[Hkatzman]

For me this question is always easy. Yes, of course, if I have the time I will ALWAYS go in.

I am a freelancer. I am often hired to go into a new place and be very productive immediately. The client is paying full rate and expects me to be productive. To get access to equipment that I am not otherwise familiar with is money in the bank. I will go into one company and, on my time, get familiar with the equipment. I may or may not get work at that company, but someone will one day call me and ask if I know this very same equipment and I can truthfully say yes. To otherwise get access to unfamiliar equipment, I have to pay a facility for usage time or pay ridiculous amounts of money for training.

I now teach and I tell my students that if you are learning then the money is less important. It will eventually pay off somehow, someway. My “weakness” is that I am not uniquely concerned about money. There are other issues. I may be helping out a good cause (others have equally helped out MY good causes) or I may be learning something new (this is after over twenty-five years in the industry).

But clients pay me well for my diversity of experience and I have never regretted the opportunity, and that is what it is, the opportunity to learn new equipment and setup.