Tag: help desk

Should I retire from the SAS World?

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My current SAS contract will end on 11Apr2023, but my SAS Software licence will expire on 31May2023. The second date is probably more pertinent, as, without income, I’m not prepared to finance an annual software renewal without a very good reason (or a sponsor!), and the lack of that licence will necessitate me retiring from the SAS world!

Let’s be absolutely clear at this point in time, I’m not worried about retiring, but I said many years ago, when I passed the UK pension age, I will leave the final decision to my clients!

After 36 years in the SAS world in 2017 I received a Lifetime Achievement Award from SAS UK, which prompted my wife to suggest that I should retire immediately, as, she said, SAS UK now reckon I’m not going to do anything more! However, at the time I felt I had so much more to do!!

Now after 42 years in the SAS world I’m not sure now whether you are shouting “Don’t Retire Now!” or not, but, if you still need to ask me SAS-related questions, you will have to let me know soon, and the best way would be to subscribe to [sas.answers @ Holland Numerics] before the end of May 2023. This permits multiple SAS-related questions to be asked using up to 5 email addresses for a calendar month. Response times are guaranteed within 48 hours. If just 5 companies subscribe for a single month, or a single company subscribes for 5 months, or some combination in-between, then I’ll be able to continue for another year. It is that simple.

I’m currently working on my last(?) SAS-related book with the provisional title of “Memoirs of a Power SAS User”, detailing important SAS and more general software-related facts I’ve found useful during my 40+ years working with SAS software, but this will, of course, be made more difficult without an active SAS licence.

My final, and important, fact for potential subscribers and employers is that in several previous SAS contracts I have been budgeted, when working off-site, at 1.5 FTE (full-time employee), because I can get SAS work done with fewer delays!

So, my retirement is in your hands!

Premium SAS Support for Commercial Clients

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Free membership gives you access to the SAS Skills Discussion Forum for non-programming questions about SAS. Programming and Recruiter memberships, which require monthly low-cost subscriptions, give you access to the same forum and to the SAS Programming Forum, where you can ask SAS programming questions. However, all questions and answers are visible to all members with access to each forum, which may not be quite what you are looking for.

To fulfill any need for confidential correspondence you may have seen a recent addition to the blog menu. The Premium SAS help desk service, called [sas.answers @ Holland Numerics] (which has actually been around since 2002), is different. It does not require even Free membership of the blog, but it does require a separate subscription payable using PayPal. What makes this service special is that it provides an in-house web-based interface for you to ask questions, which automatically generates an SMS message and an email to Holland Numerics, with a copy of the email sent back to you too. There is also a service level agreement to provide an answer to every question within 48 hours, and that answer will be privately sent directly back to the sending subscriber! Please note that, if a monthly subscription is not necessary, then a single question can be asked instead for a reduced fee.

Full details of the [sas.answers @ Holland Numerics] help desk service can be found here.