You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go. Dr. Seuss
Welcome to the new design of the WaterOx Consulting website.
Things have been overly quiet here, and with good reason.
Over the last few months a lot of things have been happening in my personal and professional life and I have been working to figure out the best way for me to balance it all. The stress had been building and I have had to make some tough decisions. The primary decision was what to do with WaterOx Consulting.
Those of you who listen to my podcast (it has been very quiet too!) know the last one I did towards the end of last year was titled ‘A Foolish decision’. In November last year I took on the lead SQL DBA position, full time, at The Motley Fool. Well, sort of. I came in under a special condition of having all the benefits of a FTE, the salary, health insurance, 401k, etc., for 6 months. Then we were going to get together and determine the next steps. That time & decision came sooner than later and I was offered a true, non-conditional, full time position at The Motley Fool. The pay was good and consistent. Trust me, as an independent that is a very tempting offer.
Temping enough that I accepted the position.
Yes, that’s right, I took on a full time position somewhere rather than continuing down the independent consultant path.
After years of being independent and fighting to find clients, find work, pay bills and make other ends meet I took the “easy” way out.
But I really didn’t.
I made sure I was able to keep my existing clients, and negotiated to still be able to go to the conferences and events I have been going to for the last few years. Even though there is a lot of flexibility here understandably I need to have my focus on my position and responsibilities at the Motley Fool now. As such the consulting and other services I provide via WaterOx Consulting has been moved to the back burner, but it hasn’t gone away completely.
By no means was this an easy decision to make. It is one of the reasons I just took a week to go back home to Nova Scotia. I needed time away from everything and everyone to make the decision of what to do with the business and the site.
I didn’t want to shut everything down. I enjoy the interactions with people and clients but needed to drop stress levels and ensure I can properly focus my efforts where they are needed right now. And here is the result of that week away.
The new site.
This version of WaterOx is more focused on the blog, podcasts and videos than the services I provide. It is setup to continue to build both the WaterOx and my personal brand in the SQL Server community. It is also setup to allow me a little more freedom and ease the stress of running a site to try to draw in work. This site will let me continue to blog and broadcast my thoughts and ideas, and possibly some other things in the future.
How long will things be this way?
I don’t know, but rest assured, even though things may change, I am not going anywhere anytime soon.