Now that I am self-employeed, or “funemployed” as I like to say, the number one question I get asked is “Man, I could never do what you are doing. Aren’t you stressed out about money?”.
The answer is, yes, money is my stress. I have to pay my bills and I need money to do it. Nothing is guaranteed in self-employment so I am on the hook for everything. But I would say I feel less stressed. I have traded a handful of stress for one source of stress that can be managed if you are smart about it.
The Last Job You Will Ever Have
I think it’s safe to assume that everyone is afraid of unemployment, and not just since the economy tanked. I know that for me, it was a real fear. Everywhere I have worked, I have thought “is today my last day?”. I’ve never been fired or laid off from a job, so why am I afraid?
I think I was afraid that being fired or laid off would be the black mark on my record that would make me unemployable forever. I had it in my head that whatever job I was doing would be the last job I would ever have. This fear or being fired or laid off, even though it is completely irrational, has lead me to do some sort of silly things with jobs in the past. I know I left at least one job because I was so afraid of being fired, I thought I’d better quit before that could happen. Years later, talking to my employer about the conditions after I quit, I was told that I was never in danger of losing my job, that in fact, I was in line for a raise and they were very pleased with the work I was doing.
Growing up, most of us had parents that worked at one place. My dad has worked at the same job for over 30 years. His job is the last job he will ever have and it has been that way for my entire life. I think we become conditioned to thinking this is how to be successful: you work at a job as long as you can. Being fired or laid off is not acceptable, because that is worse than being unemployed. It’s a fear of failure. So, being self-employed has removed this fear and stress. I can’t be fired. Ever. No matter what happens. That’s reassuring to me.
The Power
I think another frustration that I have eliminated in my life is the feeling of not being in control. Whenever I was employed by someone else, they had all of the power. They owned the building, they owned the equipment, they owned the desks and they owned me. They would remind you of that fact by saying subtle things like “there is time missing from this timesheet” or not-so-subtle things like “we own you”. The power was all theirs.
We all deal with this issue in our lives, but what was the real problem? No one has all power over their life, we have to surrender all of the time. The problem was, the people steering my life, really didn’t know what they were doing. My boss isn’t me. They aren’t in my family, they don’t really know much about me, yet they have the single biggest stake in my life. It just seems very backwards. Shouldn’t I have the biggest stake in my life? Now that I do, I feel pretty good about it. I feel empowered, if I may say so, and since I’m in charge, I may.
I understand everything that is unique about my situation, and while that mandatory fundraiser on Sunday really sounds great, I think I’ll pass.
Managing Expectations
Beyond your regular duties as outlined in a job description, there are also unwritten duties that no one is going to tell you about or help you with. No one will ever mention them to you, because they are not official. Instead co-workers and employers will let them grow into peeves, which then fester and become annoyances, finally culminating in animosity. But don’t feel too sorry for yourself, because you will do it to others, too.
Have you ever thought:
“Why is this guy playing this crappy music?”
“Who talks on the phone that loud?”
“What is the deal with that shirt?”
“Man, this dude has some B.O.”
“If he tells me to ‘keep my stick on the ice’ one more time, I’m buying a gun.”
Now that I don’t have an office, I don’t have to face another contrived birthday party for that person I don’t know. I don’t have to be friends with people I wouldn’t be friends with otherwise. It’s a small stress, I know, but it’s one less.
The Profit Incentive
Everywhere I’ve worked, I’ve received a salary, which is fine. I worked somewhere between 35 and 40 hours a week, and I would receive 1/26th of my salary every 2 weeks. What a perfect little system that is.
Too bad the world is not perfect. Deadlines fall on weekends and during family events. Somehow, people get a hold of your personal cellphone number. You get emails on Sundays. This is making me feel underpaid, and that’s stressful.
The reverse is also true. You are working on a lot of “internal projects”. You haven’t been to a meeting in weeks. You stare blankly at your timesheet wondering how you will record that time on Facebook. You haven’t received an email in 72 hrs and your phone is getting dusty. This is making me feel overpaid, i.e. - in danger of being fired/laid off. And that’s stressful.
But since I have power, being self employed, I know that working hard means more money and not working hard means not much money. So I want to keep myself in a making money situation. But do I want to make money on the weekends? That’s my choice. Work has now taken on a different meaning. Rather than trying to fill time to look busy, I can do what I want and not stress, or I can take control and try something I want. Ever have a crazy marketing idea or a hunch about a potential client? Now is the time to try that out.
Nearly everywhere I’ve worked, they try to get around the “we don’t pay overtime” issue with my favorite carrot, “profit sharing”.
Let me drop a few numbers on you:
Let’s suppose my salary is $60,000 - or about $29/hr.
Now, let’s suppose profit sharing is decided like this:
“All money the company makes over X, a percentage, Y is divided by the number of employees eligible, Z”.
Right away, people start saying “Wow! This is great! If we work weekends and late evenings, we can double our salary!”. Oh, really?
End of the year comes. The company has made X, so we met our base goal for the profit sharing to kick in. We made $300,000 over X, so now, 15%(Y) of that $300,000 is up for profit sharing! Hooray, we’re rich… right?
$45,000 is now ready to be divided! But first, the board of directors and partners need their higher cut. We forgot to mention that to you.
OK, it’s OK, we still have $15,000. To be divided by 7(Z) employees… oh. That’s $2,142, or an extra 3% salary.
What if I worked an extra 3% at 29/hr. 3% of your salary time is 67 hours.
67hrs X $29 = $1943
So, by trading those Sunday dinners with the family, missing the tee time with your buddy and giving up those hockey tickets, you made $199 more than you would have made negotiating to work an extra 15 minutes each day. Because that’s what 3% of your day is. Still feeling like you knocked one out of the park this year?
Life Is Now
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to miss out on life right now. There is so much to see and do that I won’t be able to see and do when I am 65. And it’s not just the ability to travel the world if you want, because that’s not actually practical.
Let’s re-visit that “overpaid” feeling. Not only does that stress you out because you are feeling expendable, but if you’ve ever been in one of those slumps for a while, you know how draining it can be. The nights when I was most tired were the ones where I did the least amount of work. There is something about letting your brain stagnate all day that really wears you out. And when you get home, you are useless.
Wouldn’t you rather paint your fence or vacuum the floor or work on a hobby in those downtimes? At least you wouldn’t be draining yourself in the name of filling out a timesheet that doesn’t have anything billable on it anyways (another one of those expectations to manage).
