometimes be the order of the day. Sometimes people are receptive and want to hear your opinion, and free consulting is like a free sample and can get them hooked on you. Sometimes things feel like a funeral until you crack the right joke, making everyone smile. Then, allow the meeting to move on to the exciting topic of you getting a chance at the job with renewed vigor.When I wrote the list above, none of those things were working for me. That doesn’t mean they haven’t in the past. Tomorrow is another day, the next interviewer may have more power at the same company as the last, and you never know what is said in the meetings where they discuss you, or with the recruiter. Always fill your recruiter’s head with great facts about you, so that if they do get a call from an uncertain interviewer, your recruiter can drill home the important truths about how great you are.Questions I hate in the interview process, which I think have no bearing on getting a job and have had little to do with anything I’ve ever done for money:Any question to do with trying to detect if you will, after that date, perform well. I often have to point out to people interviewing me that I expect to prove myself after I’m hired, and that there is no way to tell what is going to happen later.“Do you know PHP?”Of course I know PHP, it’s on my resume in many places. You know the worst thing about PHP is all the damn frameworks. Every couple of years a new framework bubbles to the top of the heap (of which there are thousands) and if that’s not on your resume with 1–2 years of experience (years? when has a job in this industry lasted that long?), which has made knowing PHP almost irrelevant as its all about using a framework and few will allow you to not.“So, are you front-end or back-end?”I often answer this question with “I’m holistic” though this doesn’t seem to help the situation. They want to put you into one of two categories, “front-end” and “back-end”, but I explain to them that I make software, I don’t make just part of software, I make the whole entire complete thing.Probably the earliest sign of disinterest in you is: “Can you take us back through your resume again?”This either means the person trying to interview you has a short-term memory issue, didn’t read your resume, or they aren’t really looking to hire you. If you have to go through a resume two times it usually means they already found fault in you and it won’t go any further.Another sign of a hostile environment gets into the whole “employment gaps” thing. This is a stall tactic, and it makes you feel like you are being profiled. They want to know about gaps on your resume. Is there any time in your life you haven’t worked? Did you not slave away for 6 months two years ago because you were just sick of working on other people’s projects? Was there a period of time after college 18 years ago that you didn’t work for one year? What does asking this prove? Do you expect the candidate to say “I was involved in an international sex trafficking ring but never got caught, ha ha!” or “That was the year I decided to change my gender.” or “I can’t tell you, because I was on so many drugs at the time it’s hard to remember.”Questions along this line just open a pandora’s box anyway. I personally would never have asked any candidate about this, or I would have said it in a different way like “Did you travel during that time?” … merely out of curiosity, and I never judged a candidate based on their personal life in the interview. That only comes to bear later, anyway. [What I mean by this is that sometimes personal issues bubble up in the office, and then everyone knows about them. And, of course, sometimes personal issues emerge in the person’s life, like divorce, a new baby, a spouse wanting to go to work and have them stay home, illness, desire to go back to school, fatigue, irreconcilable differences with other coworkers, etc.]Statements I’ve made that don’t seem to help at all:Well, yes I do not know [framework] but you know it really doesn’t matter because I know the underlying technology and have over two decades of experience in developing technology using it. I’m sure I can pick it up quickly.I have a lot of experience in team-building . . .I did already mention … but I’m happy to tell you again about …Mentioning games or creativity on resumes sent to companies that are not gaming-related or creative. This just ruins everything. They are either your instant fan and revere you or are otherwise distracted because they too like video games, or they are your instant antagonist because they think you are a 40 year-old juvenile. Yes, adults calling adults children. Makes a ton of sense.You’re best bet to deal with fatigue or frustration is to take this advice I took: watch yourself or you’ll become unglued.It’s also dangerous in this day in age to make any statements online — including this very Quora answer — because sometimes it comes back to haunt you. My advice for other job seekers out there is to not let the rejections matter too much — there was some unseen force or unknown reason and you are probably better off for not having taken that job. As my unemployment checks have dwindled, I’ll have to see what’s in store for me in the coming year. However, every month out here in la-la land is one touch harder to explain my way out of. Wish me luck, send me money as a personal gift, or if you need a genius software developer, please hire me.

