OBG: b&b139 Being an employee can actually be awesome

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Having a job can be great, but it doesn’t mean you can’t do all the other stuff you want.
Being a freelancer / entrepreneur is now easier than ever, which means people have figured out how to sell you on the concept. Freelancer is not better than employee—they are just different. Because of this “movement,” companies are starting to take advantage of freelancer culture by under employing or even full time hiring freelancers without giving them benefits of being employees.

How can you do both? Continue the “day job” and what you’re passionate about? (Porque no los dos?) What do you need from a job to make it feel okay?
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Featuring music by:
– Offbeat (Day Job)
– Dragon Fli Empire (Day Job)
– CREEPAVELLI (Day Job)

[Yes, every song is called Day Job]

Check out these additional resources for more info:
https://business.tutsplus.com/tutorials/freelance-work-versus-a-salary-job-the-pros-and-cons–cms-25052

Just So You Know, You Don’t Have To Be Passionate About Your Job

Episode Highlights:

Pam: One thing that I’ve seen that’s happened with all of this rhetoric of “quit your job, do something on your own, create an idea, come up with your own business” is: it feels like this pseudo movement where, one, you’re being sold by other freelancers their courses on how to become a freelancer, so it’s become this weird side cottage industry by “successful freelancers,” and then on the other side of it you have companies taking advantage of this movement by under-employing people, by employing people who they should technically hire as employees but they call them freelancers so they don’t have to give them benefits of pay their payroll taxes.

Dyalekt: Never work for a person whose dream you don’t share.

Dyalekt: A lot of it is circumstance. You know, you try four or five jobs that don’t fit you, then maybe you go and try to do your own thing. You know, I came to New York and I was doing a lot of auditions trying to do acting stuff, and then I got into writing when I found that the roles I was looking for didn’t exist, and I think that’s what it is a lot of times…We create out of necessity…and if that’s not what’s going on with you, if the thing that you want exists, than you know go get a job doing it.

Pam: We talked about the surface benefits, the actual benefits, the 401k, the steady income, for a lot of people having the external motivation of a boss to keep you going, having the motivation of being around a community, and then also having a clear separation of work and home are really great things about being an employee. You get to focus on the task at hand, on what you were exactly hired to do. You’re not trying to run a business. You don’t have to do marketing or sales or operations. You don’t have to convince people to buy your stuff. You’re really just there because you’re like “Hey, I’m good at this and I can do this job for you, so pay me.”

Pam: The other thing to think about is: are you the type of person who needs or wants to have a job? Do you wanna be an employee? Do you wanna be told what needs to be done? Are you motivated by teamwork? By collaboration? By getting constructive criticism? Do you like having a back and forth with your boss? Do you like the idea of climbing a clear ladder and knowing where your career goes?

Pam: Figure out what you need from a job…to make it feel like you’re getting what you want out of it. There’s a lot of perks now, because of technology, that the perks that you can get from freelancing a lot of companies are also offering it to their employees because they realize that they don’t need to micromanage their employees. They can let their employees work from home. They can let their employees be flexible. They can let their employees have autonomy and do check-ins. So, if you think about it there are many employee situations that basically have the same perks that you’re looking for if you were to work on your own or work for yourself, and you also get the perks and the benefits of being an employee. So if what you really need out of a job or what you really need out of your work is to have flexibility, to have work/life balance, to be able to see your family, to be able to pursue other things, than maybe you just need to find a job that has those already and find a company that offers that. And more and more companies are doing it too, because guess what: it saves them money when they don’t have to buy office space for everybody.

Pam: The other thing to think about too is: you have steady income, and that is an asset that you should take advantage of. So, take advantage of the fact that you have steady income by 1: regularly budgeting for hobbies and travel and projects and side-business ideas and outside interests. You should definitely develop outside interests and do things outside of your job so you’re not finding yourself at 9pm answering emails on your company email. I think that being able to have this healthy work-life balance as an employee is probably one of the biggest perks of being an employee and not having to run your own business.

Pam: Being a freelancer, being an employee, it’s honestly two totally different things that should not be compared to each other. They’re two different options. They’re two different ways for you to make money, and there are pros and cons to each, and if what you do makes sense for you to have a job, awesome. Take those benefits. Take that steady paycheck. Make sure that you save money so that you do feel freedom in your job. That’s all you need to feel to really be able to do the work that you want to do.