Can I ever go back to a 9 to 5 job?

Hanuman

Hanuman

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In an alternate timeline, I would have been a VP of marketing or product management at one of the internet startups in my country by now. The job would not have been cushy since work life balance is near nil in most companies that pay well in my country. But I would have definitely been paid well - even by western standards.

But more than a decade back, I took the plunge to be my own boss. Did digital marketing consulting. I lived in India while getting paid in USD. And so made a lot more than my peers and life was cushy.

The recent few years have been crazy though. With companies getting increasingly hesitant about SEO, my target market has shrunk by quite a lot.

At this point, I'm tired and would have definitely liked to be in the alternate timeline. Sure jobs come with their own risks of layoffs and what not. But now I feel I may have become unemployable since at this stage of life, companies would want to hire someone with people management experience and I have none of that.

Has anyone ever gone back to a regular job after working solo for such long periods of time? Or is the grass still greener on my side and I am not realizing it?
 
I have been a freelance consultant since late 2007. There is no amount of money you could give me to have a "boss" in charge of me, telling me when to work and how. Also, fuck that meeting that could have been an email and all the managers that call them along with all the rest of the bureaucracy and backstabbing co-workers that comes with it. Most non-tech people are so seriously mentally lazy they will literally stand there with their fking phone in their hand and ask basic questions a simple Google query can solve. So no, there's nothing about doing corporate dog and pony shows to higher ups that will ever be even remotely appealing to me.
 
You are still young and IF you still have that spark inside of you then you are capable of pivoting to where there is demand. But if you don't feel like the spark is there then pack it in.

The one thing about a corporate job is there is a lot more structure and social interactions that happens versus working for yourself.

If you are tired boss, then you are tired.

The only thing this post did was piss me off. Cause the upside of being on your own is there is unlimited potential growth, especially if you have that fire inside of you still. There are TikTokers making affiliate money.

But this life also is not for everyone. I'm reminded of why I even decided to leave the 9 to 5 grind, for freedom. I've got that freedom now. Now it's just about how hard I want to work to scale upwards.

It's impossible to scale upwards 50% at a corporate job, unless you are in the sales department.

There are also people that are over-employed like @eliquid's strategy.

People aren't going to care too much about gaps in your resume - all that can be easily "adjusted" to make it like you were an employee of the marketing company if it really comes down to it. All the problems you are asking are simply based on your perception. Founders partner up and employee previous founders constantly, they have more experience hands on - and there was NO backup plan, if something failed they HAD to get it fixed or close business. See that perspective of hiring a former Solopreneur.

When it comes down to it people will hire people that can show competence and get results or at least make them feel good/better.

 
I do both.

As CCarter said, you have higher upsides when you have equity in your own project. However, as an employee, you don't have a downside and what I mean by that is that you don't risk losing as money. You can totally lose your capital and time in entrepreneurship. I've had like 20 ventures that just lost money and I probably have close to a quarter of a million in wasted starting capital in my life so far. That hurts. Rule #1 of investing is don't lose money. Took me a long time to learn that.

For some people, as CCarter said, they are OK with this and have the fire to go at it solo. Others, like me, realize it is a lot better to start businesses with business partners so you share the risk. It is also nice to rely on others too. Pretty soon, in my business, my investor will pay for all the rest and I won't need to risk my capital anymore. Then the future is all upsides for me with no downside. Awesome!

As for a career, I think most people on here, whom I've meet, suck at careers since they are bad at office politics. I was too. You get bad assignments if you are bad at office politics and that will cause you to hate your job. The answer is to either go freelance or get better at politics. You have to put a fake friendly face. You also have to put on deep disregard for people too. It is like that. I recommend people who dislike their job to learn office politics.

Also, it has a lot to do with life situations too. People with kids would rather take security than upsides.

But really, do whatever you see fit for your life. You know your goals and how to get there. I have no idea what your goals are. For me, I want to move from millionaire to deca millionaire by the time I'm 40. I stay in my jobs because they let me max out my pre-tax 401k and also pay for my lifestyle. The business is how I will get rich.
 
Hanuman said:
Has anyone ever gone back to a regular job after working solo for such long periods of time?
Click to expand...

CCarter said:
There are also people that are over-employed like @eliquid's strategy.
Click to expand...

I think like anything in life, you live and you learn.

And sometimes you try things again with your new learnings and get what you wanted all along.

I had a horrible experience as a 9-5'er from the time I was 15 until I was 30. While I did a ton of side jobs along my main job, and did a lot of freelance too... it wasn't until I was 30 that I got true self employment.

And I loved it.

15 years of struggle and now self employed at 30....

And then I learned the downsides of self employment.

I waffled around self employed for a while too. I took on freelance work even while doing SERPWoo and being a well-known affiliate.

