Have you become your own worst employer?

When you leave a 9-5 job, it seems obvious that you can now embrace a new you. You can relinquish the classic structure and etiquette typical of a worker bee in a corporate environment and be finally free. You are free to grow dreadlocks, or shave your head, you can get piercings in all sorts of visible places, or big dirty tattoos, why not? (Why all of the associations of freedom are based on this clichéd image are not something to be proud of, but there you go...) However, unless you have a deep desire to damage or inflict pain on your body, or hair for that matter, in order to prove to yourself, or anyone else, that you are now an entrepreneur, this may not be the correct course of action for you.

You could express your own individual personality and style through following fashion trends of your own choosing, instead, right? Not having to worry about what your employer or fellow workers would deem suitable now that you run the show, you can be free to express your own true style and identity. However, it may come to your attention that the image of the new company that you are bringing into existence has its own identity, and its one that you need to impart to the world, fashionably, in order for it to be successful. It may only represent part, but not all of who you are; it may even hold a personality of a particularly distinct category. Do you now find yourself being in a sense, your own “employer” and imparting certain traditions and rules to the clothes that you now deem suitable for [insert your company name here].

So not being able to quite clearly be who you are with body art, or indeed through fashion choices, you may think that at the very least, you can be honest in your writing; you can be free of the shackles imposed by previous employers who controlled the way in which you expressed your ideas and thoughts on paper. Remember the manner of speaking in emails, documents and proposals in industry, all formalised and following a regulated structure and format. Yuck!

But has it occurred to you to take a look at what you are writing these days, or should I say, how you are writing? Is there an air of, dare I say, regulated structure and formal phrasing? Any

“Dear esteemed sir,

Please find attached the proposal that we heretofore discussed on the telephone.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me at your leisure if this would be something that you would like to consider.

Thanking you kindly in advance for your highly valued contributions,

With kind regards” kind of malarkey?

Who are you becoming? This is not supposed to be happening now that you are “free”, remember?! What happened to illusions of emails with,

“Hi stevie,
Here’s that doc we chatted about earlier. Get back to me if you like it, if not, your loss!
Later,”

Where is the right balance you may ask? Honesty in writing can be dangerous, if you are telling people to fuck off on a regular basis, even if that’s what you do indeed feel like saying, you may never make any money...

Seriously though, if you write with too much structure, and prevent emotion from flowing freely through your words, if you dress too much for success and cover up the body art to fit into your idea of the identity of your company, then you risk hiding your passion and enthusiasm for [insert company name here], and you may never be able to attract “the people who care” to your ideas for change.

It takes guts to show the true you, and I remember to respect those who are following their own rhythm in life, saying who the fuck cares. I am listening hard to my own advice here, the message lies behind the humour, somewhere.

All ideas presented here are fiction and do not in anyway represent the opinions of the writer...