Self-employment is anything but the dream | Hacker News Reader

Self-employment is anything but the dream

theage.com.au

21 pointsnreece18 comments

My father (who has always been self-employed) once said "the best thing about being self-employed is that I can choose my own hours. I can work whatever 100 hours a week I want."

I believe I like the version I've heard better. "the best thing about being self-employed is that I can choose my own hours... as long as its all of them."

My father's saying was "I can work 24 hours a day whether I want to or not". He also used to say "If you go to the bank for a loan and you say you are 'self-employed' they hear 'un-employed'"

I remember a story about a business owner (in India I think) whose employees could get loans but he could not. They were employed after all.

Surely he could have just get himself employed as a director of the company?

Been one of those entrepreneurs - Being employed as a director is not seen has employment. My employee just got loan of 2.2 million rupees to buy a vehicle (depreciating asset)and banks are not clearing my loan of 2million to buy a house (asset) when I am paying other 2million. True story.

I'm the director of my own company in the UK (freelance Web development). When I tried to get a mortgage recently they took the average of the last three years of my company accounts (net profit) as my salary equivalent. They didn't take into account the fact that the company profits have substantially increased year-on-year, and the project profits for the coming year are much higher than the average of the last three years.

So yeah, it's a lot harder to deal with banks if you're self-employed, especially as loans seem harder get these days.

Another quote along those lines:

Why work 8 hours a day for someone else for a living wage, when you can work 24 hours a day for yourself for free?

I never got the memo that said I was supposed to work 100hr weeks while self-employed. I don't think I've ever worked more than 40 on any of my startups, and often ramp down to something like zero hours per week for months at a time. Thus far I haven't seen any ill effects.

It's all about building things that bring in income, and fortunately for us software types, value is often completely disconnected from the amount of work it takes to build something. So sure, you can spend 100 hour weeks for years on end building something huge and low margin, or you can spend 20 hour weeks for a few months building something small and high margin.

Getting to make that choice is the nice thing about being self-employed.

That might be why in this week’s survey, two-thirds of self-employed people said they’re living anything but the dream. A dream employer for them is not their current status of self-employment.

Little data given, but this strikes me as one of those hard to measure things. It's like how surveys show that children don't make people "happier" and yet you'll be hard pressed to find any parent that would give it up.

Similarly, these 2/3 of people self employed could get a traditional job.... but they don't. I guess it depends how the questions are worded. Could things be better? Of course. Would you give it up? Well, presumably they could.

Relevant cartoon: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/working_home

Edit: also curious about how many people who do work in the companies in the top list actually list their own companies. Grass is always greener sort of effect. What percentage of Google employees consider Google their "dream job"?

Himilarly, these 2/3 of people self employed could get a traditional job.... but they don't.

This isn't necessarily true. The hacker news world of prep school kids that turn down $200K/yr junior investment banking jobs to work on their Facebook gaming startups sort of warps this perspective. Many, if not most, self employed people are self employed because they would never get hired at a regular job. There was even a time when this was true in Silicon Valley.

The hacker news world of prep school kids that turn down $200K/yr junior investment banking jobs to work on their Facebook gaming startups sort of warps this perspective.

There's something that strikes me as odd about this statement; I didn't realize we were all supposed to be prep school kids with the option of having $200k/yr junior investment banking jobs.

@arn, I agree and you give a lovely example of parents wanting to have children and point to an even lovelier set of cartoons - they totally cracked me up - thank you!!:)

Well let's see:

Work steadily for 40+ years with no hope of ever "striking it rich", getting bought out or anything else. Just grind away with (hopefully!) gradual increases every few years.

vs.

Work much more than is reasonable for less than you can afford but if you're lucky and good the sky isn't even the limit.

Self employment may not be the dream but in my mind it's the option that can at least become the dream. I don't see putting in 45 a week until I'm too old to do it anymore, trying to make someone else' dream come true ever being that and I'd be extremely depressed if it were.

Self-employment is the dream because there are no ceilings to your growth. People have this notion of self-employment being a wonderland of hammock reading and money easily flowing in. It can be those things but it's about loving what you are doing and not trying to get free from what you are doing.

When you love what you do, a 70 hour work week is nothing - you feel purposeful and valuable. You did it because you have a dedication to a dream or a vision. One that is yours and not someone else's.

Agree, I was working 60 hr weeks and earning a nice investment banking salary. I now work every waking hour and earn maybe 1/8th as much. We have to fight for every bit of progress that we make, but I love (almost) every second of it. All types of employment have their trade offs; you have to figure out what you are comfortable with and go with it.

Someone once told me the two most overrated things in life are owning your own business and natural child birth.

As a dude, I cannot answer for the latter, but as a business owner oftentimes I would agree with the former.

We always miss what we don't have and never see what we already have.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com