Working from home has been an option that has been around for quite a while now. For many years I worked as a mystery shopper and made quite a bit of money from it. When I started out around 2000, it was mainly about mystery shopping of banks, today this business has grown to include almost every industry. Businesses like Upwork, http://Freelancer.com Fiverr and businesses of such ilk have been around for quite a while, and there are also Virtual Assistants and so many other work from home opportunities that people can choose from. Working remotely doesn’t have to mean taking a pay cut. In 2019, there are more legit online jobs than ever. All it takes is being aware of the possibilities. I have searched and found a number of additional opportunities that make for quite a nice selectionBelow are 33 legitimate online jobs where you can earn over $40,000 a year:.TOP ONLINE JOBS FOR 2019These top online jobs have the ideal mix of high demand, a low supply of talented individuals, and the ability to start earning fast.#1) — PROOFREADINGQuick summary: Earn money by proofreading books, academic papers, website content, audio transcripts and moreAverage pay: $17.50 per hourIf you’re the type of person that spots every typo and grammar mistake in the articles you read, consider a career in proofreading. Proofreading is a great example of a job that needs no certification, and you can use your set of eagle eyes to make solid money.With the explosion of web content that has occurred in recent years, it’s a job that’s in super-high demand. That means you can land your first client today if you’re ready to start.Interested?Caitlin Pyle, who earns over $40k per year proofreading part-time, has a free introductory workshop: Learn the Skills You Need to Start Your Freelance Proofreading Hustle#2) — START A BLOGQuick summary: Create a website that provides valuable information about a topic you care aboutAverage pay: $0 to $10k+ per monthThe Ways To Wealth is my second blog. I started my first blog in 2009 and sold it two years later.I launched this blog in August 2016. Just over a year later, it was generating enough revenue that I felt comfortable leaving my well-paying job as a CPA — a job I’d had for over 10 years.What’s great about a blog is that you’re building a sellable asset. A quality website sells for around 30X its monthly revenue. Therefore, if you’re able to make $1,333 per month, you have a $40,000 asset.As for how to make money blogging, there are a number of ways. These include:Advertising — earn money by placing ads on your websiteAffiliate marketing — make money promoting other businessesProducts and services – sell your own products and services to othersSponsored content – get paid for partnering with brandsThe downside to blogging is that it can take time to get up and running. As such, if you need money today, you might want to consider a different online job instead.If you’re interested in blogging, here are three must-read articles to check out:The Best Blog Niche Ideas for Making Money in 2019How to Choose the Perfect Domain Name for Your Personal or Lifestyle BlogThe Insanely Simple Guide to Starting a Successful Money Making Blog in 2019#3) — BOOKKEEPINGQuick summary: Record and continuously update financial transactions for small businessesAverage pay: $17.50 to $40+ per hourAt the top of most business owners’ list of “Least Favorite Work Activities” is bookkeeping. Of course, it’s a critical task for ensuring a business runs smoothly and survives into the future.If you’re someone who loves to work with numbers, you can earn very good money in the field. There are also a lot of opportunities to charge higher hourly wages the more you specialize.And just like proofreading, bookkeeping doesn’t require a certification.A great resource for getting started is Ben Robinson’s free video training: How to Start Your Own Bookkeeping Business & Earn $80+/hr in 10 Weeks Without Going Into Debt.#4) — PHOTOGRAPHERQuick summary: Supply stock photos that will be purchased and used by businessesAverage pay: 20 to 50 cents per image soldOne of the fasting-growing online marketplaces is stock photography. According to Technavio, the business of selling stock photos will exceed $4 billion by 2020.Businesses need quality stock photos for their websites, client presentations, and more. If you love being behind a camera — even the one your smartphone — you can get paid for uploading quality photos to stock photo sites.You’ll earn anywhere between 20 and 50 cents per image sold. So, the goal is to have dozens of photos for sale, each generating commissions for you daily. This makes selling stock photography a great source of passive income because you can get paid over and over again for work you only did once.The best way to learn the business of stock photography and enhance your skills as a photographer is through creative Live.Founded by world-renowned photographer Chase Jarvis, Creative Live offers free daily classes on photography, art, design, and more.Their live classes are 100 percent free to attend. If you want to re-watch the video recordings later, unlimited access is available for a very reasonable fee. (For example, their stock photography course is only $29.)Click here to sign up for Creative Live’s Newsletter to get access to the free classes.