Six of One, Half a Dozen of the Other

You've read many articles I'm sure about the advantages anddisadvantages of working for yourself from your own home. Manyof them I've written myself, in fact. But how many articles haveyou read that give equal time to the advantages of working forsomeone else compared to working for yourself?This article seeks to redress the imbalance by comparing andcontrasting the respective pros and cons of running your ownhome-based business and working for someone else.COMMUTINGWhen you work for yourself from home, your commute is, at most,a few steps from one end of the house to the other. When youwork in a traditional paid "job" your commute may be a fiveminute drive or it may be an hour and a half or worse. Bothways. That can add up to a substantial chunk of time over thecourse of a week, a month or a year.CHILDRENIf you work from home, you can be around for your kids. If youwork outside the home, you may be spending a fortune onchildcare if your kids are too young for school and worryingabout what they're up to between the end of the school day andwhen you get home if they're not.On the other hand, having kids around while trying to run aprofessional business from home can be a major distraction andconstant source of interruption. You may find you need to usechildminding services occasionally to take care of businessundisturbed.INDEPENDENCE AND AUTONOMYWhen you work for yourself, you call the shots, you make thedecisions and you do it without anyone looking over yourshoulder and breathing down your neck. When you work outside thehome, you are subject to the decisions (good and bad), whims andcontrol of your boss. Your boss dictates your regimen.On the other hand, along with decision-making autonomy comes anawful burden. If you get it wrong, you may not make any moneythis week.WORKING HOURSWhen you work for yourself, you can set your own hours - boththe actual hours you work and the number. When you work for aboss, you work when and for how long you're told (within limits,obviously).Although setting your own hours may sound like freedom to you,all too often working your own hours translates into working allhours so you need to be able to set limits for yourself.Also, when your boss dictates your hours, that may or may notfit in with your body clock. One of the real advantages ofworking for yourself is that you can choose to work during yourpeak concentration time and not at all during your sluggishtimes of the day. If your peak time is 5:00 am through to 10:00am, you can work those hours and another couple sometime in theafternoon catching up on brainless type tasks. If you work forsomeone else, you work when you're told and if that doesn't workwith your body clock, too bad.STATUSIf you're a professional in the paid workforce, you may enjoy acertain status and prestige, if that's important to you. On theother hand, working for yourself you may find it difficult to betaken seriously at all. Again, whether that's a relevant factordepends on how important things like "status", "image" etc. areto you. If they are important, take this seriously. Although itmay sound shallow, if it's going to be a thorn in your side,give it some serious thought.BOUNDARIESWhen you work for someone else, you have a ready-made structure.There is a time for work, and there is a time to go home. Whenyou work for yourself, these boundaries can become blurred overtime, so much so that you may find you have difficulty turningwork off since you are, after all, living in your workenvironment and vice versa.PERSONAL DISCIPLINEIf you're a personally disciplined person, working from homewill probably suit you very well. But if you find it difficultto motivate yourself to do what has to be done and you findyourself procrastinating over starting a particular work-related task, you may find the distractions of being at homeparticularly difficult to resist. If you find yourself doinglaundry and gardening when you should be working, this may be aproblem for you.CASH FLOWThis is one of the biggies. THE big advantage of working forsomeone else is that you have a regular paycheck coming in.Leaving aside any worry of downsizing, assuming you do your jobcompetently, you can reasonably expect to receive a certain,known amount of money at regular intervals. When you work foryourself, however, the amount of money you make and when youreceive it can be, at best, spasmodic.On the other hand, the money you make from working from someoneelse is limited to your salary. When you work for yourself, thesky's the limit provided you are successful at what you do.EXPENSESWhen you work for someone else, your boss is responsible forcapital expenditure and day to day expenses and you don't haveto worry about it or even think about it, for that matter. Whenyou work for yourself, however, you're responsible for buyingyour capital equipment (computer, photocopier, fax machine) andpaying for repairs as needed. You're responsible for paying yourown electricity and phone bills, printing costs and advertisingexpenses ... you name it, it falls on you.BENEFITSSimilarly, when you work for someone else you get to participatein your employer's pension plan, you get paid health insuranceand vacations as well as numerous other benefits. When you workfor yourself, to get any of these things you have to pay forthem out of your own pocket.RISK MANAGEMENTYour employer pays for various insurances to protect thebusiness unit from risk. The types of insurance taken out willdepend on the nature of the business but will include, at aminimum, products liability, business interruption and the like.Again, as a home business owner, you must foot the bill for thisexpenditure.LICENSESYour employer is responsible for ensuring that the businessobtains and maintains all necessary business licenses. If you'rethe boss, this is your responsibility.VACATIONSWhen you're an employee, you