In Defence of a Day Job

Ha! There’s a title I never thought I’d write. Ask me anytime in the last 7 years and I would’ve sworn up and down that nearly everything about being self-employed was better than being regular old employed.

And while I’m not here to argue why you should choose one or the other, what I’m really doing is summarizing what I have found to be some of the most attractive elements of a traditional day job that have, indeed, compelled me to take one once more.

Before we go any further, I do need to clarify:

Not all day jobs are created equal.

In fact, they vary too significantly from one to another. Some of the factors I’m describing below may be applicable or not-at-all applicable to you depending on your given scenario. None of this should be taken as blanket advice. Again: I am not trying to persuade you one way or the other. I have no regrets about the way my career has unfolded (mostly, anyways. The regrets I have are self-inflicted). But I come to offer a counter argument to a belief I used to hold very near and dear to my heart (but, in reality, a belief that had been deteriorating for the past year):

Day jobs have significant benefits that self-employment cannot provide, and even the entrepreneurs could consider taking a day job if the conditions are right.

Here are the big reasons I think day jobs are a good idea:

1. Day jobs (can) have stable workloads

Depending on your field of self-employment, your hours will vary massively from week to week. At first this can be a pro, in the long term, it can be a con.

Make no mistake: there are plenty of jobs out there that have rotating shifts and frequent overtime which makes planning around your work schedule difficult. But if you can nail down a job that doesn’t do this, you’re setting yourself up for something nice.

The feast-or-famine cycle of gig-based employment is nauseating on a good day and cruel on a bad one. For weeks or months at a time, you may find yourself in a deep drought, or in the polar opposite camp where you’re absolutely drowning in work. The unpredictability and extreme nature of inconsistent work is a massive deterrent if stability is one of your chief concerns as a worker.

2. Day jobs (can) have “workday” hours

Most self-employed jobs I know of involve working and meeting with people during their non-work time. Unless you’re a dentist or a lawyer, most people are utilizing small businesses after their workday is over; and that means that their free time is your work time.

Wanna get married? Have kids? Have friends? Any of those things are hard to do if you are busy most evenings of the week. The vast majority of people are working 9-5 throughout the week, so if you’re the only one who is free from 8am - 3pm on Tuesdays every week… you’re probably going to spend a lot of Tuesdays alone.

Some of the agony of evenings-and-weekends work can be mitigated if it’s at least consistent (as per #1), but at this stage in my own life, it really doesn’t begin to make up for it. And I’m willing to bet that, after a while, it won’t for most others.

3. One boss instead of many

Hate your boss? What if there were 5 - 30 of them?

Most people don’t leave jobs: they leave managers. There are exceptions, of course, but I have a deeply-held belief that most people will be able to put up with really crappy jobs if they feel respected by their boss and coworkers.

Many people dream of quitting their job so that they become the boss of their own lives and work schedule. Once the honeymoon period is over and your income depends on your ability to woo clients, you start to realize that you can’t be as selective as you once hoped. In this way, you’re giving up your singular boss for as many clients as you have, and that is a stressful thing.

Even if your clients are consistent clients you have deep relationships with, they will get on your nerves! And that’s a hard place to be: firing a client you’ve worked with for years. Even if you never have to fire a client, ongoingly there can also be an underlying tension of “I’ve been paying you tons of money for years, you owe me this extra thing for free”. This puts you in an uncomfortable position of charging for what you’re owed without biting the hand that feeds. It sucks.

4. Day jobs are easier to quit / pivot career directions

Maybe I’m just especially jaded about this one because I’m leaving a job in the wedding industry, but quitting a self-employed job isn’t as easy as putting in your two weeks notice. Chances are there are clients you need to let down, employees you need to lay off, equipment you need to sell, debt you need to pay: the list goes on.

With a day job, pivoting your career direction is way easier. This is one of the rare times where all your eggs in one basket can actually be hugely beneficial.

I could go on, but the point has been made. Getting out of full time self-employment is considerably harder than getting into it.

5. Depth of relationship with coworkers

This can’t be understated: most of self-employment is super lonely. Unless you have close friends who are also self-employed in the same career or field, you’re going to experience a lot of your problems alone with people that can’t relate.

If you’re lucky to have a spouse (or, they’re unlucky enough to have you), they’re probably going to have a really intimate understanding of all the good and bad of your business. Never mind the stress this can cause on your marriage, nor how much of your life then revolves around your occupation. Most people don’t realize that with self-employment, you’re trading in a day job for a day-and-night job.

In a day job, however, you get to know the people around you. You often have people who have to sit through the same boring meetings as you do. They experience some of the highs and lows with you. It’s considerably more social, and considerably more depth-y. I’ll argue with you til I’m blue in the face: self-employment is way more lonely than a day job.

