Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
Like most people, I love working for a good boss. They facilitate, they expedite, they inspire, and they pay you too. Unbelievable.
Since good bosses are the exception and not the rule, however, early in my professional life I decided to strike out and work for myself. It was an alternative that sounded great on paper, but there’s one little thing that I wish someone had told me: When you work for yourself, you are working for many clients, and they are often the worst bosses imaginable.
Don’t get me wrong: I absolutely adore all of my clients (well, most of them). After all, without them, I would starve. But even the best client can be a terrible manager.
How so? Let me count the ways.
A good manager will create structure, keep you constantly busy but not overworked, and pay you regularly. A client sometimes comes forward with unpredictable demands, while at others leaving you extended periods of absolute monotony, during which no money comes in.
A good boss will occasionally sit you down and give you a performance review, complete with tips and hints on how to improve yourself. Some of them will even take courses on how to better communicate with you.
A client, on the other hand, will rarely say anything about your services unless you directly ask them, and even then, they often consider giving you feedback to be a waste of their time and energy.
When you make a mistake or do something wrong, a half-decent boss will correct you. A client will, in some rare instances, throw a screaming fit at you, but most of the time they will not fire you or say anything; they will just accept you as you are. To them, putting up with you is often easier than finding someone else. It’s easy to interpret their silence as satisfaction, even when it may be enabling mediocrity.
When a manager fires you, they will do it face-to-face. A client will fire you just by forgetting about you. With a client-boss, it could be years before you know you’re fired.
