When this topic first popped into my mind, all of the obvious differences between being an employee and an owner came to mind as well. They are the typical, structural differences: the work-day schedule shift, dissolving the compartmentalization of keeping your work life and your personal life separate and adapting to the changes that come from working with a team of co-workers to working mostly alone. These shifts are real, but they are mostly superficial issues. As I delve deeper into what this has meant for me personally, I find that the transition has produced emotions and vulnerabilities that have surprised me and challenged me to grow in profound ways.
The Easy Parts
You know the routine. As an employee you put on your make-up (if you’re a girl. Boys of course have different morning rituals, but the goals are the same), dress to kill, commute, work, commute back, collapse in front of the TV with a glass of wine, go to bed. Wash, rinse, repeat.
One of the best parts of being a business owner is that I now own my time. I still need to get up early to bring my children to school, but I am free to dress as elaborately or casually as my schedule dictates. If I don’t have any meetings scheduled for a particular day, I can get away with jeans and a t-shirt, no make-up, and run around barefoot if I feel like it.
More importantly though, I am able to make myself available for my children’s activities and appointments, and opportunities for professional enrichment like networking meetings, continuing education classes, tours, lectures, etc. I’m no longer judged by “face-time”: the hours I spend in someone’s office. I’m judged on output and results, by the people that hire me, which means that the circumstances under which my work occurs matter very little. There is an amazing amount of freedom in this.
“I made this!” This is the best part of being in business for myself. Putting your name on work that you’re proud of is glorious. So is creating friends and advocates and gaining trusted advisors along the way. There’s more to it than that, however, and it has to do with values: mine, and not someone else’s. More on this in a minute.
The Not-So-Easy Parts
Letting go of the stresses of a design project was much easier as an employee. As dedicated an employee as I was, I always had the knowledge in the back of my mind that I had backup. There was a final authority available that would sort out the worst crises that occurred and it wasn’t me; it was my boss.
As a business owner, I own my mistakes now. And sometimes they cost real money. This reality creates unfortunate consequences, in that it’s easy to put up obstacles built on fear and become mired in the quest for perfection, and as designers we long for perfection as a matter of course as it is. We all make mistakes. None of us are perfect. Whether you’re an employee or an owner, it’s best to own up to mistakes and do everything in your power to correct them quickly. But as a business owner, be prepared to actually pay from your own pocket to make things right. I can tell you from firsthand experience that this sucks, but you’ll survive if you’ve developed and honed conscientiousness skills.
I am a business owner – a small business owner. More truthfully, I am a micro-business owner; a solo-entrepreneur, and I work from home. Working from home used to be perceived negatively, but now it just makes good economic sense. Plus it makes the easy part of owning my time all that much easier. The drawback is that I am alone. A lot. This is good and also bad, and why Twitter is a very dangerous distraction that requires an enormous amount of discipline to control. (You’re following me, right?)
Having a team of people around you that do what you do, understand the design process, and can brainstorm with you and provide feedback is joyous and wonderful. Working alone can sometimes be gut-wrenching and create all sorts of pathologies (talk to yourself much?). Exchanging a couple of words with the UPS guy or the mail lady every day just doesn’t cut it for social interaction. The upside is that it has encouraged me to seek out similarly situated peers and develop friendships based on mutual experience and non-competitiveness. (Hence, my love for my Twitter community.)
The Holy Grail, by far, though, is Finding Work. As an employed designer you are hired because there is Work. It’s not usually required that you go out and find the work (at least it never was for me during any of my jobs). As a design business owner, this is obviously the most critical thing, and this is where my formal education failed me. Learning to be a designer is quite different from learning the business of design, and the Art of acquiring clients. It is my opinion that design schools need to focus on teaching business skills as much as design skills. I used to read about design history and design movements, design magazines and other design tomes, but now I mostly read about marketing and sales strategy, contract negotiations and creating niches. Did you know that the word niche doesn’t mean what you think it means? It means something else entirely.
Revelations
I loved design school. The heady excitement that accompanied every new project and every new skill learned convinced me that good design was life-changing, life-affirming, and could change the world in the most positive of ways. Every design concept, every solution, every selection, every choice made had MEANING. What is the Meaning behind this? What is your Philosophy and what’s important to you?
Unfortunately, once I got into the working world, I found that this sort of intellectual thinking and reasoning was not always welcomed by my employers. I was expected to interpret and espouse their values, not my own, which I guess should not really be of any surprise.
I worked for one boss who was a strict traditionalist, style-wise, and whose concept of modernism didn’t extend beyond the Bauhaus movement and all other examples of modern, innovative design were disdained. Doing a multi-million dollar residential presentation the day after Hurricane Andrew leveled most of Miami was disheartening. I worked for another that had the most fun-loving personality but had a tendency to lie big to the clients. This resulted in the staff having to become experts at damage control, while we hoped our paychecks didn’t bounce. One of my jobs was with a large “churn and burn” firm where the mantra was “fast and cheap” at all costs. One of my bosses, who was very successful, scoffed openly at my desire to learn about green design and the environmental movement. It wasn’t important to his clients, and therefore, it wasn’t important to him, and he considered my interest a waste of time.
Now I’m not saying that these experiences were all bad, or that all my employers were jerks. That is the farthest thing from the truth. I learned A LOT from all of these people; useful information that I carry with me to this day. What happened, though, was I began to guard my soul.
Realizations & Why Any Of This Matters
Guarding my soul. I never thought to articulate these feelings in this way until I saw THIS. As a designer, and especially as a business owner, I can lead with my soul in ways that I never could as an employee. That said, I wouldn’t change the order of my experiences. I needed those experiences in order to clearly see where I’ve come from and where I want to go. This type of self-examination has uncovered weaknesses that have unnerved me, and it has tested my resolve. There’s always more to learn. Uncovering truths and seeking answers have been the reasons why Design attracted me in the first place, and that has made business ownership one of the most rewarding endeavors I’ve ever embarked upon.
To bridge the gap between the student / educational community and the professional / manufacturer community of the interior design world, and not to die of boredom while we do it.
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