I heard that back in the days, people used to just go when their work was done on the farms and there was no concept of 9-5 (these days seem 24 hours work). There used to be a lot of holidays. Is that true? If it is, then given the abundance in technology, why our work hours increased and why do we have such weird lives that we live to work?
Being self employed helps. My workday doesn’t end at set time - it ends when I’m done. Sometimes that’s 10am, sometimes 7pm. Then if I feel like I’ve worked too much and could use a vacation I just don’t schedule any work for the rest of the week/next few weeks.
Now don’t get me wrong, I do work a lot but it doesn’t feel like work really because I have total control of everything I do and I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing. What also helps is that I manipulate the physical world - not bits on a computer. When I’m done I can see what I’ve built and on top of all that I get genuine gratitude for it. Lots of it actually - people are awesome.
Interesting as most of self employed I met online are coders or virtual assistants.
As a trades person I’m definitely in the small minority here.
Aren’t you slave to your customers instead of your boss though ? Can you really afford to just close the door and go sunny side of your want to?
I do small- to medium-sized renovations jobs. Ofcourse I can’t just leave while a project is still ongoing but next time the phone rings, there’s nothing stopping me from saying the next available time is a month from now. Also, I have over a hundred individual customers, so I can afford losing some. If working for one starts feeling like being a slave, I can just not take future jobs from them.
That sounds like a nice situation. Broad market, customers by the bucket. That’s quite nice! I admire your line of work. I could never to it following my personal attempts to renovate my own home. You must have acquired a whole lotta skills to get where you are .
I’m mostly self-taught. These things aren’t that hard if you just know what you’re doing, and internet is full of instructions. Looking at my own home, nobody would believe I do this for living as it’s where my every first attempt at something is located and much of it is what I’d now consider sub-standard quality.
Well yeah but that’s the thing; knowing what you should be doing riiiiiigh before the concrete dries on you last mistake xD
And getting « the hand » for everything. Like applying plaster; from my first wall to my last it tell quite the story. And that’s if there’s no shit luck like « ho what’s this sus beam embedded in the wall doing and how do si deal with it no that I have a very large opening to do for this news door frame ».
No really fuck all that anxiety. Even with the all Internet cheering ;-)
Yes, in a way, but on the other hand, time invested benefits them, not their boss. They own their means of production.
Yeah true that. Well possibly at least. They do own their skills at least. The rest is possibly rentals :-/
Nope. Even the truck’s paid off.