#5) — FIND A WORK-FROM-HOME JOBQuick summary: A job search site that lists only legitimate work-from-home opportunities for both entry-level and experienced workersAverage pay: Depends on experienceThe best path to a legitimate online job may be working for a remote company. This is especially true for those who enjoy what they do now but want the flexibility and freedom an online job provides.Finding a decent employer is no easy task, though. A quick search on Craigslist pulls up dozens of spammy-looking “opportunities.”Fortunately, the number of companies who hire remote workers is growing. And yes, many of them offer things like stable salaries, benefits, and opportunities for promotion and advancement.The smartest way to find a legit online job is through FlexJobs.FlexJobs screens each job listing — more than 30,000 of them — to ensure that each company is legitimate.Here’s the catch: FlexJobs is a paid membership site. To see the full details of a particular job listing, you have to sign up for their $14.95 monthly membership.But the quality of the listings is absolutely worth the small fee. Also, you can see what jobs are available without paying, so feel free to browse the listing titles first to see if they have anything that strikes your fancy.#6) — ONLINE TUTORQuick summary: Tutor children worldwide in English or other subjectsAverage pay: $18 per hourOne high-growth business industry right now is online education. And one of the fastest-growing niches within online education is online tutoring.There are now multiple websites that connect you with students all over the world who are looking to be tutored in a range of subjects.When we ranked the best online tutoring sites, the top site was VIPKid.Why was VIPKid rated #1, even ahead of popular and well-known sites like Chegg and Club Z?The average wage, according to Glassdoor, is $18 per hourThe lesson plans and course materials are providedYou can work when you want, where you want, with no need to worry about marketing your servicesAll that’s required is a bachelor’s degree and some teaching experience (which could be prior tutoring experience, teaching at your church, etc. — it doesn’t have to be formal classroom experience).Sign up here for VIPKid.#7) — VIRTUAL ASSISTANTQuick summary: Work as a remote executive assistant doing a range of tasksAverage pay: $18 to $35 per hour, according to UpworkI first heard the term virtual assistant (VA) in Tim Ferriss’ popular book The Four Hour Work Week. In the book, Tim discusses how to hire overseas virtual assistants for $5 to $15 per hour.But now the trend isn’t to hire a VA for $5 an hour — it’s to find the highest-quality VA possible… someone who will really add value to your business. And because of that, people are willing to pay significantly higher wages to the right person.So, instead of just doing boring, repetitive tasks, you’ll be working for a successful business owner as a remote executive assistant.Common tasks carried out by VAs include:Answering emailBooking travelManaging social mediaScheduling appointmentsAnd more, depending on the fieldSome VAs take on multiple clients, allowing them to earn over six-figures a year from home.The secret to earning a high income as a VA is offering the right services. That’s why I recommend downloading Gina Horkey’s list of 150 Services You Can Offer.Gina’s a six-figure VA herself, with loads of knowledge about the best services to offer for beginning VAs.Click here to download the list.See Also: 7 Websites to Find Virtual Assistant Jobs When You Have Little to No Experience#8) — SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETINGQuick summary: Handle all social media tasks for small business ownersAverage pay: $20 to $100+ per hourMany business owners don’t have the time to make consistent updates to their social media profiles or to respond promptly to customer requests made via social media. That’s why so many businesses today are looking to hire social media managers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a 10 percent job growth rate is expected for social media marketing managers between 2016 and 2026.As long as you have the ability to post, curate, and manage content on social media channels, you can start taking on clients today.But the big money is in learning how to effectively deploy paid advertising, such as Facebook ads. Businesses need new customer leads, and you can earn premium wages if you know how to use things like microtargeting to deliver ads to just the right audience.If you’re interested in making money as a social media manager, check out social media expert Phyllis Khare’s Free Social Media Consultant Starter Kit.#9) — FREELANCE WRITINGQuick summary: Write blog posts, articles, advertisements, and more for clientsAverage pay: $15 to $40 per hour for beginnersFreelance writing is one of the more lucrative side hustles I’ve tried. I started small, but in a year I was earning over $100 an hour.Freelance writing is a skill that’s becoming more in-demand than ever. