On my office wall hangs my degree -- first class honours from a good university. I still half expect that one day they will ask for it back, that they were just being nice because they like me.
My Dad has it bad -- very bad. He has > 50 years experience in his field. He knows more about electricity than most electrical engineers. I tried to convince him to join the IEEE; with his experience and knowledge they'd probably bump him up to Senior Member grade quick smart.
Nope. Not good enough.
This can actually be quite crippling -- he used to give away his services rather than charging for them. "Too simple a job, I couldn't possibly charge for it". He was not a successful small businessman, thinking like that.
It takes most of my willpower to ask people for money. Because surely, I'm not that good. Surely.
That's interesting. Has your dad ever tried partnering with some sort of agent/hustler (I don't know the right term) to do business deals? A confident front-man might be able to sell your dad's expertise to businesses for a pretty penny.
Oh, my mother tried. In her prime she was a formidable people-person, a savvy deal broker. And she pushed Dad very hard to charge more, but he really does have crippling modesty.
Another anecdote. He applied to work in Antarctica, a lifelong dream of his, for ANARE (now the Australian Antarctic Division). His CV listed at that point nearly 40 years of experience working on every major class of communication known to man -- radio, microwave, telephone, fibre optic -- and throughout South East Asia and Russia.
Sometimes you can't get someone to do something they don't want to do.
One of the things about my father that I most admire is his inviolable integrity. He felt that he couldn't morally charge for a lot of what he did and no force on earth, even my mother, could change his decision.
He was wrong, in my opinion. But that's how it was.
On my office wall hangs my degree -- first class honours from a good university. I still half expect that one day they will ask for it back, that they were just being nice because they like me.
My Dad has it bad -- very bad. He has > 50 years experience in his field. He knows more about electricity than most electrical engineers. I tried to convince him to join the IEEE; with his experience and knowledge they'd probably bump him up to Senior Member grade quick smart.
Nope. Not good enough.
This can actually be quite crippling -- he used to give away his services rather than charging for them. "Too simple a job, I couldn't possibly charge for it". He was not a successful small businessman, thinking like that.
It takes most of my willpower to ask people for money. Because surely, I'm not that good. Surely.