Freedom to choose is top advantage of own firm | Jan 25th 2008
by Jacqueline Dooley
For me, the biggest benefit of self-employment is choice. It beats flexibility, money, challenging work and even success. I cherish my ability to choose, among other things, how I work, when I work, who I work with and when I come and go.
There are a few pivotal moments in my professional life that set the course for my ultimate liberation and I thought it’d be fun to pinpoint them.
The first was a long-ago performance review. I’d been working at one company for about two years when someone was hired above me. He was an excellent writer and had a lot more work experience than me, but he had no idea what I did on a day-to-day basis. Looking back, I realize I was in the wrong department so while it was totally appropriate to hire him for the position I thought I’d wanted, it wasn’t necessarily appropriate for me to report to him.
Nevertheless, when it came time for my annual review he tried his best to evaluate me and he gave me a small raise. I was extremely disappointed. I’d been working very long hours building a new service for the company which they successfully sold to existing and new clients. I expected a promotion and a title change, along with a larger raise. I said as much.
And you know what? I got it. That same manager nominated me for employee of the year. It was the first time I really felt like someone listened. And, though I didn’t know it at the time, it was the first time I made a definitive choice to influence my career myself (beyond quitting a job or applying for a new one) instead of waiting for change to magically happen. I now realize I also had a great manager.
The next pivotal moment was the birth of my first daughter seven years ago. I was driven to find a way to reduce my hours without impacting my career, and consulting seemed a logical path to take.
The final and biggest push for me was getting laid off. This naturally crystallized my lack of control and made me realize that if I worked for someone else, the choice of staying at one job as long as I wanted was never really my own.
Real choice doesn’t happen every day. It’s one of those things you take for granted until it’s taken away.
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This article was published in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Saturday, January 12, 2008.