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the demand for writers is expected to grow by 6 percent from 2010 to 2020.Finding legit online jobs for writers can be difficult. That’s especially true if you’re competing for jobs the way most people do — against dozens of other writers who are all vying for low-paying gigs on job boards.The key to launching a successful career as a freelance writer is choosing the right niche. You want to find a niche you’re passionate about… and one that makes good money.Need ideas of high-paying niches? Check out this list of 200+ high-paying freelance writing niches.#10) — SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATIONQuick summary: Help small business owners get found onlineAverage pay: $25 to $40 per hour for beginnersSearch engine optimization is the process of helping businesses get found online.In my experience, having managed local SEO campaigns in the past, there is a lot of low-hanging fruit. That means you can drive a lot of revenue to a business just by implementing a basic set of SEO “best practices.” Therefore, you can charge a high hourly or project rate, knowing you’ll deliver results.When it comes to SEO, I’ve invested a lot into my own education. One resource I found valuable and very affordable is Mike Pearson’s Stupid Simple SEO Course. The course only opens a few times each year, but adding your name to the waitlist scores you access to Mike’s excellent 5-day SEO Bootcamp.#11) — GRAPHIC DESIGNERQuick summary: Design visually-stimulating graphicsAverage pay: $25 to $40 per hour for beginnersFor the artists out there, becoming a graphic designer is a great way to monetize your hobby. The web is becoming more and more visual — especially as mobile devices become the primary method of browsing.The highest-paid graphic designers combine multiple skills into their designs. Knowledge in branding, sales, and direct response marketing allow many graphic designers to charge over $100 per hour.Check out Creative Live’s upcoming calendar for a list of free graphic design classes to attend.#12) — VIDEO EDITINGQuick summary: Create engaging videos for social media, YouTube, and websitesAverage pay: $25 to $35 per hour for beginnersAnother online trend that’s picking up more steam year-by-year is video editing. Video editors with experience are in high demand in 2019. And there’s potential to earn over $50 per hour the more you specialize.Check out Creative Live’s upcoming calendar for a list of free video editing classes to attend.#13) — MARKETING AUTOMATION SPECIALISTQuick summary: Design and implement automated marketing systemsAverage pay: $40+ per hour for beginnersI’m in a mastermind group that’s been meeting since 2009. We all do some type of marketing work as independent contractors for a range of businesses. We’ve each had our ups and downs. Yet, as I write this, things are going well for everyone.Connecting the dots, we realized that once we committed to specializing in a growing marketing platform, we had to actually start turning clients away.One of the fastest-growing segments is marketing automation, on platforms such as Ontraport and HubSpot. These platforms are experiencing explosive growth, and more are emerging all the time. Some other examples are Aweber, Convert Kit, and MailChimp.Taking a certification course to become a specialist can often land you in the $60 to $100 per hour range fast.See: Best Online Jobs for College Students#14) — SCOPINGQuick summary: Edit transcripts for court reportersAverage pay: $20 to $30 per hourThere’s a little-known work-from-home job that’s been around for 30+ years. It’s called scoping.A court reporter’s job is transcribing what’s said in the courtroom into written form, using a special system of shorthand so that they can keep up with the proceedings. Court reporters then hire scopists to edit their transcripts.Court reporters make money per page, not per hour. That’s why outsourcing the editing allows them to increase their earning potential.Similar to proofreading and bookkeeping, no certification is required, there are very minimal start-up costs, and the earning potential is high.If you’re interested, Linda Evenson — who has been a work-at-home scopist for 35-years — has a free course called Scoping: College Level-Income Without College-Level Costs.#15) — MEDICAL TRANSCRIPTIONQuick summary: Edit medical transcriptions for local healthcare providersAverage pay: $10 to $25 per hourThere are dozens of data entry jobs online. Sites like Clickworker or Amazon’s Mechanical Turk provide typists with a lot of work opportunities. However, in order to make over $40,000 per year in data entry, you’ll need to specialize.And beyond scoping, one of the best ways to specialize in data entry is by focusing on medical transcription.The first thing to know about medical transcription is that it requires a certification, which you can get through a company like CareerStep. CareerStep offers a range of certifications in multiple work-at-home opportunities within the medical field.With their medical transcription certification, which is approved by the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity, you’ll prepare yourself to land an online job in an industry that’s hungry for qualified talent. CareerStep courses are not cheap (they start at $2,999), but they do offer both payment plans and discounts for military spouses.Click here to learn more about CareerStep.If you’re not looking for a career and just want to make some extra money, there are a number of websites where you can get started with transcription on a more casual basis.The most popular sites are:Rev — make 36 to 65 cents per minute of audio transcribedGo Transcript — earn up to 60 cents per minute of audio transcribedScribe — pay starts at $5 to $25 per hour of audio transcribedDionData Solutions – hires only U.S.