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July 21st, 2006 
QuadsZilla Steve Pavilina has a nice linkbait article called 10 Reasons why you should never get a job.
It’s funny that when people reach a certain age, such as after graduating college, they assume it’s time to go out and get a job. But like many things the masses do, just because everyone does it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. In fact, if you’re reasonably intelligent, getting a job is one of the worst things you can do to support yourself. There are far better ways to make a living than selling yourself into indentured servitude.
About 5 years ago I had a friend who mocked me for the 20 hours a week I was putting in at my day job. He used to say “Job? A job ain’t Nothin but work.” Sure, he was a criminal, but that’s really besides the point . . .
The last job I had was with MCI Worldcom. I decided to take the job after they declared bankruptcy knowing that they would have to lay off everyone in the department and give us a fat severance package. Don’t ask me why they were still hiring . . . maybe that’s why they went bankrupt in the first place! Sure enough, 54 days after my first day I received a nice $25k severance and was sent packing with everyone else.
It’s been 27 months since I’ve had an employer and I couldn’t be happier. I love the freedom and I’m taking full advantage by traveling and seeing the world. When I was a stock broker more than 10 years ago, I realized that all my biggest clients were entrepreneurs. I understood then that working for yourself was the only way to live and the best way to make serious money.
Today, I’m doing what I’ve really always wanted to do – I don’t mean being a search engine spammer; I mean working for myself. It sure beats the hell out of being tied to a job.
Do you still have a “Job”? Or are you your own boss?
Posted in 
I’m 15 and my only job would be school, but SEO is the way to go for me so yes I am self-employed :>
I could never do proper work.
SEO is earning me a healthy sum, working it’s way in to the thousands each day.
I need my free time. I just can’t see how people get up.. work from nine til five… have dinner.. go to sleep… rinse and repeat..
It’s like that movie.. the matrix.. people who are working for bosses are still living in the matrix. There ’s no individual development etc. OK, I need free time, better i like to control it by myself.. I can simply be more effective this way without being disrupted by a boss who only chases the girls on work and makes fun the whole day.
I am also thinking of leaving, studied law and no job. But what country would be SEO Friendly
?
Yeah, fuck the job. I love to work at home and earn money when I sleep. And I laugh (inside) at those poor bastards working 8-5 every day. Stupid wankers
I’ve been selfemployed for over 20 years. I did have jobs for others but I just don’t enjoy it as much as being my own boss. Also, having people work for YOU instead of working for others is THE way to make money. They work – you profit. Thats perfect for me
My friend and I, both graduate students, were talking about this subject two days ago. Both of us returned to school because we could not get jobs in our respective fields, computer science and electric engineering. This made me bring up the point that the smartest people (academically) in society are some of the poorest. I say this because I have friends who have only high school degrees or are college/high school dropouts and they are millionaires. After that conversation, we both vowed never to get a “job.”
I bailed an 8-5 corporate job 4 months ago and am now very happily self-employed. Best thing I ever did. I took a pay cut in doing so, but the cool thing about working for yourself is that the harder you work, the more money you (usually) make. My income has steadily increased since devoting myself full-time to my own projects — unlike working for someone else where I had to wait around for raises and bonuses that may or may not have come.
I think it really depends on the job
I was quite pleased being on my own for nearly five years. I loved being able to take off for a vacation when and where I felt like it, not worrying about my “business” wardrobe, and so on.
But I’m quite pleased with my current full-time gig. Despite a number of great opportunities I had to “go corporate” over the last years, I waited until something seemed like it was “just right” for what I wanted to be doing, where I wanted to be. Fighting search engine spammers!
Okay, so that’s only a part of my job. But seriously… I think if you wake up each weekday morning feeling sluggish and depressed, you don’t have a job, you have a big ugly bird around your neck. I don’t think the concept of a full-time job is flawed per se, but rather… peoples’ willingness to settle for a really bad career fit.
And, in the selfish interest of pimping my own personal blog, I’ll humbly invite you to check out “How to evaluate your current career…”
http://www.bladam.com/main/entry/evaluate-job-choose-great-new-job/
About the only thing I miss now is having “unlimited” vacation days (or even the generous six weeks of paid vacation I got at my full time job in Germany).
