Blog/June 2013/Jun 14th

Jun 14th -- sorry, no devar torah this week

Hi, again!

What an incredibly frustrating week this has been! Promises were made and broken; not once nor twice, but multiple times. I've been pondering the future, and deciding on a course. Wish us success!

Work has been more than slightly turbulent. Last month, the payroll was very late. This month we still have not seen any. But our CEO keeps us entertained with his tales. One day he told us that "the wire was sent this morning". A few days later, "there was a bank holiday". Afterwards, he told some complicated story about investors and what-not. And just the other day he specifically told me the money would be there "today or tomorrow", but he was not truth-saying. Not good, not good at all.

In Israel, the law states that an employer must pay his employees before the 10th of the month. But we who work in "start-up" companies are familiar with the cash-flow problems such companies often have, and are willing to cut our employers some slack. After all, who hasn't had a cash-crunch at one time or another? However, when the employer lies, repeatedly, about the situation -- that's considered to be "not good". One might even say it demoralizes the employees.

So even though I like the work I do -- it's challenging and interesting, and my co-workers are very smart and pleasant to work with -- I cannot work for free. No matter how much I might enjoy the work, the local grocery only accepts money in payment, not rainbows and faery-dust.

Therefore, assuming no money has appeared in my bank account by Sunday, I will deliver a soft-ultimatum to my employer: as long as no money shows up in my account, I will not show up in the office. What's the worst he can do, fire me? That would actually work to my advantage, since I could then get unemployment benefits (which is more than I'm getting at the moment).

What to do, what to do? Should I look for another job, or should I embark on the venture I've been talking about for quite some time now? My choice is to "go independent"; I will be working on my own project now.

Naturally, I need funds to enable me to work independently. I have considered "angel investors", and private funding; but finally settled on a rather radical course: I am breaking my "401K" (retirement) fund in the US and taking the tax hit for early withdrawal, in order to self-fund my efforts. I figure I can make that money last two years, if I'm careful; my actual plan is to have an income-producing product within a year. I may augment my income by doing contract development work, but that would be a distraction I prefer to avoid.

It is certainly true that this plan entails a fair amount of risk. But I can't in good faith ask anyone to invest in my project if I myself am not willing to "put it all on the line". So there it is: if you would like to invest in my efforts, you know my contact information! Fortunately, I have a very solid track-record of being able to produce good software on-budget. By the way, my project is directly related to the latest revelations of government "oversight" in the USA.

In other news: Sarah spent a night and a day in Qiryat Shemona in the very north of the Land, helping one of her classmates film her project. That girl sure gets around! And her friend Dinah has solidified her aliyah plans, and will be here in a couple weeks (literally, she's going to live with us for a while at first).

We are looking forward to a very quiet, peaceful and stress-reducing shabbat this week. Quantities of alcohol will certainly be consumed! We're "going it alone" this time around, just the three of us. So we're preparing, among other things:
egg-drop soup, chicken stir-fry, rice, salatim, meatball cholent, chocolate cake, and cantaloupe.

Until next week,
shabbat shalom!

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