Looking at the picture of the man and the woman you could be forgiven for thinking the post was maybe going to be about Valentines and kinky bondage of some sorts. Read the poem however and hopefully it will become a bit clearer.

When I started out in webdesign “professionally” (I’ll use that term loosely as I started without any qualifications in webdesign) around 10+ years ago I was young and very much naive. I … I … I did things for money I’m not proud of … yes I did websites for 20quid and a 6pack of red bull ( a reference to my post on what to charge for webdesign ). I was young I wanted to make a name for myself I wanted to build a portfolio and I really didn’t understand how the world worked. You’re told things by people and because they have so much more experience you think they must be true.

• I’ll tell all my friends you did my website (WOW you mean I get to do more cheap websites for your friends)
• It’ll look great on your portfolio ( A couple of hundred in my wallet wouldn’t hurt either you know )
• If this works out there’s the potential for a lot more work

I think the last one here is key. What exactly do they mean by that. More work at a crap rate is generally what it means. We just need this next bit of work done and we’ll get the money onto you. Can you sort us out with this it’s hurting our business.

I’ve personally learned this just doesn’t work out. People generally don’t respect you and you end up getting screwed over. I’d love for it to be different it’s generally not. While the sites you end up doing here may end up looking good on your portfolio so would potentially doing some websites for charity or something similar and probably pay just as well. ( See http://24theweb.com/ as an example of what I’m on about but it doesn’t have to be a competition and you could approach a charity yourself … sometimes they’ll have money / grants available who knows. )

Flash forward to the present day. The Irish / World economy is … well … not in a happy place to put it nicely. What do I see … I see all these people who in the past have been huge advocates of the advice you never do work for free seeking out interns. So what’s the pay like? Well as far as I can tell it’s pretty **** and it’s not really pay. It’s a stipend 400 or 500 quid a month which lets face it if you’ve got rent to pay isn’t a hell of a lot. Now if they were looking for a student I might be thinking ok it’s placement it’s not always guaranteed to be well paid and if it’s part of their course they have placement then so be it suck it up get graded for the work/project and so be it (in my year a lot of our class ended up in fairly decent summer jobs with companies). These companies however are looking to recruit fresh graduates out of college for the offer of a life time. 6 Months work … 3 grand over the course of this time WOW … and we might just hire you at the end? erm hang on this really seems two faced.

It reminds me a bit like all these business people I’ve seen lauding the advantages of outsourcing their website development to elance and so on as yes it can be much more cost effective and then expecting people to buy their Irish product cus it’s an Irish product and supporting their Irish job? erm… a bit hypocritical.

Anyways just a rant I needed to get out of my system … while I know times are tough they are tough for everyone not just your business so if looking into taking on an intern please think about paying them something to make it at least worth their while. You’ll no doubt tell me of the great advantage having the job on their CV will be for them and how much time and effort you’ll have to put into training them up but half the time it just seems to me you’re out to make a quick buck from your free worker.

I would however love to hear from any Interns and actual positive experiences they’ve had.

So you’re either working from a home office or you’re thinking about it … or you’re just randomly reading this cus I tweeted it or something

I’ve now been working from a home office for a few years. Before this I tried to do part work from home / part working in the office and it worked fine. I actually ended up being a LOT more productive from home so long as you can make the distinction between home life and working life when working from home. Until now I’ve never had an actual proper home office setup there had always been something there.

I moved over with my wife to Madrid in August 2009, I had taken office space in February/March of last year when I finally decided hello I’m going mad can I have a p please bob. I found a like minded soul Jason Roe and we went looking at office spaces around the place. The time was RIPE for it. The recession was kicking in and people were thrilled to find there was some interest. (Honestly the amount of office spaces for rent I’ve seen I’m just surprised prices weren’t cheaper). In the end after having looked at various places and considered setting up our own co-working space we found a place. Nice location (very nice dead center of Dublin .. well Dublin 2 and right beside FF Headquarters). We moved into the office of Pix.ie and ended up sharing the space with them. There was another arrival Angel of Bohoe and then we were four. It seriously made such a change to my working live. Getting up / having a purpose / having a place to go / having an actual office where I could invite clients… completely AMAZING .. deciding to head for a pint or lunch the normal for most people but WOW. Then came the news in July that my wife Valérie-Anne had a new job in Madrid and we were going moving. I’d spent a long weekend there already and fell in love with the city … so my immediate response was …. O … K …. when do we move (I’ll revert to my previous time now … I’d worked from home in Galway … I worked from home in Dublin …) The common denominator in both places were … they were bedrooms. They included Beds / Wardrobes and honestly after 3 years … it really is about the feng shui of the place. I moved to Madrid and well I realised I couldn’t go on using the laptop / table tops and so on (sure the cat was happy out but I wasn’t being the most productive) Thus beings my trips to IKEA!!!

IKEA = The land of the home office. If you’re on a budget and you want something that looks the Shiny then IKEA is your stop. I ended up buying a desk. It went with the office chair in the apartment and hey presto I had a semi proper home office … but no. We’re still not there yet I had dismantled the bed and stored it away but the mattress being a thing of bulk was left there. Now this is where things boil down to the Feng Shui of the place … its just not right … its the office but its not. Fast Forward 4 months and my wife is laid off. A bit of an oh **** situation where one goes oh .. so … erm .. yeah … about that… do we move .. do we stay!

Well we’ve opted to stay she has gone into French Freelance Translation having worked 6 or 7 years now with various translation companies full time.

The last few weeks has seen us convert the spare bedroom / office into whats mostly a proper office.

1. Buy 2nd Desk – Check
2. Buy 2nd Chair – Check (and its a rather nice one pictures to follow)
3. Buy External Monitor – Check (before you use 2 or 3 monitors it seems like a nice to have once you use it … its a major time saver)
4. Buy Lamp – Check
5. Buy 3rd Chair – Well the original one I had was a hand me down left there that I never bothered to replace so now I’m setup in a rather shiny Karsten from IKEA very comfy and I’m a happy camper
6. Buy Printer / Scanner – Its annoying as I’ve multiples in Ireland but it had to be done and shipping and scanners = not good
7. Buy 3rd Counter Top for said printer / scanner

And hey presto we’ve got our office setup … two work spaces … lack of non work items …shelve units as well. Is it good for business?

The answer is incredibly … getting up now and going into the office is great its no longer getting up and going into the place I’m going to work from. It feels right. We’ve both got individual lighting. We’ve got our own chairs that we picked (probably one of the most important things) Valérie-Anne’s chair was around the 150 mark … her desk was around the 30 quid mark. I on the other hand went with the expensive desk and he cheaper chair at 70 quid.

All in all its a good feeling … having your own space / place to work from and I’d heartily recommend it if you can. Spend the day dismantling a room and putting together your office furniture. Get rid of the extra crud in your work space and enjoy your home office setup.

Get yourself something fun for the desktop a mascot a keepsake something that makes you smile. Get yourself a sound system if you want and are working alone. And if you’re in a home office get yourself a Pet (if you think you’ll be around a while) they are such a great stress relief.

So there you have it Part I of the home office setup.