You’ve had it. You are tired of banging your head against the wall every day trying to make a go of your business. Lately, you have taken to reading online job postings. You start dreaming of regular paychecks being directly deposited into your bank account. Maybe you could actually pay your credit card bill with something other than a cash advance check from another credit card offering.
No doubt about it, the entrepreneurial journey can be a rough one. Most venture out with grand schemes, yet more than half turn their ship around and sail back into port. You may be one of those tempted to give up and get a job.
What you’ll find is that although it appears as if a comely mermaid/merman is leading you to employment land, it’s actually a siren song. The job about which you fantasize may not be there awaiting you. Why?
1. Automation. Maybe the particular tasks at which you are skilled have been taken over by technology. Microchips now command digital printers in lieu of the large printing presses you once operated.
2. Intimidation. Maybe you remember fondly the job you had before you embarked on your sole proprietorship path, working as an analyst for a benevolent corporate behemoth. You contact some of your colleagues who remained in that position and find that after the recent severe recession, the employer now works the staff more like a 1930s chain gang overseer than old Mr. Fezziwig. Workers are fearful of losing their jobs, and the company now knows it can push them around.
3. Migration. All of the jobs for which you are qualified have now been outsourced to third world countries. Expatriation is not on your list of job requirements.
4. Fragmentation and separation. There are jobs open, but they are all part-time, and you will have to cobble together two or three positions to earn the equivalent of one full time gig. And none of them — not the freelance writing you obtain through that online service, nor acting as a security guard for the gated community, nor asking shoppers if they need a cart today — is terribly inspiring.
5. Duration. Employers are not looking to hire full-time employees, but rather contract workers who are retained for specific projects and specific time frames. Giving up your business for a six-month commitment feels a bit like getting divorced to have a fling.
6. Cessation of vocation. The company or companies for whom you want to work, or the jobs that you want to do, simply don’t exist anymore. Gone.
7. Compensation. True, you can find a job. But the jobs that exist pay $10 an hour. Between the bottom of the barrel and the C suite executive, the pickings are slim. Your skills are not in IT, healthcare or engineering; where are the other middle-class jobs?
The seven reasons noted above don’t even touch upon the real problem with your daydreams of being a wage page. When you begin to view yourself as having choices other than a particular one that is now guiding you on a particular path, researchers tell us that your commitment to that effort will be weakened. Put another way, if you start to believe that a job is a better deal, you will begin to lose your enthusiasm, drive, and motivation to succeed in your business.
Obviously, no one but you can determine whether to keep sailing forth, man a lifeboat, or try to pilot a crippled ship back to a safe harbor. Remember however, everything about the glittering 9-to-5 job may not be gold.