The Pros and Cons of Being an Employee

For the most part, I have appreciated the financial rewards and leisure time that being an employee has allowed for me. On the other hand, I’ve have also felt that most of my jobs have been a waste of my time. This could be partially be because I was never doing what I really wanted to be doing (learning, being challenged, and coming up with new studies or researching ideas that could have relevance in the real world).

Everyone has a different risk profile, but here are a few of my thoughts about the pros and cons of working for someone else-

The pros to being an employee:

1 - You don't take on the risk of the success or failure of the business. A lot of businesses fail.
2 – You can leave work at work.
3 – Your level of responsibility and overall burden can be less, depending on the company and role.
4 – You gain work experience, and learn, and are compensated.
5 – You have more leisure time.


The cons to being an employee:

1 - You will always "work for the man" and have reported to somebody other than yourself for your entire career.
2 - You built somebody else’s idea and worked towards and for their interests.
3 - After 20-30 years of hard work, dedication, sweat, tears, and blood, there is still a good chance that you will on the job market as a senior level candidate looking for work before you retire.
5 - Unless you are in the top 2-5% of your field, you are replaceable. Even the President of the United States is replaceable.
6 - Though you had a successful career, raised a family, put your kids through college, and then some, this probably wasn't your real/true passion. Was it what you wanted to do when you were 8, 25, or even 35?
7 – It is possible that you invested more into work than work invested into you.
8 – Most employers (excepting Tony Hsieh and a few others) want an employee who will execyte and do their work as directed. This leaves less room for successful implementation of out of the box/creative ideas.

For more on the topic…

An in-depth discussion on the employee/employer relationship-
More on Employee/Employer Relationships

A survey done by Salary.com on Job Satisfaction and Retention broken down by employee responses vs. employer responses –
Salary.com Survey