6. Day jobs have more reliable income

One of the reasons I went self-employed was to make more money. In the first year self-employed, I made 150% of my day job’s salary. That was amazing! But I plateaued for the next two years, and it was only when I started grinding harder for more work did I see any income increase. But it all came at a very significant cost: considerably more hours working.

Know what’s nice about a day job? Being able to do the math on what your salary will be every year. It’s easy to complain that you might not be getting 20% raises year-over-year, but at least you have a consistent income. Are you salaried? You’re still getting paid when stuff is busy or slow. Are you hourly? As long as you’re putting in your time, you’re getting paid. Layoffs happen, sure, but then you can hop on Employment Insurance and at least collect a little money til you get back on your feet. Good luck if you’re self employed.

Everyone knows the cost of acquiring a new client is insanely expensive over maintaining an existing one. Most self-employed work is gig-based, meaning you’re off to find a new client once you wrap up the workload on your plate. Will you find the same number of clients or customers this year as you did last year? What about next year?

7. You’re not always trying to sell yourself

If you think you’re getting into self-employment because “I love X and I want to do it for 8 hours everyday!” I have some baaaaad news for you. In most self-employed businesses, you’re now spending 40% - 60% of your time convincing someone they should pay you a handsome chunk of change for your talents in doing a skilled task. (Side note: if you’re getting into the wedding industry, I’d wager you’re spending 80% - 90% of your time convincing someone to hire you rather than doing the actual work.)

After you’ve finally convinced someone to hire you, eventually the time will roll around when you have to do that thing. “No problem!” you think. “I love that thing!”. Well, you love it when it’s exciting. But when it starts going a little south, or you have too many on your plate at once, it becomes the thing between you and being stress-free. Then it sucks. Then it’s not fun.

Then the oscillation between selling yourself and doing the thing becomes a huge turn off. But you’re a slave to the machine because this is your dream job, remember? Day jobs are horrible, remember? This is so much better, remember?

8. Business expenses will be paid back in full

I don’t know why all my friends would say with such glee, “That’s a business expense!” any time I had to buy something for my business. Do you actually know how business expenses work?

You just get to claim the things you buy as less income at the end of the year (if you hire a good bookkeeper + accountant to actually help you keep track of that). Well, woopty friggin’ do! So you pay a little less in taxes. Know what’s better than that?

Submitting a receipt to the company and having them pay it in full. Yeah, in a round-about away that’s what’s happening with your self-employed business, but business expenses are not this incredible secret everyone acts like they are.

There are negatives to claiming a really small income, too, if you write off too much in your taxes as business-expenses.

9. Day jobs (can) provide better work-life boundaries

Wanna check in at 9am and check out at 5pm? You have that ability if you have a day job! Weekend? fill it with fun stuff!

But if you’re self-employed, again, because of #2, you’re probably going to be really tempted to slip in “just an hour of work” here and there, and before you know it, your 5 days of work have spiralled into 6 or 7 without really clearly defined hours. When you were watching that new Netflix series but texting your client and talking them off a ledge, was that work time or personal time?

You’re not getting paid overtime as a self-employed person. No time off guaranteed because you worked extra for the company on a Saturday night. Maybe, if you’re a really disciplined self-employed person, but for most people I know: hell no. We’re just trying to keep our head above water with all the things we gotta do.

I am ashamed of the many times my family has paid the price for my self-employed job over the years. Does it balance out with all the ways my family has benefitted from my job over the years? Maybe. But I still think that I could’ve provided for them with less bumps in the road. And that’s the part that is more important to me these days.

10. Employment insurance, benefits, taxes

These little things don’t feel that big until you need any of them or they poke their head out at you.

Get fired from your job or laid off? Start collecting that EI. Is it amazing? Not at all. But unless you’re one of the oddball self-employed people that willingly pays into EI, you don’t have that luxury.

Need an eye appointment? Someone in your house gets sick? Car accident? You’re footing the bill for everything. Most of those you don’t need often, but it’s nice for when you do.

Taxes is maybe a weird one to include in this list because the government doesn’t care if you’re employed or self-employed: they just care what you make. But being self-employed involves the discipline of setting aside money from every payment for the government at the end of the year. Usually this takes a few years to learn, and let me tell you: the first time you get hit with a big bill of thousands of dollars you haven’t saved, it friggin’ sucks. If you’re smart you’ll avoid this, but many don’t. So it makes the list.

These are the small perks that come with a traditional day job that most people don’t consider when they go self-employed. Til you get sick and realize you can’t really call in sick. Someone’s still gotta do the work. And it’s you.

11. Hobbies stay pure

This is similar to #9 but I think it bears its own argument. I’ve also covered this extensively in previous blogs. It’s important to me.

