I’m Starting My Own Business
If you’ve been following along, you know that I’ve been unemployed since the fourth of July weekend. I made a decision to take at least a month off to figure out what I wanted to do. The last time I had a stretch of unassigned time like that, it was the summer before my sophomore year of high school.
At the beginning of August, I began perusing the job openings unenthusiastically. I’ve written a few job descriptions in my time, but this was the first time I realized how dire and not-fun all of them sound.
“Must be able to multi-task and prioritize in a busy environment. Should be proficient in MS Office programs, Quark, Peachtree, and Photoshop. Marketing experience preferred. $30K to start + benefits.”
One, who know all that stuff? Ok, me, but not to the point where I can be on your admin team, your design team, and your accounting team. Which leads me to point two—certainly not for that amount of money. And three—the write-up basically says, “be willing to kill yourself for our benefit.”
I haven’t looked for a job in a while, but they all practically read like that. It’s depressing.
The position I left operated that way. The company is filled with great people, but I don’t think there are many entrepeneurial bosses out there who understand that if a top-notch employee goes all out to help the company become successful, he/she doesn’t end up with a multi-million dollar company and a prestigious reputation in the industry. The worker doesn’t even get a guaranteed future nowadays.
That’s when I decided, if I’m going to kill myself, I should do it for my own benefit. I’m not naive. I know that the self-employed and those who run their own businesses work harder than the average person.
Hard work doesn’t bother me that much. I’ve been doing it my whole life. But if I do what I do through my own company, perhaps I wouldn’t feel like my work is pointless—that I just need to not get fired and to get that next paycheck.
So I’m in the process of building my infrastructure. I don’t know how things are going to turn out yet, but this feels right. It’s certainly not as depressing as those job ads.
[...] late August—I decide to start my own company. [...]