Why I’ll Never go Back to Being an Employee
May I never have to eat these words, but I will never go back to being an employee. I believe in the power of intention, so I shout it firmly. Never! Nunca! After being let go from a job at the height of the pandemic in September 2020, I decided to go full-time as a consultant and incorporated my firm in August 2021. I cannot imagine being an employee for someone else ever again, and I won’t, if I can help it. Here’s why, so far, I love working for myself, and how it’s different from being an employee:
Choosing Your Team: The element of consulting full-time that’s been most liberating for me is the ability to choose who I work with. In over 23 years in the workforce, I’ve learned (the hard way) that even when you’re in your chosen field, and the substance of your work is engaging, inspiring and meaningful, the people you interact with on a day-to-day basis have the greatest influence over whether your work is a drain on your energy — and even a traumatic experience — or an enrichment in your life.
A great team can be a tremendous support system and source of joyful relationship; a bad boss or colleague can make your life hell. As an employee below the executive level, you have little control over reorganizations that change your team, departures and hires that directly impact who you report to and work with, or who you are expected to partner with based on pre-existing relationships and dynamics. For one inspired-by-true-events account of the cascade of abuse that can ensue as an employee without agency over your team, check out Jacquie Abrams’ book HUSH MONEY: How One Woman Proved Systemic Racism in Her Workplace and Kept Her Job. Absolute. Literal. Nightmare.
In the world of environmental policy advocacy, employees have to work with and through external stakeholders — oftentimes, “hook and bullet sportsmen” or industry representatives. These sorts of interactions and dynamics can be fraught with sexual harassment, disrespect, undermining, abuse and exclusion. I am speaking from lived experience as myself as a white woman in a multiracial family, as well reflecting the experiences of many women — especially women of color — in the field who have shared their traumatic memories with me in confidence.
As an employee, no matter what your organizational code of conduct may say about zero tolerance for abuse, the truth is you are expected to tolerate it, push through it, and put the organizational objectives of utilizing these relationships to advance policy above your own well-being and dignity.
As a consultant, you can choose to say “no.” You can choose your clients, make clear in your contract negotiations that certain behaviors constitute a breach of the agreement, and generally have more choice about who has access to you, how often, and when.
I remember being, for all intents and purposes, forced to take a 7am call with 10 minutes’ notice in order to appease and explain myself to an external stakeholder for a mistake that he made. Pre-emptive damage control for someone else’s lack of organization and forgetfulness that would blow back on me if I didn’t gently remind him that we’d discussed the issue previously and he’d given his approval to my plan. That person, at other points in the “relationship,” also complained about me to my boss for yet another mistake that a man made and I took the fall for; in another instance he told me “the problem with you women is you never shut up.” In yet another conversation where I expressed reservations against him wielding his outsized power in a bullying and frankly, extortionist manner in order to get his way, he told me “that’s why you’re no good at your job.” He was not even the worst person with whom I had to “maintain a relationship.” Never again.
Clients, Not Bosses: It is a very different, and in my view, a much more enlivening orientation to serve a client, versus follow a boss. Speaking very generally (as I’ve had a few incredible bosses that did, in fact, support me in growth and creativity to the extent they could), a client looks to you to solve their problem creatively and autonomously, while a boss looks to you to execute on a solution they or a group may have created, with or without your input. Of course, whether this appeals to you depends on your personality and mindset. I’ve always been very creative and have pulled off much larger and more integrative projects than folks around me expected (and with relatively few resources), when I had the freedom to follow my flow. In an employment context, however, this was often constrained by a variety of factors, from competition for resources among departments, fragile egos of people with more power in the organizations who were threatened, or political dynamics in far-flung silos of the organization or among external agencies that really had nothing to do with my work.
What I’ve noticed, so far, is that clients are less incented to constrain every decision you make, and more inclined to view you as an informative resource and a supportive extension of their program; there is more trust, more respect, and more freedom to use and apply your experience, insight and out-of-the-box thinking. I’ve been extremely blessed thus far to have partnered with outstandingly brilliant, supportive, genuine and interpersonally cool clients so far. At the end of the day, if you do end up with a client that micro-manages or is overly prescriptive, moving on is not a major career decision requiring a slew of job interviews. Instead, you can fulfill your obligations under the contract, thank them for the opportunity, and graciously inform them you are at capacity or going in a different direction moving forward. Also, the whole internal politics/power hoarding/jockeying for position/jealousy factor has not, so far, been an issue for me as a consultant (though I can see where that might arise and am deliberate about curating my network carefully to avoid people rooted in the ideology of competition).
