Hi all, gee that was a close one … yesterday I had my annual appraisal interview (Mitarbeitergespräch).
It seems what we are doing is gaining more and more traction in the industry. Unfortunately the industry seems to be having a hard time actually doing decisions and accepting quotes they asked for. I just recently had to renew a quote I wrote, 1,5 years ago and this is already expired again. Currently my pipeline is filled with about 8 concrete projects we were asked to provide official quotes for. However all of them have expired and none have been accepted. They are continuously being asked to prolong or the other side just doesn’t respond to contact requests. I have never come across a part of the industry which is so hesitant to any form of decision (Even a NO is better than waiting for projects that will not come), even if our typical IT consulting rates are way lower than the usual rates the big automation companies ask for. Fact is, that codecentric has been paying me to work on PLC4X 100% of my time for more than 3,5 years now and they are starting to lose confidence that I will at least be able to cover at least my costs with this (They are not expecting to earn lots of money, they just want my costs covered). Luckily I was able to acquire some European Union micro-funding budget for porting (or at least starting to port) the drivers to the C and/or C++ and embedded world … this will keep me afloat for another 4-5 months, but after that I might not be able to continue on this project with the commitment I have for the past if there isn’t anything else coming in. I would probably have to drop this involvement to a voluntary commitment in my free time. I guess if I hadn’t managed to get those EU funds the day before the meeting, they might even have taken me off effective immediately. It would be a real shame, because I really think what we are doing can have a huge impact on the industry. Just wanted to tell you about this … Chris
