{"id":29215,"date":"2019-06-17T21:53:18","date_gmt":"2019-06-18T02:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=29215"},"modified":"2026-03-01T20:21:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T02:21:01","slug":"some-of-us-dont-seem-wired-up-to-stay-sane-working-for-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=29215","title":{"rendered":"Some of us don\u2019t seem \u2018wired up\u2019 to stay sane working for others"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Every time I work for someone else, I spend a lot of time fantasizing about quitting.<\/p>\n

I love work. I enjoy being productive. I get excited about accomplishing goals. But I chafe when I work for others. It doesn\u2019t matter who the boss is. It doesn\u2019t matter how well he treats me. If I must take orders from someone else, I\u2019m unhappy \u2014 no matter how nicely the orders are given.<\/p>\n

Early in my life, I always blamed the boss. For years, I thought that each boss I had was dumber than the last one. I\u2019ve told you before about how my arrogance about my boss\u00a0almost got me fired<\/a> from my first full-time job. (I really should have been fired, but luck got me promoted instead.)<\/p>\n

The pattern continued. Every boss I had seemed terminally stupid. I knew more than they did and I had no respect for them. Even though I obeyed their orders \u2014 for the most part, at least grudgingly \u2014 I chafed and I knew I could have done their jobs better than they did.<\/p>\n

It took me a long time to have an epiphany.<\/p>\n

My bosses hadn\u2019t been the problem. I had been the problem.<\/em> No matter the boss \u2014 some good and some bad \u2014 I had trouble simply because I\u2019m not wired up to take orders well.<\/em><\/p>\n

I’ve come to accept a simple truth. I need to work for myself. If I’m going to work for an idiot, that idiot might as well be me.<\/p>\n

I’ve also come to accept something else — and this applies to everyone.\u00a0It\u2019s ultimately a problem to work for someone who you don\u2019t respect and who you don\u2019t admire.<\/p>\n

This is been a problem for me, because I’ve always felt that I was smarter and more competent than the people I worked for. Whether I was right or not is immaterial.<\/em> The dynamic of my belief caused problems for me.<\/p>\n

I understand now that the only way I can be happy in the long term working for someone else is if that person is smarter than I am and more capable than I am — enough that I have tremendous respect for the person’s complete capabilities. Otherwise, I’m always going to be second-guessing that person. I’m always going to be thinking that we should be following my instincts. I’m always going to believe that I ought to be the one giving the orders.<\/p>\n

This is a strong reason that I am happiest when I’m self-employed.<\/p>\n

The happiest I’ve been in the past was when I was a self-employed consultant. I had clients to whom I had to answer, but I chose my clients and I could walk away from clients I didn’t want. If I didn’t want to be at a certain place at a certain time, I simply did what I wanted to do. As long as I achieved the goal I was being paid to achieve, I did things my way.<\/p>\n

I had no employees to control. I simply had vendors to whom I contracted everything I didn’t want to do. It was a perfect arrangement for me. I was the one who was seen as having the expertise, so clients paid me for my knowledge of what to do — and then I paid others to do the work I preferred not to do.<\/p>\n

Working for someone else is like living in a cage. Even if the cage is really fancy — and even if the boss treats you well — it still feels like a cage. It still feels like confinement. At least it does to me.<\/p>\n

One day, I’ll be self-employed again. I don’t know when. I’m not sure exactly how I’ll structure what I’m doing. I’m not even entirely sure what I’ll be doing.<\/p>\n

Some people are very happy working as cogs in someone else’s machine. There’s nothing wrong with that. The vast majority of people have to do that — and many of them prefer it.<\/p>\n

But for some among us — and definitely for me — control of time and direction is ultimately far more important than the security that allegedly comes from working for others.<\/p>\n

One day, I’ll strap on my solo rocket pack again — and I’ll fly right out of my gilded cage for good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every time I work for someone else, I spend a lot of time fantasizing about quitting. I love work. I enjoy being productive. I get excited about accomplishing goals. But I chafe when I work for others. It doesn\u2019t matter who the boss is. It doesn\u2019t matter how well he treats me. If I must Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[622,448,447,263,467],"class_list":{"0":"post-29215","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"tag-boss","8":"tag-career","9":"tag-job","10":"tag-psychology","11":"tag-work","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-7Bd","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29215"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38730,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29215\/revisions\/38730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}