The corporate media is so infuriatingly predictable it’s almost laughable. An economy in total shambles, politicians doing the bidding of whoever pays the most—and worse, being exceptionally mean about it—turmoil everywhere you look, and you knew—you just knew—that one of the US national papers of records would trot out the tired and worn “maybe working in a cubicle isn’t so bad” trope. This time, the New York Times was first out of the gate, but I’m sure article-ettes like Phyllis Korkii’s “Hope and Peril After an Escape From the Cubicle” are repeating themselves across the country. The message is clear: Stay in your safe, cozy job; don’t risk anything, you’re almost certain to fail.
A down economy is probably the best time to start a small, nimble, smart business. Add a national healthcare plan to the mix—something the majority of Americans want, yet the bought politicians refuse to even put it “on the table”—and you’d have a pretty hearty entrepreneurial stew. Imagine all those seeds that would be planted by people who stay in corporate/institutional servitude only because they and their family rely on subsidized healthcare benefits.
Since 1979, my partner (who is also my wife, but she was my partner before she was my wife) and I have contracted for everything and everyone from one-person startups to the Fortune 100. One thing’s sure: the smaller the enterprise, the more fun the project was. It comes, I think, from the purity and clarity of vision inherent in the founders of small, agile companies. They may not know exactly how they’re going to do something, but they know exactly what they’re going to do.
Sure, I don’t know anyone that’s self-employed that doesn’t work more hours than someone who works for someone else. I’m sure it has something to do with doing what they love, and doing only what they love.
Those of us that have traded that clarity of vision for the illusion of security in a job are much the less for it. And by extension, so are the rest of us.
Update: Sunday, 05 July 2009 04:10PM: Updated for clarity and to remove an irrelevant and misspoken closing statement.
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