But I’ve gained the opportunity to work side-by-side with kick-ass people each day, I have access to amazing resources, and I’m doing stuff that I’m proud of.
As the saying goes… to each his or her own. I do think, though, that it’s in everyone’s best interest to at least TRY working for oneself. You never know until you try…
Working from home might be good for some people. I tried working as a freelance web developer for a while and hated working from home. I like the structure of the workplace and what I’m learning in seo and web development will help me to make money on the side. I find working from home can lead to too much time spent at home and I can go a whole day without talking to anyone. I understand that it doesn’t work this way for a lot of people but I thought I’d share my experience.
I’m hoping to start some websites on the side and start making money on the side but I think I would still want to do some work outside of the house. Plus, I have excellent benefits at work.
Forgot to mention (add to previous post, mod):
Thanks for posting this link. The article is very interesting and will help me with my own entrepreneurial work.
ok.. how do you make money online? I mean I have a website couple thousands visitors daily and makin’ about $100.. that won’t make my living:) so can anybody tell me how to make at least $1k monthly so I can start thinking about switching to self employed..
stupidGuy …
Try adult.
Start building “free sites”, make some good TGP galleries and submit them to TGP (thumbnail gallery post websites), make your own paysite (but not for at least a year).
That’s the only thing I’ll tell you.
Hi
Love your site, I have recently sold a business after nearly 8 years as an entrepreneur, I managed to build it up and had it working so i didnt need to go to the office very often. (there are risks in that but thats another discussion). A divorce made this come to an end so I sold it and now looking at doing it again.
I thought about getting a job again, but have come to the conclusion I am pathelogically unemployable.
I am actually wrting this from the comfort of my bed whilst I watch all the plebs on a train being carried into the city across the harbour bridge to their predictable days. I feel sorry for them.
Having said that its not all one way, being an entrepreneur, you are one in 50-100 people and not many people understand you, they dont get why you dont think like them, why you cant just go out and get a job. why its a fate almost worse than death.
Its so bad, that within days of selling the old company i have already started another, was supposed to go on holidays for 2 months.
Being an entrepreneur is like having a disease or condition no one understands or has a cure for, but I dont think I would have it any other way.
I have a job. Well, sort of… I’ve worked in the film and T.V. business for over 21 years as a lighting designer. I say “sort of” becuase it’s not like having a regular job, what with alarm clocks waking you up at some ungodly hour every morning, same crap, different day…. I work when I get work. It’s very intermittent, which is why I stayed in that line of work for so long. On average, I work about about 170 days per year. That gives me more than six months off to do whatever it is I want to do. Problem is that I have champaign tastes with a beer budget. Even though I make about $80,000 per year, it’s just not enough. And on top of it all, the work sucks. My co-workers can be great, b ut the actual work: SUX. The hours are indecently long, and oftentimes the people who hire me are complete assholes. Imbeciles who don’t know what they’re doing (which just serves to make my job more difficult), who knows how they got their positions, probably nepotism or some such. Incidentally these same know-nothing assholes are the ones who are making BIG bank. You know, the directors, producers, production managers…. They screw everybody else, while enriching themselves exhorbitantly.
Lucky for me, I have a friend who is quite established in the world of SEO and he has taken me under his wing. He is mentoring me and I am learning. And there certainly is a lot to learn in the realm of SEO. But so far, I love it. It’s fascinating. In the past 4 months, I have only accepted 6 days of work as a film lighting technician, and ALL of the rest of the time I have been completely consumed with learning everything I can about SEO. And this particular BLOG is a great resource. Thank you for that, my friends! I’ve managed to make a little bit of money thru my new found SEO skills, but nowhere near enough. Where I earn $80k annually from my day job, my SEO mentor is making $80 per month! I would be happy just to make 10% that amount monthly. So, I working very hard at it and everyone here on this blog is helping my eduction, expanding my knowledge base. Thank you and keep on! You’re all awesome. I, for one, greatly appreciate it.
[...] A reader emailed me: I read your article on “switching to self-employed“. I like my current job (LAMP stuff), but being my own boss is really tempting. Would you have any advice for me? Going adult is an option but I heard that’s not so easy as it used to be – very competitive. [...]