While freelancing I was often told to avoid the big bad corporate. “You’ll be a slave” is something I would often hear from people having “done the...
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I've worked for the FAA for over 35 years. The government track is a whole other animal. For the last 25 years or so I've worked in Air Traffic Control automation. I've had managers who knew zero about what I do to managers who understand it exactly to those too busy to care. I am given more freedom due to the nature of my work. My direction never changes but our culture can change from president to president. The hardcore anti-labor types versus complete labor involvement in everything. Working under Bush was tough. That labor contract was crazy. Even included dress codes. Amazingly, Trump has had little effect. A long term labor contract was signed under Obama that has kept our culture intact. I am in a rare position and none of this has affected my actual work but the involvement of the workforce really helps. Training is readily available and time is provided. My current manager is awesome. She understands everything I do. At her suggestion I applied for telework and now work at home 2 days a week. I've been eligible for retirement for 5 years but they treat me super well, I love what I do, my work has extreme importance to the safety of air travel. Why would I retire? My point is that the government track is another option and it works for me.
There are a few dragons out there, hanging around the corporate unicorns. This is more from a non-tech corporate perspective.
A big one is that business direction is often dictated by outside forces, such as stock market institutional investors or hedge funds management or venture capital firms. This means that things can be going great for a couple of years, then there's a shift in direction for one reason or another. That once wonderful company starts canceling projects, cutting amenities and benefits and, eventually, you get reductions in force, aka layoffs.
Another is management politics. There can be a change in management where that flexible manager who was OK with you working from home 2 days a week at hours you set is promoted and replaced by a manager who wants everyone in the office at 7:30 AM sharp and there until 5:30 PM. It might mean you get caught in a dual between to management rivals who are trying to make each other look bad. It could mean getting a manager who's more interested in running his side business than doing management stuff.
Thanks for writing this.
There are a good number of people locally that work freelance or have their own one-person businesses, and they seem to do well.
But I've always felt like I would do better working under someone else, and that really is perfectly fine with me.
Great article.
I joined a big corporate, Ericsson, the day I left college and I'm still there 10 years later.
The training culture is great here. The company pays for courses and I take time, first thing in the morning, each day to learn.
I've also had the opportunity to change roles within our site.
Heavy process can be a problem at times and as stated direction comes from way up high.
But overall it has been the right decision for me to stay at this corporate.
Great article! Took me around 20 years and a lot of pain to come to the same conclusions...