We all have passions: be it a sport, an artistic expression, an exercise, a social gathering. When you aren’t trying to make money doing it, and you’re doing it 100% for the enjoyment, it’s incredible.

But when you start attaching a dollar value to that thing, you’re changing the chemistry of it. Now it’s no longer just a hobby. If you’re not careful, you give up your hobby because it’s your job, and that can really quickly throw off the entire balance of your happiness. You need a new hobby on that end of your life: so get one ASAP.

Sadly, most self-employed people are too busy to have a real one, or they struggle to pick up a new one. It’ll benefit you to try. But having a day job that doesn’t threaten your interests is massive. Different parts of your brain (and life) for work and pleasure is really beneficial.

If you are self-employed and you take only one thing from this article, let it be this: get a new hobby that you don’t try to monetize. You don’t even need to thank me (though you will want to).

12. No stress of carrying employees

This only applies to people who run businesses with multiple people, but if you frequently outsource work or otherwise help your community, it’s pretty much the same thing.

When you have employees, I’m going to guess that (assuming you’re a decent human being) your stress is going to increase because now someone else relies on you to continue bringing in new income in order for the business to stay alive, and thus keep that employee alive.

Of course, things happen. You can’t always control if your business is about to collapse. Everyone knows this can happen from time to time. But assuming you’ll try to find a way to make sure that never happens, you’re going to have the added load of providing for your employees also on your mind.

Also if it isn’t clear: laying people off isn’t fun. Firing them isn’t either. Prepare yourself if you take on employees while self-employed.

13. Your self-motivation must be through the roof

Everyone thinks not having a boss is amazing. It is, in its own ways.

But now you are your own boss. Just like you choose when you go to bed each night and when you wake up every morning, you choose when you work and when you don’t; what you accomplish and what you don’t; what you permit and what you don’t.

No one is breathing down your neck. Only you lose if you don’t do the work. No one’s lighting a fire under you. For better or worse, you are your only motivator.

If you’re a self-realized lazy person who lacks drive on a good day—even when doing something you love—I’m just going to come out and say it: self-employment will crush you. Don’t quit your day job.

14. Everything falls on you

Business is successful? Congrats! Pop the champagne (it’s a business expense, but we already covered that).

Business is falling apart? That sucks! Better find out how to fix it.

Does your business need improvements? You’re the boss.

You stressed? Everything is still up to you.

Hate it? Welcome to the club.

15. Day jobs are no more stable than self-employment

This might seem similar to some of the above, but the contrast here is something I think is worth addressing.

Some people argue being self-employed is more stable because you’re the one in charge of your success and failure. People get laid off all the time at day jobs and so it’s not as reliable as it seems from the outside.

This couldn’t be farther from the truth. When your clients stop paying their bills (because a global pandemic hits, or because they’re sketchy people, or they’re upset with you, or you fell behind in your marketing because you were so overwhelmed with work), your business dries up. So no, you might not be “out of a job” overnight, but in practical terms, you absolutely are.

This isn’t a point for a day job, but it’s certainly not a point for self-employment either. No industry is bulletproof.

16. At a day job, your income has better chance to increase without your time / stress increasing also

Last big thing I want to discuss is about contrasting the money you make VS the time you spend doing it or the stress that extra money comes with.

Earlier, I wrote about how I made 150% of my day job salary the first year I went full time self-employed. This is true, but I don’t really know that, if you were looking at “total number of hours worked (any work)” VS “total income” for the year, you’d see a huge difference.

This is because, in my experience, especially in the self-employed world but at times in the day job world, you only make more money when you work considerably more hours. Your income scales with the hours you feed your job. Argue with me if you’d like, but I believe there are many day jobs out there where you will naturally make an increase in salary for a job you can squeeze into the same time window you typically work.

I am of the belief this is not possible with self-employment. Yeah, sure, you can raise your rates incrementally and take on less clients eventually and whatever, but this is just as slow as any sort of day job raise that the two, at the very least, balance out. But I’m still arguing you’re going to make more money faster in a day job than you will attracting a whole new clientele (with bigger budgets) in your self-employed career.

In Conclusion:

As opposed to how all of this may come across, I want to be really, really clear:

There is nothing wrong with being self-employed.

The 5 years I did it, I wouldn’t trade them in. I am where I am now because of those 5 years. But I am thrilled to be back in a day job where the other perks—reliable income and hours, mainly—significantly outweigh the perks of being self-employed.

Only you will know what’s best for you. You will probably find, if you’re feeling the call to self-employment, there are seasons in your life where you will bounce back and forth between the two.

Every opportunity is a learning opportunity if you have the right attitude. And in the end, you can’t really say you’re losing if you’re learning along the way.