-based workers#16) — VOICEOVER ARTISTQuick summary: Provide vocal recordings to be used in audiobooks, videos, films and moreAverage pay: $20 per hourVoice acting is the art of reading a script and using your voice to bring that script to life. Quality voice actors are in especially high demand in the marketing field, as video marketing has exploded in popularity in recent years.A good site to get started on is Fiverr. There, you can gain experience working as a voiceover artist (and ideally finding your niche).See: How to Work From Home as a Voice Actor#17) — TECHNICAL WRITERSQuick summary: Synthesize complex, high-level information for a specific audience to understandAverage pay: $20 per hour for beginnersFor those who like to dive deep into learning new things — and aren’t afraid of tackling super-complicated topics — technical writing can be a great way to make extra money. As a technical writer, you’ll be responsible for writing user guides and other documentation.See: How to become a technical writerCREATE YOUR OWN ONLINE JOB (ENTREPRENEURSHIP)The goal of a freelancer is to get good clients, do great work, and increase their value over time.The goal of an entrepreneur is to build a repeatable system that provides value with or without the owner. As an entrepreneur, you are no longer working on projects for a set rate (or by the hour). Instead, your income correlates with the amount of value you can provide.There are no limits to what you can and can’t do. But to narrow down your choices and help you figure out where to start, here are 10 ideas.See Also: 16 Hottest Small Scale Business Ideas#18) — RETAIL ARBITRAGEQuick summary: Buy low and sell highDo you love going to flea markets, garage sales, and browsing thrift stores? If so, you can make money online by flipping items for profit.Think of this side hustle as buying an asset and selling it for a higher price. Your inventory can be anything you find at a garage sale or on a clearance rack.The goal — and the key to making retail arbitrage work — is having an information advantage. This means understanding the market for what you’re buying better than the person who is selling that item.Remember, the concept of arbitrage is based on the principle that a particular good has a higher price in one place than it does in another. That might mean it sells for more in California than it does in New York. But it might also mean that it sells for more online than it does in a brick-and-mortar store. Winning at arbitrage means knowing how to figure out which items to buy and which ones to walk away from.Robert and Melissa Stephenson of Flea Market Flipper have a Free 5-Day Email Course on making money by flipping items. They made over $130,000 last year, so their course is definitely worth checking out to see if flipping is right for you.#19) — ETSY STORE OWNERQuick summary: Create and sell homemade crafts and digital products on the world’s largest creative marketplaceWhen it comes to legit work-from-home jobs for moms, Etsy is near the top. With Etsy, you can sell your own homemade arts and crafts (both physical and digital).Read: Mrs. Money Mustache’s Top-Secret Five-Figure Etsy Shop#20) — E-COMMERCE STORE AND/OR AMAZON FBAQuick summary: Create your own online store or use Fulfillment by Amazon to sell physical products onlineAmazon FBA is a business idea getting a lot of attention lately. It’s actually something me and a friend have dabbled in (although without much success so far).The idea is to buy products directly from a manufacturer or wholesaler, then sell them online on Amazon. The most popular option is to use Amazon FBA, which handles all the warehousing and shipping (the “fulfillment”) for you. In fact, you can even have the manufacturer or distributorship the products directly to Amazon, so that you never have to physically touch the items.But you don’t have to limit your selling to Amazon. You can also use FBA to ship products you sell on eBay or your own website. It’s much easier than packing and shipping everything yourself, and the shipping rates Amazon charges you are much lower than you’d pay to UPS or FedEx.See: How How to Make Money on Amazon (The Definitive Guide)#21) — CREATE A COURSEQuick summary: Create an online education courseIf you have expertise others may find valuable, you can create a course online and sell it. This used to be very hard, as you had to build your audience from scratch.But two websites, Udemy and Skillshare, now provide access to an audience of people who are eager to learn about almost everything under the sun. There are all types of courses available, so it’s a great way to create a legit online job of your own.