Crossroads

Posted by Scott in Featured, Personal | 6 comments

I have a fairly weighty decision to make.

I work for a small company. I direct all of the marketing and advertising efforts. In fact, I am the marketing and advertising departments, in their entirety.

I used to also be the IT department, but we’ve grown enough to outsource most of the tech stuff in order to free me to focus on marketing (which is really where I do well, and where I’d rather be).

That growth has been good (narrowing the scope of my responsibilities, allowing me to focus more on work that I truly enjoy), but it’s also presented some challenges…

To a large extent our recent growth has been the direct result of a change in management. Our new owner/CEO is much more focused than the previous owner. We’ve gone from being a fairly laid-back business where most of the employees were family, and where things got done, but slowly, to a “real” business (most of the family members left when the owners sold out) where productivity and growth are expected.

That’s all well and good, and I appreciate that a business has to grow in order to remain viable (and to continue to pay its employees). But at the same time, I’ve been chafing a bit at the increased rigidity, which sometimes feels quite a bit like a noose tightening around my neck.

I used to be able to work at home at will, and there wasn’t much concern with what time I got to the office, or how long I took off for lunch, or when I left for the day. I don’t feel like I’ve ever really abused this flexibility, and for the most part I’ve always completed my assigned tasks within the timeframes expected.

Now I’m no longer able to work at home. There’s more concern for when I show up for work, and when I go home. The company’s “personal leave” policy has never been enforced (I didn’t even know what it was until I had been here 5 or 6 years), but now I’m expected to account for hours missed, and those hours are counted against the ten days I’m allowed each year. As I write this I realize that I’m whining about things that almost everyone else has to deal with in their employment… But recognizing that these things are “normal” doesn’t make it any easier to handle the changes.

I’ve never done well with rigidity and excessive structure.

Part of it is my ADHD, which I’ve chosen to manage without medication. I manage fairly well most of the time, partly by allowing my mind to wander now and then when I hit a wall.

A lot of it, too, is my need for validation, acceptance, and positive reinforcement. When pressure builds and expectations become more structured, I worry (excessively) that I’ll disappoint, upset, or offend the person applying the pressure if I don’t meet their expectations. This worry cripples me, creatively, and makes it even more likely that I’ll fail to meet the deadline, which stresses me out… and the vicious cycle continues.

At my first “real” (i.e. non-food-service-related) job, my bosses raved about the work I was doing (designing 3D transitions for video editing software). Then the business started to struggle, and they started applying additional pressure for me to perform (determined to get every last drop of “value” out of the time that they were paying for). I choked under the increased pressure, and things ended badly. That was a traumatic enough experience that it’s influenced my approach to employment ever since.

As I’ve noticed a continuing trend toward structure and rigidity, and an increasing loss in flexibility, I’ve worried that this job is going to turn out just like the other. I finally took my concerns to my new boss a couple of weeks ago, and earlier this week we sat down to discuss options.

He made it clear that he appreciates the work that I do, and that he recognizes that my skill set is a perfect fit for the company. He indicated that he would like for us to continue working together. He quite bluntly stated that we will never go back to how things used to be, and that in fact the trend toward structure and rigidity will definitely continue. Then he proposed three options:

If I honestly feel like I simply can’t handle the structure and don’t want to work with the company anymore, he’ll work with me over a period of weeks or months as I find and train a replacement and find another job.

Or I can suck it up, recognize that this new situation is “normal” in the corporate world and learn to deal with less flexibility and greater expectations. He indicated that if I’m successfully able to do so, and to become more productive than I’ve managed to be the last several months, there’s still a lot of potential for raises and bonuses and growth in my position.

Finally, as a sort of “best of both worlds” scenario, he suggested that I consider becoming a consultant/contractor for the company, rather than an employee. As a consultant, I’d be free to set my own hours, to work at home… all of the “perks” that I’ve been missing these last several months. The company would continue to benefit from my skills and my knowledge of our product lines, and could probably provide enough work to keep me as busy as I want to be, even if I didn’t get much work from other sources.

As I write this, it seems like a no-brainer… But there are a few things about going freelance that concern me…

I’ve done it before (I actually started working with this company as a freelancer, then I was put on retainer, then they hired me full time). I’d need to worry about saving money for taxes (no taxes withheld as a contractor). Income can be very much a “feast or famine” sort of thing—there were months when I’d make several thousand dollars and months when I wouldn’t make a cent, and it can be hard to budget with such huge fluctuations in income.

Then too, I know how hard it can be to drum up work (especially since I’ve been out of the freelance scene for several years now, and haven’t stayed in touch with the “network” that I used to get work through). Theoretically, I’d have all the work I could handle from my current employer (and if the company continues to grow at its current rate, it wouldn’t be long before I’d have more than I could handle without farming some of it out or hiring someone to help me). But I worry that I won’t be good enough, or productive enough, or priced reasonably enough, and that that source of work would dry up and leave me to my own resources (which are slim at the moment).

I’m not sure what to do… Do I trade happiness for security and try to make things work as an employee? Do I take a leap of faith and choose consulting over employment (which would be better for me emotionally, but could cause financial stress… which wouldn’t be good for me emotionally…)? Do I take an even bigger leap of faith and look for a job with another small, family-run business that’s willing to give me the flexibility (and compensation) that I had gotten used to?

We’re supposed to talk again next Tuesday, at which point I’m supposed to tell my boss what direction I want to go… I hope I can choose wisely.

 

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