It seems like it’s been decades since I had a real job. In actuality it was less than three years ago.
And to say I’m glad to be out of it would be an understatement.
No more showing up at 8:30 and staying till 5 no matter if your work was completed or not. No more filling out senseless form to report to the auditing authorities. No more pointless performance review metrics to report to people who probably couldn’t pick me out of a line up. No more mundane and laborious trainings.
No more dirty work. Never again would I have to do tasks I didn’t want to. At least that’s what I thought.
The biggest difference between “real jobs” & startup life is that you get to do your own dirty work.
Honestly, for probably the first year of full time entrepreneurship I didn’t realize how important the dirty work was to success. Some of it I had to learn the hard way.
Not sure what to do on taxes? Here’s a nice penalty to pay. That website that just worked at the real job? You are the entire IT department now. Thought you were done with pointless tasks? Try cold investor outreach.
And I did them all like Andy Dufresne crawling to freedom through the shit infested plumbing of Shawshank Prison.
The lesson is no matter the job there will always be things you don’t want to do. The cliche “start living your dream or work for someone else’s” has never been felt so hard. You just trade things you’re told to do for things you just have to do.
Either way you’re doing some dirty work. Just might as well make it your own.