I even took W2 jobs too that would last a few months or a year while my self employed made me more money.

That's how I can say companies like Alibaba, John Deere, TeamViewer, MalwareBytes, Notre Dame, Virgin, etc have all been my clients.

But at 46, I'm back to W2 mainly... so another 15-16 years from when I was 30 and back at being an "employed" person.

I still do freelance work. I still have my own business too where Im making stuff on the side to sell on my own. But the majority of what I do is W2 now.

Why the change?

I have ADHD and I'm on the spectrum. I didn't know for years, but this causes me to have my hands in many pies at any 1 time. I'm always going to be like this. I need the dopamine rush of doing everything I can when I can.

That, along with the past 30 years of experience, has shown me what I want and what I need from career, money, lifestyle, and more. I know what to look for and what to ask for and how to get what I want personally.

And being overemployed was that.

If it's 1 W2 job and 2 side gigs. If it's 2 W2 jobs and no side gigs. If it's 3 side gigs all the same time... etc. I know what I need and I am fine with saying no until I get what I want.

And let me tell you this...

You can have 1 W2 job and have everything you want.

Are there bad W2 jobs? Sure

Are their bad self employment set ups and side gigs? Sure.

But there are great self employment set ups and great W2 jobs too.

You all ever read my thread on alignement and drepression? Where I made a mission statement and core values for myself here at BuSo? I was able to meet all of those in a W2.

Pick your job as carefully as you would pick a spouse.

Here was my values and mission statement I had:
  1. Solve problems with simplicity, creativity, and entrepreneurship
  2. Share my full knowledge, wisdom and insight with those that deserve it
  3. Live a full and stable life with complete and utter autonomy

I can be honest when I say I only know 1 other time in my life I had the above outside of today/right now and that was when I was one of the top affiliates in the performance marketing space back in 2008.

I already had in my life rags to riches story.

I been had millions in liquidity cash in the bank and fancy trips to mansions on the beach.

I been had the story I did it all myself, by myself with no team or help.

I been had a startup and innovation in a space that was stagnate with a co-founder.

I been had big name brands coming to me for help and giving me a huge payday.

Now I realize what I want though, what's actually a better course for me.

I want my brain to settle and relax. I want peace. I want to think about the things I want to think about and be able to get into the bed and actually sleep at bed time instead of thinking of "self employment" things and how Im gonna get an invoice paid from a bad client, or if Google changes it's Search Results Page and now SERPWoo is behind 10 hours on accurate results or something.

Life is much more than business, money, and chasing a dream of material stuff and doing it as a startup team of a handful of people.

I got everything I ever wanted and needed material-wise.

The stuff that was missing, Im chasing now.

I know Im a blessed person and that not everyone can be in my shoes. But I could say the exact same thing if I was self employed too.

Point is, you can have everything you want and more in a W2.

Most people just settle for what they get though. W2 or self employment.

Don't settle, and you can have whatever it is you want regardless of what the medium is.

----

This is the thread I was talking about above.

https://www.buildersociety.com/threads/not-fulfilled-depressed-maybe-you-need-an-alignment.3235/

I stopped posting to it in 2019, but I continue to do this exercise every year around my birthday.

It hasn't changed the past few years.. so I think I settled into what is a good fit for me. But I still do the exercise to make sure.
 
I took a "job" last year. It wasn't on my list of things to do, but they came to be with a very fun, fixed, consulting project, so I said yes. Then they asked if I can run the whole project. on an ongoing basis.
eliquid said:
I know what I need and I am fine with saying no until I get what I want.
Click to expand...
5+ years ago a mentor taught me to "know your terms".

In business a lot of people (myself included before I learned about it) will "take what they can get" instead of having clear, strict terms, and sticking to them.

Breaking these rules looks like this:
  • taking a smaller amount of $ for more work,
  • getting paid on 90 day terms instead of up front,
  • committing to daily standup calls instead of monthly status updates,
  • saying yes to running a Meta ads campaign when you are actually an email marketing genius, etc.
I'd been self employed for something like a decade now, and had often wondered how hard it would be to get a job again.
CCarter said:
Founders partner up and employee previous founders constantly, they have more experience hands on - and there was NO backup plan, if something failed they HAD to get it fixed or close business. See that perspective of hiring a former Solopreneur.
Click to expand...
When I was contacted, the organization's HR department had snooped my LinkedIn a few times. Later, my now "boss" told me "HR couldn't find anyone else, you're a unicorn". Don't discount the experience you get from building things. You might not see it yet, but once you're in a role you're going to be so much more efficient and think about things in a completely different way (ROI) to any colleagues.

In the end, the "job" looks very similar to that of an agency client. Again, if you know your terms, and you act from a position of power (not desperation!), you can set those terms and make it all work for you.
 
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