Readers – not to mention Dish staffers – can relate to a recent post:
I’ve worked from home for 15 years and I can’t imagine working any other way. The thought of having some middle manager keeping tabs on when I enter or leave the workplace, how long my lunch is, and when I choose to take off early for the day is now repugnant to me.
As a self-employed home-based freelancer, exactly the type reviewer Jenny Diski is describing, I decide how much my time is worth. When I want to take a few days off, I take them. When I’m finished with work at 2pm, I don’t sit in front of my computer trying to look busy for someone else – I go outside to play with my kids. If I want to take a vacation or pay off a credit card, I don’t have to figure out how to slice up a fixed monthly income differently; I can just take on an extra project or two, spend a couple weeks working longer hours, and get a fat check for my efforts.
I admit I’m extremely fortunate; I’ve been working this way for a long time and have a large stable of clients and steady work. Building up to that from nothing can be a tenuous and nerve-wracking prospect. And there are, of course, downsides.
You experience a kind of existential angst when you don’t get new jobs for a couple of weeks. I do take on too much work at times because it’s hard to say no. And it took me a long time to learn how to create boundaries between my work and home life, because I was the only one who could enforce them.
But those downsides are far outweighed by positives. The vast majority of us did work a normal job once and have chosen this path with eyes wide open. Whatever sense of stability a non-freelance job might offer, we’ve decided that being in control of our time and our money and our lives is infinitely more valuable.
Another nods:
Not everybody working from home is taking on small projects for an ever-changing list of clients. I’ve been working out of my house for more than 10 years now as an independent software developer. I have two long-term clients who pay me well to create and maintain software for them. I spend very little time networking and I enjoy the flexibility that I get from working out of my house.
I make more money, and because of the tax laws I’m able to dump a huge percentage of my income into my retirement plan tax-free while making a number of tax deductions not available to the average full-time employee. My car is 10 years old with only 100,000 miles on it because I’m not commuting 50 minutes each way to work each day. As for stability – I’ve survived a number of layoffs that full-time employees did not.
That being said, I know that this could all end tomorrow and I’d be back out looking for another client or two or even a full-time job. For the last 10+ years, however, I’ve been enjoying the independent contractor deal.
Another suggests that working from home is a different experience for mid-career professionals than for entry-level employees:
I’m a filmmaker who’s been working from home as a freelancer since 2008, mainly as an editor or producer of web content and the odd documentary film. At this point I wouldn’t trade it for the world, but I’ve had it good because I didn’t jump into it without a plan.
I’d been employed at a commercial production company prior to working for myself. That production company immediately became one of my primary clients, unloading work on me that they were too busy to handle. Additionally, I had built relationships with some of their clients, who – once they found out I’d gone into business for myself – were quick to throw work my way (and, more importantly, to recommend me).
So I made the jump from the baseline of having already built a solid professional network. I wouldn’t advise someone coming into the job market to try this without having already established themselves professionally. Desirable clients (meaning the ones willing to pay a premium for skilled craftsmanship, rather than the clients prowling Craigslist for discount labor) will always work with someone they know over taking a chance on a newbie. Acquaintances who have tried to make the jump to the freelance work without having an established network have invariably ended up working too many low-pay gigs, and eventually returned to the comforts of a 9-to-5.
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