Self Employed
Are you an employee, or an employer?
The world of business and employment is obviously a broad church, with everything from one-person contractors to the Commonwealth Bank or BHP, and much more besides.
But I’d like to talk about one of the splits in that universe – working for yourself vs working for someone else. Whatever your experience level or skillset, do you fit inside a company, or do you yearn only for being your own boss?
My Dad had a strong desire at one time to be a small-businessman. Some of this was an outgrowth of what might be called a Catholic Agrarian idealism, but I think it was mainly that he didn’t like working for anyone. The main part of his working life was as a political party organiser, political and economic consultant (& journalist), and ultimately as a politician – so that supports the “free spirit” piece. But running a small business? I knew my Dad pretty well, and so did my Mum – we both thought that we couldn’t imagine anyone less temperamentally suited for small business customer service. But we bought a shop and gave it a try. It didn’t work, but we didn’t lose any serious money.
My brother came almost straight out of his apprenticeship and started his own business. It didn’t last long, or end well, but it had possibilities. But he then settled down as an employee. Other siblings have had forays into and out of self-employment
I’ve never had any desire at all to work for myself or start a small business. I can’t even fathom why someone would want to. I’m a “big business employee” through and through.
When I fly north, I used to park my car in a “parking garage service”. It was secure and indoors, and they’d take you to and from whatever terminal you wanted. The business was started in about 2015 by a former mining employee (we worked at the same site at one stage) who saw an opportunity and started the business. It was his fifth “startup” – some had failed, others had been successful and he’d sold out of them. He would do periods of paid employment, but that was only to generate some cash or collateral while he came up with his next business idea.
I say “used to park”, because the car-parking business never really took off – there were “growth hurdles” at some inflection points that weren’t obvious going in, so they couldn’t get the scale they really needed. He sold out and the business failed shortly after. But I guarantee he’s probably now in some part of Australia or New Zealand, starting a new business.
And I can’t get my head around that at all!
A Manager I worked for had a similar career trajectory to me, working in the same big company. He’d been doing it longer than I had – but his vision was to be working for himself, running his own business. An improvement consultancy, or maybe a vineyard/winery (yes, it was that time in the 90’s when everyone was starting a vineyard – see “wine glut” references). From where I sat, I couldn’t imagine anyone (even me) who was more a classic “big company employee” than him. It could have been stamped on his forehead.
He found a survey in Forbes or Fortune, “Are you an employee or an entrepreneur?” – he took it, with predictable results. He got me to do it, too, as a “control” – we both came out very clearly as “employees”.
But he wouldn’t give it up – left the business shortly afterwards, set up his own consultancy and bought a vineyard with his brother. I heard from him again 3 years later (I was needing a referee for a job) – he was working for Optus in NSW as a Business Improvement Manager, commuting 4 hours a day. But he never gave up the dream – after a couple of forays back into working for himself, he did set up that winery, and has been going now for 15 years.
The overall success of the mixed capitalist economy in a relative free-market scenario says that there are many people out there like this, and business starting and disappearing daily. The lesson for me has always been one of humility – this is something I cannot imagine wanting to do, and yet millions of people can live and work no other way. People want all manner of different things, and none of us can imagine the permutations and combinations. It’s just another Knowledge Problem.