KLD - Working as free lancer

The red thread
Work during unemployment
Setting up the infrastructure
The office in June 2006

The red thread

Having worked as an employee for over 30 years in various companies (not mentioning my starting time in Austria) I needed to develop my own business due to unemployment after loosing my last job.

My career clearly shows a red thread: documentation

Starting as a mechanical engineer I wrote my own support manuals to ease and speed my work. This was at Oerlikon Bührle Machine Tool Works. From the drawing board I moved to a development group, where computing became very important. One of the first documents there was a manual for the first table top computer HP 9100B in German. HP requested 150 copies...

From there I was promoted to the newly set up computing centre for the concern - Oerlikon Bührle RZ AG or short OBRZ. This company was closed by a very big boss who first closed those companies which did not produce revenue. However - to avoid revenue was one of the goals set by the concern... So I needed to find a new job.

With only 6 letters of application I got a new job even in the time of beginning recession - at Delta Software Technology. I became responsible for the documentation department. This, however, did not last for long - just until mid 1994.

Work during unemployment demonstrated

• There is plenty of documentation work, even interesting one
• Customers are satisfied with my service, and hence
• Customers pay for the work, and hence
• I should be able to earn enough money for the family.

Hence I decided to become self-employed and created my own company: Docu + Design Daube 

Setting up the infrastructure

To start a company à la Münchhausen (that is, pull oneself out of the swamp on ones hairs) is not that easy. My main principles were:

• Do not take money form the banks. Fortunately I could use the money from a second pension fund.
• Do not establish the business in your appartment to stay clearly separate from the family affairs.
• Set up an efficient, but not expensive infrastructure. Giving up most space in my hobby room and establish an office with about 25m² turned out to be a reasonable solution.
• Develop a sound business plan (well, you know, that's said easily...).

The office in June 2006

Even after 10 years of working I'm still at the same location (KISS). The panorama was done with Panorama Studio 1.3. The file is about 2MB.

To work with large drawings in limited space table presenters are great devices - here demonstrated only with two drawings. Working on a spare parts catalogue once I had 14 A1 drawings in easy access.