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Full Time
Note: This thread is a spin off of another thread.
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My dad, like my grandpa before him, was a small businessman. One issue he always stressed to me was that there was more to managing the books in a business than being able to draw a paycheck. He insisted that a going business always had good insurance (both on business assets and on the owner), that taxes always be paid honestly and on time, and that equipment always be maintained rather than run into the ground. He also insisted that a sound business model would allow the owner to save, both for lean years and for retirement.
Sometimes there would be a young guy wanting to get into the business, and my dad would invite him over for coffee. My dad would open his books and explain exactly the numbers necessary to make a go of it. Usually the figure my dad quoted was several times what the new guy had in mind. And, my dad always stressed that he owned his equipment outright, and making payments on equipment would sink his business model.
Sometimes the new guy would take the lesson to heart and move on. More often than not, though, he wouldn't. He'd try to make a go of it anyways because he thought his "passion" would overcome the financial facts. The best outcome in this case was that the new guy hold on a few years until a downturn when he'd declare bankruptcy and the bank would auction his equipment. More commonly, though, when things got bad the new guy would start cutting corners. Then the IRS would come looking for back taxes, or Immigration would come and haul away the crew of undocumented workers he was paying in cash. Not a single one of these guys succeeded; there hasn't been a successful new startup in the area since World War II. The numbers do not work.
My dad's diagnosis was always the same, "These hippies don't understand that running a business is about making money to provide for your family and contribute to your community. It's not about self actualization. It's about being there for the long haul - paying for a house, putting your kids through college; that stuff."
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My dad had a very particular and high standard for what it meant to be a small businessman and work "full time" that very few people today would share. He tied professionalism directly to financial results and longevity.
In another thread, the issue of what it means to be a full time framebuilder has come up, but I don't want to limit this discussion to framebuilding. In that discussion several people wanted to decouple the idea of being "full time" from the idea of a standalone business sustainable through thick and thin.
The more I watch economic chaos ensue, the more I'm convinced that it's worth insisting on a standard for full time work. I think my dad's definition wasn't far from the mark: being full time means you make a living wage, it means you have enough to save for the lean years, that you're insured both personally and professionally, that you can own a home and send your kids to college.
Today that standard is starting to become such a reach for so many that it's almost pie in the sky. The economy is doing its damndest to do away with careers and replace them with piecework, temp work, and gigs. While that might be efficient for the macro economy, it's no way for people to live. It's an understandable response to want to retreat from that system of exploitation by starting a small business that feeds one's soul. The trouble is that sometimes the effort to escape comes at the cost of my dad's old idea - that full time work ought to bring full time rewards - as marginal business models try to hang on.
None of what I've written should be taken as an effort to belittle hobby operations or call people out as somehow lesser. Rather, it's just an effort to defend an apparently dying idea of what it means to be a grown up who has a full time job. I think keeping sight of it and insisting on it as a standard rather than an exception could be valuable in fighting the erosion of wages and benefits, both for small business owners and for employees. Perhaps I'm wrong, though. If so, please make the case for why it's a bad idea to tie the idea of full time work to financial results - I'm all ears.
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Originally Posted by SteveP
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