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As a counter-point, I spent about 5 years pretty miserable between 3 different jobs - my complaints …

As a counter-point, I spent about 5 years pretty miserable between 3 different jobs - my complaints where the same at each organization. The profit motive was being put above all else, including employee well being, an actually high-quality service, and in some cases baseline ethics. People were constantly pressured into working more than they should, both in the short term (too many hours per week) and in the long term - vacation time that was hard or impossible to actually take. Overpromising and understaffing/tooling led to constant crunches, corner cutting, rushed low-quality deliverables, and constant fear - either that a client would be lost and blame would be placed, or that a bad client that should go would be retained to the teams detriment. Often all of this was paved over by toxic positivity. You point out the problems and they say "Look on the bright side. You are being too negative. It'll all shake out". Just pure gaslighting bullshit. After the 3rd such place, and a complete inability to effect change - I threw in the towel and started my own agency 2 years ago. …

Original discussionQuitting the Rat Race416 source comments · at import
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BA

Bluntly, every person I know who's expressed these kinds of sentiments is guilty of the same mistake: externalizing their happiness. They inevitably move, only to find the new place they're in sucks, just in different ways. Or they find another job, but just discover more things they hate there. Or they find a new partner, only to discover a new set of annoyances. The same psychology leads people to think they'll be happy if they finally get that new car, or that new house, or that new TV. All of it comes from the same place: assuming that happiness is something you can find by simply changing your circumstances. Now, don't get me wrong, there are absolutely good reasons to want to change those circumstances! But it's critical to understand that oftentimes there is no one change of circumstances, one decision, one thing that will result in happiness. I know it's a cliche, but I think I'm…

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Had a very similar experience to you and have often dreamt about building my own company that would work the way I want it to. But how do you get started? I have tried a few times and every time I got discouraged and it didn’t pan out. It’s just overwhelming, and I don’t know where to start. Then I’m doubting my abilities and thinking whether I really want to work like a dog for very little pay for months/years to start the business? Or maybe I’m just better off doing another 18 months stint followed by 6 months off to recover. I know I’m not alone in this, but haven’t figured out how to get out of it. Any insights on the above, or a blog if you’ve written about it already?

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I'll counter this counter-point: I started my own consulting (and later, hosting) business and they've been a slog. The parent comment glossed over "the hard bits of actually getting it off the ground and getting those first few customers" -- it's really hard. Five years in now things are going okay, but it took a while to get back to the came total comp I had pre-starting-my-own-biz, and even now the level of work is much higher (but so is the comp...). If I had to do it again I'm not sure I would, and would definitely do a lot of things different. The big one would be going hard on biz dev from day 1 (or even day 0; start prospecting before incorporation), with #2 and #3 being talking to an accountant and lawyer ASAP once I could afford them.

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