Self-employed vs. Corporate World

[Scanner]

If you had the choice, which do you see as more risky?

If you had a business that was fairly established, had ups and downs with economy but made let's say 70K/year and no benefits (no disability even - won't offer it to my occupation) and you worked weekends and odd hours and maybe 2 weeks/vacation/year if that and then were offered a job that paid 85K/year + health insurance + 401(k) + car allowance + 3 weeks of paid vacation. . .which would you take? The second job you have to travel M-R or T-F, but you have weekends

Knowing there's always a risk you don't control your own destiny with a corporation and could be downsized?

It's interesting.

WIth my ex-wife, she would have said, "Take the job. Not even a contest. You get a paycheck every week." Very "factory worker" oriented. Saw any free enterprise as too risky for a man with a family.

My current gf says, "You would give up your business for that? I see that as so risky. I am a play it safe kind of gal."

It's amazing as a guy to get the conflicting counsel and have 2 women who I am/was involved with see it exactly opposite in terms of risk.

[bjl584]

Risk aside, I think it would be hard to take orders from someone else and be in a corporate structure where there are certain rules, protocals, politics, political correctness, and the like after running your own business and being your own boss for any length of time.

[Scanner]

I do think about that.

Am I, after 15 years of being self-employed, really adaptable to being a "cog in the corporate wheel" so to speak.

I hear nothing but negative about corporate culture, but like anything, it can't be all that bad, can it? (or can it, lol).

When I think of corporate culture, I think of this Stephen Covey short, Max and Max.

Max And Max - YouTube

It's 15 minutes but damn, even though I am not the "puppy dog" Max was in this little short (it's 15 minutes), I can see that happening to me.

[phantom]

My parents raised me to believe that the safe path is to develop the best skill set you can and seek out a job with a fairly stable company. So, I'm definitely biased in that direction, but I try to keep an open mind and evaluate things on a case by case basis.

I wouldn't worry too much about losing the job working for someone else if I was pretty certain my skills working there would easily transfer to go work for someone else after that. But, I would still consider things like how stable an industry the employer was in and how long they'd been in business, because I'd hate to have to go find another job right away.

As for the business I owned, my concern would be how bad the downs could be. If there were some years where I was in serious danger of losing the business or of not making enough money to support my family, and I didn't have a plan for minimizing those risks as time went on, I might choose to stop working for myself.

I don't think the presence of the 401k, health insurance, more vacation time and such have anything to do with risk and stability. I figure you have to come up with insurance, retirement savings, and a car on your own if an employer doesn't supply them, so it just means you have to subtract a few K from the earnings from one job before comparing the money. Meanwhile, vacation time and extra hours just a lifestyle choice. I kinda prefer 2 weeks to 3 weeks myself because I've never been able to find time or reasons to take much more than 2 weeks, and I hate losing days at the end of the year. I think the idea of getting to run things yourself verses following someone else's direction is also a personal choice and a factor in the decision that doesn't have much to do with risk.

In general, I would definitely be more like your ex. My husband has had a few ideas for starting businesses in the time I've known him, and I've always poked holes in them and shot them down. But, I like to think that he has a chance of coming up with one that I don't poke holes in someday, and that I'll support him when he does. I also like to think that if he had an established business working when I met him, I would have let him continue to run with it.

[Scanner]

And you aren't glamorizing being self-employed, are you? That's the thing. . .is being self-employed over-glamorized and working for someone over-vilified?

Not sure.

I always chuckle at the scene where he says he's going to take a newspaper to Max's nose in Max and Max. I totally see that happening to me.

[bjl584]

Am I, after 15 years of being self-employed, really adaptable to being a "cog in the corporate wheel" so to speak.

I hear nothing but negative about corporate culture, but like anything, it can't be all that bad, can it? (or can it, lol).

I work for a corporation, and no, it's not all bad. But, it's not all good either. I often think, "If I were in charge I would do things like this or that." Not that it would be the right thing to do or it would be sucessful, but being bound by certain corporate rules and limitations can be frustrating. Often, you have to "play the game" whether you think it's a good idea or not.

[feh]

I hear nothing but negative about corporate culture, but like anything, it can't be all that bad, can it? (or can it, lol).

Personal experience is going to color folks' responses to this topic.

I've been in the corporate world for the last 16 years, and my working environment has been top notch. Good people to work with and for. I really don't have a single complaint.

So, given my background, I'd take the higher paying job.

[Mjenn]

It's tricky - I also have had my own business for many years, and find it hard to give up. Now given where I live, I do have all the benefits included but I am a lot more reliant on the state of the market. I mean, when times are tough, it can really affect my business. I have managed to make it work anyway, and always turn a reasonable profit, but sometimes it can be tough.