get paid vacations. When you'reself-employed you don't. And even if you decide to take a coupleof weeks off, who's going to run the business in your absence?Can you really just walk away for two weeks? In reality, whenyou work for yourself, true vacations are a thing of the past.TAXAs an employee, the most you have worry about is paying yourstate and federal income tax and claiming whatever creditsyou're entitled to. When you're an employer you have to thinkabout all of that as well as self-employment tax and a myriad ofother business-related tax issues. An accountant becomes anabsolute necessity. Also, as a self- employed person, no-one'swithholding tax from your checks. Make sure you put enough asideto pay the tax bill!SECURITYSecurity is relative. For some, security comes only from workingfor someone else. For others, this is merely an illusory form of"security" since none of us really knows what's around thecorner. We could be next to be laid off. For some, real securitycan only come from being in control of their own destiny andthat means working for oneself.SKILL SETAs a self-employed person you need a broad skill set. Not onlymust you be able to perform the main skills inherent in thebusiness you have chosen for yourself, you must also be able tohandle the myriad other jobs around the office that yoursecretary would otherwise do for you if you were in the paidworkforce. This forces you to be something of a generalist whichin turn dissipates your focus from the central core of yourbusiness. When you work for someone else, you are generally moreable to specialize in a particular area and, over time, developsomething of an expert status, increasing your marketability inthe workforce.WARDROBEIn the corporate work-world, you have a certain professionalimage to uphold. When you work for yourself, at least on dayswhen you don't have to meet with clients, you can wear what youwant, even your rattiest sweats, if that's what you feel mostcomfortable in.HARD WORKSome people think that leaving the paid workforce to work forthemselves from home means they will work less hard and fewerhours. The reality is usually the opposite. In the early days ofa home business you will probably find you need to work harderand longer, only to make less money than you did in your paidjob. This will get easier over time but in the early days,expect to have your nose to the grindstone.RETIREMENT PLANWho's going to provide for your retirement when you work foryourself? You've got it, you! No more employer-funded pensionplans for you.GETTING PAIDWhen you work for someone else you get paid like clockwork, evenif your employer hasn't yet been paid what he or she is owedfrom clients. When you work for yourself, whether your clientpays often determines whether YOU get paid. So you need to bediligent in following up slow payers and take appropriate actionin response to non-payers.OFFICE POLITICSWhen you work for yourself you can kiss goodbye the endlessoffice politics that used to drive you crazy. On the other hand,you're also out of the loop. ISOLATION AND LONELINESSAlong with being out of the loop comes the isolation monster.Although the early days of your home business may be an absoluteluxury compared to the rigors of your corporate work- life, overtime you may find you start missing the office politics andlunches with colleagues.OUT OF THE LOOPOnce you leave the corporate life for home-businessentrepreneurship you may find it hard to get back in, if that'swhat you decide to do. Many employers will label you as "notcorporate enough" if you've been out of the workforce for anylength of time. They may also, however unfairly, figure that youcouldn't make it in the corporate world which is why you left tostart your own home business and now that's failed too. These are just a few of the issues you need to think about whendeciding whether working for yourself or working for someoneelse is right for you. It's crucial to be brutally honest withyourself about your particular strengths and weaknesses, as wellas your emotional and mental make-up. A good way to dip your toein is to consider moonlighting - starting a home business on theside while you continue to work your full-time job. Sure, this will mean some both-ends candle burning but betterthat than making the break and then finding out you made amistake. Another alternative that may work well for some is totelecommute. Work for someone else out of the comfort of yourown home. These types of positions are pretty rare and usuallycan only be negotiated by long-term employees in positions thatlend themselves to individual, as opposed to team, projects. Butdon't let that discourage you. If you have particular expertisein a field that lends itself well to telecommuting and your bosswon't go for it, start looking around for companies that willhire you on this basis.FURTHER READINGThis article touches on some of the major areas that you need tothink about when deciding whether the self- employed or employedoption is best for you. For a more detailed treatment of theseand other issues, check out the following articles athttp://www.ahbbo.com/articles.html : => And Never the TwainShould Meet => Checklist for the New Home-Based Business =>Entrepreneurship: Do You Have What It Takes? => Flipping theSwitch: How to Turn Off Your Business and and Turn On Your Life=> Focus Your Light => Getting Paid ... Minimizing Bad Debts inYour Home Business => How the 9 to 5 Grind Could Be Costing YouMore Than You Earn => Look Before You Leap ... Is a Home-BasedBusiness REALLY For You? => Moonlighting's Greatest Challenge... How to Beat the Time Crunch => One Foot in Each Camp =>Overcoming Isolation in Your Home Business => OvercomingProcrastination in Your Home Business => Putting Theory IntoPractice ... A Personal Perspective => So You Want to Be aFreelancer => The 9 to 5 Home-Business Tug O'War => TheTelecommuting Alternative.