What makes self employment worth it?

Absolutely everything, that’s what. Like a lot of people who have ended up with their own business, I tried the normal, everyday method of earning and working. I went to University, and got a part time job at a pub. I worked when I wasn’t working, and occasionally, when I had a break from working, I did a bit more work.

That’s not to say I sit around and do nothing all day now, far from it. But there’s a massive difference between working for yourself, and working for somebody else. The main difference for me is working on something that I love. I know how sad it sounds, but I really do enjoy working with code. Sure, I can spend hours doing something and find I need to redo it, by which point my eyes are bleeding and my head is pounding, and I might complain about it, but at the end of the day, I’m doing something I’m good at, that I enjoy, and that I control myself. That’s pretty much what makes it for me. Of course, there are other benefits…

Trying listening to your favourite band’s new album while stacking shelves or sitting in an office. To say it’s frowned is a massive understatement. You don’t get to try something new when you’re sorting someone’s accounts. Or at least if you do, you’d best get it right first time! How often while at work can you say “I’m just taking 5 minutes to get a cuppa”? In my experience, not often enough. The one time I tried it I got a severe telling off, in fact.

I’m painting self employment as some sort of paradise where you can slack and do nothing and get paid for it, but it isn’t. Of course it isn’t. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid. It’s that simple. The thing I enjoy about this though, is that my job doesn’t feel like a job. It feels like a hobby on steroids. I can sit and talk to Tom for hours about design, about how to streamline sites, about how best to do something for a site we’re working on. I get to take what Tom designs and turn it into a website that is going to be displayed to thousands of people. I’m getting paid for doing something I enjoy.

That, I think, is what makes Hub Internet Media work so well. We are web design. We are web development. Most importantly though, we are loving what we do.