#22) — HOME HEALTH AGENCYQuick summary: Manage a local team of home healthcare providersAnother trend that’s not slowing down is the need for qualified home healthcare.Read: Want to Start a Home Health Care Business? Here’s How#23) — VIRTUAL RECRUITERQuick summary: Find talented employees for businessesIf you love to network, this is a great low-cost business to start. What you’re doing here is finding talent for employers. Payouts can be quite large, as some placement firms charge upwards of 25 percent (or more) of the employee’s annual salary.See: How to Start Your Own Recruitment Business#24) — EVENT AND WEDDING PLANNINGQuick summary: Create business coordinating events locallyFamilies and businesses are always looking for planners for events like weddings, birthday parties, anniversaries, graduations and more. The best part is that no office is necessary, so the startup costs are very low.Read: How to Work From Home as an Event Planner#25) — INSURANCE AGENTQuick summary: Sell property, casualty, or life insurance from a home officeBeing in this field myself for over 10 years, I have seen a lot of growth from individuals starting their own insurance agencies from home. Startup costs are low, the hours are flexible, and the commissions can be quite high.#26) — TRAVEL AGENTQuick summary: Book and coordinate travel for individuals or businessesBelieve it or not, travel agents are still in demand. It just depends on finding the right niche. This is an especially good business for you if you have personal or professional travel experience because you can provide your clients with insights they can’t get from a website.# 27) MEDICAL BILLING AND CODINGQuick summary: Ensure patients and insurance companies are properly billed for medical servicesMany of us have had to deal with the hassle of calling our health insurance company because we were overcharged for a medical procedure — or were charged for a treatment we never even received.As a medical coder, you’ll help patients avoid this unpleasant experience by ensuring that providers correctly bill for their services based on a standardized, industry-wide set of codes.You’ll also play a vital role in ensuring patients’ health and safety. In addition to recording the specific treatments provided at a visit, you’ll be responsible for reading doctor’s notes, identifying their diagnosis, and translating that diagnoses into a simple code that can be populated across the patient’s health records — a process that makes it easy for future providers to quickly scan a patient’s health history.And you can make solid money. According to CareerStep, which offers industry-approved training and certification courses, average salaries for medical coders start at $50k+ per year, with projected job growth of more than 10% over the next 10 years.As a medical coder, you can work in a doctor’s office, at a hospital, or on-site for insurance companies. But there’s also strong demand for remote, part-time professionals who have the right knowledge and training.Click here to learn more about CareetStep’s Employer-trusted training programs, which have a near perfect rating on Trustpilot after almost 1,000 customer reviews.#28) — HEALTHCAREPopular online healthcare jobs include billing, coding, the handling of insurance claims, and general customer service work.See: Medical & Health Jobs – Remote, Part-Time & Freelance (Hiring Now)#29) — SALES AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENTSales are one of the most in-demand and legitimate work-at-home jobs. If you produce results, you can get paid big money. Just about every industry needs quality salespeople.See: Sales & Business Development Jobs – Remote, Part-Time & Freelance (Hiring Now)#30) — ACCOUNTING AND FINANCEA field open to both entry-level and experienced professionals, common roles in accounting and finance include bookkeeping, managing payables and receivables, collections, and analysis.See: Accounting & Finance Jobs – Remote, Part-Time & Freelance (Hiring Now)#31) — COMMUNICATIONSWork with PR and marketing departments to deliver communications within and to prospects and customers of a company.See: Communications Jobs – Remote, Part-Time & Freelance (Hiring Now)#32) — INSURANCEThe insurance field is one of the largest sectors of the economy, employing over 2.66 million people in the United States.Entry level-jobs include call center roles, sales, and communications.See: Insurance Jobs – Remote, Part-Time & Freelance (Hiring Now#33) — LEGALThere is a wide range of jobs in the legal field. Opportunities for entry-level workers include administrative assistant and records assistant positionsR.J. Weiss, CFP®R.J. Weiss is the founder and editor of The Ways To Wealth, a Certified Financial Planner™, husband and father of three. He's spent the last 10+ years writing about personal finance and has been featured in Forbes, Bloomberg, MSN Money, and other publications.Working from home has many advantages- you can still raise your family if you have one, you save money on transportation, you can bring in your clients to you in your home office, through web Halo- conferencing, and the personal icing on your cake is you can do all this in your pajamas.The internet has made it much easier to make money from home. Whether your goal is to work full-time, part-time, or run your own business, there is no shortage of opportunities.