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There doesn’t seem to be a beginning or an end. Just a mixed up juggling of events, good and bad, that becomes a jumble in the mind. So don’t look for any inspirational, yes you can work at home and make millions post. What you’re going to get is just a sample of recent events in the life of a work at homer (me).
The Back-story…
A while back I bought a refurbished Dell laptop. It was at least 3 times faster than the desktop I was using at the time. It seemed that my productivity went up quite a bit with the new capability and I had the portability to work wherever I wanted. That’s when I decided to incorporate all the programs and services I used for work on the new computer. Good thing I did because the ‘ole reliable desktop took a dive. It died, but since I had made all most of the information transfers, things kept on moving and almost nothing was lost.
Fast forward to present…
I got some small jobs throughout the summer and things were going fairly well. Not great, but Ok. Some cash paying jobs and a barter for services. Sure it’s nice to get cash, but then sometimes providence steps in and you don’t realize it The barter for services instead of cash is what made the difference in keeping my business up and running. Hence, this post.
The Story…
My neighbors desktop was acting up and he couldn’t get anything on his
monitor. So he decided to buy a new one (monitor) and still had problems with some of the boot processes. Then he went out and bought a new (read old, worn out, rebuilt) desktop for a couple of bucks and still had problems with just about everything. (All this time he had a Laptop and the monitor didn’t work on that either)
THEN he calls me…
This is not really about what I did or how I helped him with his problem, it’s about the Bartering for Services. Sure, I got his new (old) computer back up and even got him online, which is what he wanted in the first place. And I showed him how to interchange the monitor between the Desktop and Lappy so he could use either for his purposes.
The real point is that I got his Original Desktop, the one that didn’t work in the first place, in exchange for my services in lieu of cash. I figured it would be something to play around with. get it to work and have an extra computer “just in case”.
Well, the “just in case” is Now. My trusty Lappy died last week (it’s probably the Motherboard. so it is likely Totally Dead as in Parrott Dead). This whole post (and I’m sure a lot of future posts) was written on the old, dilapidated, slow, desktop that I got through Bartering for my Services. I upgraded some things like the RAM etc to get it up to par. And now, All my business contacts and information have been transferred (I have a home network and backups) to the usable computer and I still have all the programs and services I need to conduct business on a daily basis.
Moral…
If there is a Moral to this story, it would be this… In a small business, never say no out of hand if someone offers to Barter for your Services, it may just be the lifesaver you need.
How ’bout you? Have you ever Bartered for Your Services? How did it work out for you?
2 Comments
That just shows how important it can be to barter sometimes. Yes I have bartered in the past too. A while back my accounting business was running a little slow so I started to barter. So far I have bartered my accounting services for a new layout for my website, as well as actually bartering my skills for swimming lessons for my daughter. There is a great site I would recommend, its called http://barterquest.com there you can barter anything you could possibly imagine.
Hey Kauri,
You can’t pay the bills by bartering, but sometimes it’s the right thing to do. My neighbor couldn’t afford to pay me cash and I didn’t really need another computer (at the time) but I guess the old addage of “what goes around, comes around” really is true.
It started out mostly as a favor but I’m glad now that bartering worked to our mutual advantage.