Agency Over the Type of Work You Do: I’m going to guess that almost every employee has experienced having a project they didn’t ask for and wouldn’t have chosen being dumped in their lap. There are a number of ways to respond to this, from stuffing your feelings down and “taking one for the team” jubilantly (expected and sometimes, rewarded), to expressing tactfully why you think it might be a better fit for someone else (risky, but possibly effective), to clearly and directly communicating that it is not a fit for your experience level, skill set, interests or values and declining decisively (dangerous). I know from experience that the latter does not bode well.
As an employee, even if you’ve got decades of experience and a clear sense of the type of work you like to do, you never know when you might be voluntold to take on something that makes you cringe, either from a substantive or pragmatic standpoint; for example, a person who believes strongly in corporate accountability being asked to perform overly positive public relations damage-control for their employer, or a person who loves to write being told to manage spreadsheets. I know what you’re thinking — this just sounds like poor management. You’d be right. Nevertheless, poor management is pretty ubiquitous, so the likelihood is, you’ll be faced with a choice like this at some point, as an employee. And even if you suck it up and take on the assignment, your loyalty guarantees you nothing — I know that from experience, too. As a full-time consultant, you can be far more selective and define the types of services you provide, and in what substantive context.
Authenticity: Finally, the freedom to be yourself! Can’t you just feel the deep breath? I suspect this will resonate a lot more with people who identify with groups that are distinct from the dominant culture. It’s not a secret (and citations are below) that the dominant culture in most US corporations, organizations and agencies is overwhelmingly oriented toward whiteness, maleness, heteronormativity, people without disabilities, people born and raised in the US, and Judeo-Christian affiliation. It’s why we have hard-won laws that prohibit discrimination on these bases. I would also argue based in my own experience — and in the fact that the upper-middle class intersects closely with race — that there is a bias toward upper-middle class cultural norms in the corporate workplace, though discrimination based on markers of lower-tier economic class is legal, to my knowledge.
I can’t even count the number of circumstances in which I felt like a complete outsider — whether that manifested as people asking me to repeat words in order to hear my “accent,” or literally standing on the outside of circles of people talking to each other who did not move aside to let me join them. There is a very specific language, including body language, that one is expected to embody in order to be viewed as what I’ll call “culturally neutral,” — that is, where your mannerisms, diction and style carries no cultural baggage and is deemed “professional.” It does not come naturally, if at all, to many of us.
Black scholars and advocates in the DEIJ space regularly talk about code-switching and code-meshing, which is specific to the ways in which Black people are instructed and pressured (externally and internally) to turn on their “white voice” and modify behaviors/appearance in order to engender more respect and acceptance by adherents to dominant white culture, and to avoid intimidating white people. Numerous studies and articles have explained how this conformity is draining and exhausting, and the performances that people from the non-dominant culture engage in in order to thrive — or simply survive — undermine the ability to live authentically.
The ability to be my authentic self is really critical to me. I’m forty-two and I’m tired of trying to pretend. I am a white woman, and my life has just been…different (we’ve got some projects underway on telling this story, so stay tuned). I don’t think that even when I tried, I was ever very successful at conforming to the standard of “professionalism” that many are now coming to associate with white supremacy culture. As a friend recently told me, “I can see how most white people don’t know what to do with you.” I know what didn’t happen — I didn’t get considered for leadership roles, I didn’t get promoted, and often, I didn’t get taken seriously — this despite performance reviews emphasizing my competency, work ethic, skill, creativity, facilitation of team cohesion, and measurable results. In fact, the only negative feedback I ever received in a performance review had to do with my “tone,” which was “too direct” for the white woman who wrote it. As a full-time consultant, I’m finding that just being myself and expressing my insights in an authentic way is actually attracting the kinds of clients I want — those who *actually* value diverse systems of thought, perspectives and approaches, and who appreciate the unique skills and observations that I bring to the table, even when I deliver them “directly.”
Variety: I suspect this is going to resonate heavily with younger generations — people get bored! Working on the same initiative, with the same group of people, in the same place for years on end is not for everyone — even when it’s aligned with a person’s mission.
The beauty of consultancy is even if you do take on a long-term project that entails all of the above, you can ALSO be working on short-term projects, building your own business tools and network, learning about new issue areas and exploring new skills. There are some people who can do both with a full-time job. Once upon a time I was one of them — that 20s energy is far less sustainable in the 40s, for me — but it’s a lot, if you want to have a life that isn’t only about the grind. As a full-time consultant, you can choose to pivot to a new subject matter area where your skills are needed, learn new skills that might be demanded in your field of expertise, and mix up your portfolio of work to satisfy the different areas that fulfill you. And you can do it without completely burning yourself out because an employer is expecting 40+ hours per week out of your life and unnecessary 7am phone calls (did I say “never again”?).
Expansiveness: This one is highly variable, and I suspect there are a lot of employees — particularly at higher levels within organizations who have more agency over their time — that already have a fairly expansive network. For managerial level employees, though, it is very easy to get super-myopic in terms of who you interact with, just by virtue of the fact that you have a lot of demands on your time and attention (often of questionable utility).
