Eh. Personally, I was a contractor for a long time, and I realized that the whole "independent" thing was total BS.
1. I was never independent. I had a "client", or a "contractor", I was obligated to fulfill. I only got paid if I did so, and I only got more contract jobs if I did a good job.
2. When one contract was over, I had to run out and find another one. While doing so, I was making exactly nothing. If I timed things right, I'd go from one contract to another, but that's not always possible, so I'd have a week or so of dead time where I should have been making money, but didn't.
3. If I was sick, there wasn't a team of structure in place to deal with it. I was sick. I didn't get paid. It sucked. Often it meant I had to do double-shift days to make up the lost time.
4. There was absolutely no "reward". There was just a steady, sometimes unsteady, stream of money, which worked out to about what I'd make salaried somewhere after I factor in everything.
5. As a salaried employee, I was still completely free to quit. No one could "make" me stay at a job I hated. And there aren't many (if any) legal ramifications of doing so. However, as a contractor, I might have a legal obligation (literally a contract), and the client had a completely valid way to sue me if I broke contract by not completing the work. Some clients demanded real contracts for long-term projects, and that absolutely sucked.
6. Founder spend payroll? Great. Contract abruptly ended. Scramble to find more work, no idea when I'll get paid for the money they already owe.
Being a contractor doesn't make you free or independent in any way that a salaried employee isn't.
The only way it works out is if you turn yourself into a business, and hire other people. That's basically what I did, and even now, I'm not really independent. I have employees/clients counting on me.
The only real "independence" comes from wealth that isn't generated or dependent on labor.
I prefer working with clients to having a boss. I prefer having customers to having a client. You're always answerable to someone or something, even if it's begging daddy to refill that trust fund.
I add 2 months of runway for each week I work. Not exactly a big deal.
>Often it meant I had to do double-shift days to make up the lost time.
I'm starting to develop a picture of you under-billing, if you felt obligated to do so.
>There was absolutely no "reward"
Can we just get to the part where we recognize we value different things and move on?
>As a salaried employee, I was still completely free to quit.
Except for the part where if you're the type of person to prefer working on 5, 10, or 15 different things a year as opposed to one thing for 5 years, you're penalized as an employee because you'll be seen as a job hopper. It does real palpable damage to your career as a salaried employee to quit a job.
>Being a contractor doesn't make you free or independent in any way that a salaried employee isn't.
That's plainly false.
This was always a waste of time, but now it's an expensive waste of time.
Troll somebody else who hasn't drunk your kool-aid.
I'm not trolling. I'm literally talking about my experiences as a contractor and the conclusions I've reached.
> I prefer working with clients to having a boss. I prefer having customers to having a client.
To me, it was just trading one noun for another.
> I'm starting to develop a picture of you under-billing, if you felt obligated to do so.
Projects have deadlines. This isn't a matter of under-billing, it's the fact of life.
> Except for the part where if you're the type of person to prefer working on 5, 10, or 15 different things a year as opposed to one thing for 5 years, you're penalized as an employee because you'll be seen as a job hopper.
Not really. Go work for an agency that does lots of different things. I own a digital agency, and we build lots and lots of different things every week. My creatives/engineers can jump on stuff they're interested in (we actually encourage that).
If you feel like you're more "free" as a contractor, great. Personally, I found I thought that until I realized it was nonsense.
1. I was never independent. I had a "client", or a "contractor", I was obligated to fulfill. I only got paid if I did so, and I only got more contract jobs if I did a good job.
2. When one contract was over, I had to run out and find another one. While doing so, I was making exactly nothing. If I timed things right, I'd go from one contract to another, but that's not always possible, so I'd have a week or so of dead time where I should have been making money, but didn't.
3. If I was sick, there wasn't a team of structure in place to deal with it. I was sick. I didn't get paid. It sucked. Often it meant I had to do double-shift days to make up the lost time.
4. There was absolutely no "reward". There was just a steady, sometimes unsteady, stream of money, which worked out to about what I'd make salaried somewhere after I factor in everything.
5. As a salaried employee, I was still completely free to quit. No one could "make" me stay at a job I hated. And there aren't many (if any) legal ramifications of doing so. However, as a contractor, I might have a legal obligation (literally a contract), and the client had a completely valid way to sue me if I broke contract by not completing the work. Some clients demanded real contracts for long-term projects, and that absolutely sucked.
6. Founder spend payroll? Great. Contract abruptly ended. Scramble to find more work, no idea when I'll get paid for the money they already owe.
Being a contractor doesn't make you free or independent in any way that a salaried employee isn't.
The only way it works out is if you turn yourself into a business, and hire other people. That's basically what I did, and even now, I'm not really independent. I have employees/clients counting on me.
The only real "independence" comes from wealth that isn't generated or dependent on labor.