Can a business man be happy as an employee?
Monday, October 27th, 2008
Dear Norm,
I’m a forty-nine-year-old career changer. I started a trucking business in 1975. By the mid 1990s we’d grown to twenty-eight employees, and I decided to sell, getting an all-cash buyout in 1997. After the sale I took nine months off, built a house, and began looking for a new career. Eventually, I landed a sales job in a computer business, where I had struggles with the owner. Having never been an employee before, I didn’t grasp the depth of the emperor’s-new-clothes mentality. I was fired after two years for failing to toe the line. After taking some time off, I’m back in the job market. I just wonder if I’m too headstrong to work for other people. Will I ever find happiness as an employee? Is there hope, or do they shoot old horses?
Bruce
Dear Bruce,
A lot of us are too headstrong to be long-term employees. I know I couldn’t work for someone else anymore, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t work with someone else. Think about becoming an independent contractor—doing outside sales, for example. If you really want to get involved in the management of a business, find a small company that wants and needs the help of an experienced entrepreneur. If that doesn’t work, start a business.
Yours truly, Norm