That said, I have had a few offers to work for companies and it is the corporate culture that gets me. And that time is no longer my own. Now, when there is nothing to do, or I want to clear my head - I walk my dog. At a company I have to 'look busy' or attend a ton of stupid pointless meetings when I have a ton of other things I could be doing.

For me, deciding over my own time wins the prize every time. Yes sometimes there is weekend work. But sometimes I can sleep in on a Monday and on some days I go to work in my pajamas (not on days I meet with clients of course!)

[dawnwes]

I like knowing what to expect.....so I am definitely biased towards working for a company or corporation. My husband works for one of the Big 4 accounting firms and always has (two different ones now) and he has not experienced that big bad corporate mud slinging that people talk about. Now, he has a personality that gets along with just about everyone, so that could play a role.

I too worked FOR someone else, but not in corporate America.

I LIKE knowing exactly how much we are going to make, having benefits, and planning ahead with an actual budget. It gives me a feeling of stability. I don't think I would do well with not knowing how much is coming in from month to month. It would stress me out.

Dawn

[EEinNJ]

I used to work for a big corporation, and I've been a contractor for one. I've also work for small businesses family owned, and tried being self-employed. I couldn't generate enough customers or projects to stay with being self-employed. Contract work paid well, but periods between jobs meant I didn't make as much in the long run.
Yes, I made more money and had better benefits working for the big corporation. But I also experienced the deadening routine, the inability to get things done in a bureaucracy, politics, threats of layoffs, and feeling like a cog in a paternalistic machine.
I work for a very small company now, and make a lot less money, but it's low stress, and technically interesting when we're busy.

[Like2Plan]

DH and I have had this discussion before. I'm retired now, but I have always been a worker bee. I had some thoughts of going into management early on in my career, but after I had a kid I decided supervising was too much like parenting and I already had my hands full with my own kid.

DH likes high creativity, low structure (and at this stage of his career, no management type job). He had thought of starting up his own company, but he does not to do admin sort of stuff. He thought I might be perfect for managing the admin part of a business (uh, No!) So he works for someone else. He likes his current job---even though it is highly structured, he has the high creativity part that he loves.

[mgkimsal]

I put an even starker question to a friend of mine (we're both in software development):

"Would you take a 6 month full-time contract billing $70/hour, without knowing what comes after it, or take the $40k/year 'job' that you'd be pretty certain of having more than a year from now?"

He took the job vs the contract. $70k for 6 months of his time vs $80k for 2 years of his time. I was a bit shocked that he'd take the job. He was a bit shocked that I'd take the contract, but not too shocked, because it's what I do now. However, he just can't seem to get over that 'security' aspect which I have.

I'd side with the others here who want to be in control of your time. My own short story on this is that I view myself as someone who creates value with the skills I have. I'm creating $X in value for clients right now. If I was offered a 'job' wherein I could expand the amount of value I deliver (based on money, impact on number of people, etc), I would possibly take it, but I've never been offered a job like that, nor do a lot of employers see the jobs they offer in that light. I'd need a staff of people to help me amplify my value, but that's never on offer, so... I continue working for myself and other clients for now.

[TBH]

I have a part time job working for someone else but most of my income is self-employed, freelance income. After working this combination of jobs for 5 years, it feels very risky to me to get all my income from one employer. I have very little job security, but I also have many income streams. My DH has a very stable job working for someone else, but it would make me nervous if both of us were relying on only one employer each.

Now, as a freelancer, I do have one big client that I rely on. If I lost that client I wouldn't lose all my work but it would be pretty bad. So I would like to diversify a little in terms of where my income is coming from.

Can you maybe do both? Is there a way to take the corporate job and scale your own business way, way back? Or think about how hard it would be to re-start your business if you got laid off from the corporate job or decided you couldn't hack it?

I have a friend who did just that, but it didn't go very well. He scaled his own business back, but he had a hard time keeping up with billing and client work for the few clients he did keep, on top of having a full-time job working for someone else.

[Nika]

Benefits like pension or 401K match, health, life, disability insurance, sick time and vacation time have very concrete financial value. They cost a set amount to provide. You need to figure out what that value is and compare two options accordingly.

Yes, there is a risk in taking a job for someone else, but what about the risk of no health insurance? Getting an serious illness or injury and having no insurance is a more insurmountable problem than loosing a job.

[Mjenn]

I will add that even though I have my own business, I am not in the US - so I still have a lot of the security that many others worry about - I have health insurance, paid sick leave, and even pay into unemployment insurance if I close my company at any time I will be covered for a year. That said, I pay an insane insane amount in taxes for this privilage, but I do feel like I get the best of both worlds.