For example, rather than taking time to chat with someone who works outside of your industry in something that interests you, you might need to be doing performance evaluations, contributing to grant reports, attending department-wide strategy meetings or trying to build networks that directly impact your project deliverables. In this context, dedicating forty-five minutes to a chat with someone in another country working on something only tangentially related (especially on your employer’s clock) is unlikely and frowned upon.
If you’re not of a certain demographic (you know, the one that seems to get away with pretty much everything), you may actually be sabotaging yourself by choosing to use your time to advance your own career by expanding your network vs. staying in line and serving your narrow purposes as defined by your place in the organizational chart. As a consultant, I’ve had the space to schedule informal chats with people across geographies, industries, and work scopes simply because I am curious about what they do, want to feel out whether there may be opportunities to partner, or just connect with another human who has human things to say. I love it.
One of the most amazing and uplifting ways in which I’ve expanded is through joining Katalyst Consulting’s Nonprofit Consulting Mastermind Group, an investment I never could or would have made as an employee. Being connected with genuine women — mostly Black and other women of color — consulting across the nonprofit sector, who share my values and are building companies with their purpose and vision in mind, has been instrumental in supporting me through this process. I suggest you get on the waitlist, if this is your niche!
Voice: Whew, this one. Have you ever had something you needed to say, but you knew from hot iron scar-like experience that you’d better keep your mouth shut or risk becoming a pariah, or even getting fired? It’s an ache behind the thyroid, a clenching, tightening, hot, dry and rough squeeze that radiates to the chest and makes you light-headed. A burn in your gut that often morphs into a searing pain in your back. At least, that’s how it feels to me.
After enough admonishments and threats for speaking truth to power, people who have bills to pay and don’t have the influence to secure their positions often have to put up and shut up. Not having to do this, along with choice of who you work with, are probably the most liberating and game-changing aspects of self-employment, in my estimation.
Depending on the culture of your company or organization, your ability to speak frankly, internally and externally, about your own experience at work, your opinions around the subject matter of your expertise, and your views on the world at large, can be extremely restricted. Whether intended or not, employers’ sometimes dictatorial instructions for what and how their employees say what they say in order to ensure they are in control of the perception of the company/organization is hugely stifling and sometimes, paralyzing.
I personally developed an incredible amount of insecurity and uncertainty in some of my employment relationships, double-checking nervously about the way I was crafting my messaging, feeling like a child with an overbearing parent watching her every move. It is degrading and diminishing. I’m not an indecisive person by any definition, so the fact that I have gotten to the point where I had such a lack of faith in my own judgment, due to the constant shadow of oversight and “narrative management,” just demonstrated how toxic it is to have your voice chronically suppressed. I wouldn’t have dared to write my recent article advocating for off-camera meetings as a default, had I still been an employee. But there it is, online for the world to see, and I lost count of the number of women (and several men) who shared, commented, and reached out to say that it reflected and validated their feelings, and empowered them to turn off their cameras to support themselves. I can’t explain how much this matters to me — to help real people, in tangible ways, live healthier and happier lives.
Asyou can see, all of these benefits of full-time consulting are interrelated, and rest on an overall foundation of autonomy, which I think is something most adults need and want. Sometimes it’s as simple as responding to a meeting request with “no, I’m not available,” without explanation, because you are prioritizing something that pays better, doing work you really enjoy and want to focus on, you decided you won’t work Friday afternoons, you’re recovering emotionally from the latest catastrophic news report, or you simply aren’t in the mood. In my mind, living in an environment where you don’t have a set of people with access to your calendar is a win for self-determination. I’m a really hard worker. I often work seven days per week, when my energy feels right. But it’s on my own terms, and that is everything.
This is not to say there aren’t challenges — there absolutely are. It’s also not to say consulting full-time is for everyone — it most certainly is not. I’ll write about those two subjects in a future article. But it is absolutely for me, and I’m never going back.
Sources:
The Bias of ‘Professionalism’ Standards (ssir.org)
Workplace discrimination is illegal, yet it persists. Here’s why. — Vox
One in Four Black Workers Report Discrimination at Work (gallup.com)
Gender Discrimination Is Still Alive And Well In The Workplace In 2021 (forbes.com)
Heteronormativity in the Workplace (theequalgroup.com)
What Does “Dominant Culture” Mean in the Workplace? (betterup.com)
Religious Discrimination — Workplace Fairness
How Difficult Is It To Be Disabled at Work? (lawyer-monthly.com)
The Class Structure in the U.S. | Boundless Sociology (lumenlearning.com)
White_Supremacy_Culture.pdf (texas.gov)
The Costs of Code-Switching (hbr.org)
Code Meshing and Code Switching — Antiracist Praxis — Subject Guides at American University
