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Ask HN: How do you justify taking unpaid vacation as self employed?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you justify taking unpaid vacation as self employed?

#51

Post by anon73044 »

freeopinion wrote: post #39
switz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure this logic follows. I generally take on one client at a time, sometimes for many months (even years, on occasion). I've ended gigs that I was unhappy with, and I've stayed on contracts for extended periods of time. I still make my own hours and have relative freedom to operate how I please, despite only having one client at a time.

Your mother-in-law says you keep erratic hours and job hop a lot. Your resume says you own and operate a consulting business.

Six of one, half-a-dozen of the other

Re: Ask HN: How do you justify taking unpaid vacation as self employed?

#52

Post by Markoff »

davismwfl wrote: post #9

Justifying taking time is easy, doing it is a little harder for a lot of people. But justifying it, if you don't take time for yourself you will implode (fail) and when you do you will lose your client(s) and all your income. It is seriously that simple. While I know it is that simple to justify, all of us that have been consultants where our money is dependent on our time understand where you are coming from, so you…

I'm quite sure they would not replace me just for one vacation per year, though personally I would also prefer to work less overal and in that case I'm not so sure they would not find rather someone else, because this job requires extreme consistency in results.

And besides quality I guess one of the main reasons why they stick with me for years (because they sure could find someone cheaper) is very fast response time and basically zero downtime.

All in all I didn't complain about job, I just complained that my workload is more than I would prefer and can't really do much about it. But mostly I was looking for recommendation what would be the best way to take vacation under these circumstances, if I should just take vacation and work during vacation, hoping to find few free hours in morning or afternoon or sacrify completely lost income (though I think that would make me uncomfortable knowing I am doing nothing throwing money I could earn out of window and someone else is earning them possibly building position for himself to replace me).

Re: Ask HN: How do you justify taking unpaid vacation as self employed?

#55

Post by exclusiv »

scarface74 wrote: post #33
cameroncf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If OP has only one customer they do not work for themselves, they work for that customer and have a job - regardless of what they like to tell themselves.

That’s about like people who are so proud to be a “business owner” because they bought a franchise and now work 60 hours+ a week and never take time off. They aren’t “running a business”, They bought a job.

Not if they have profit / distributions.

Re: Ask HN: How do you justify taking unpaid vacation as self employed?

#56

Post by scarface74 »

exclusiv wrote: post #55
scarface74 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s about like people who are so proud to be a “business owner” because they bought a franchise and now work 60 hours+ a week and never take time off. They aren’t “running a business”, They bought a job.

Not if they have profit / distributions.

But their “profit” only comes from them working 60+ hours per week to save on labor costs and/or to keep employees from stealing.

The average franchise owner makes less than $70K a year (https://www.moneytalksnews.com/could-franchise-your-ticket-o...).

And that’s after putting a lot of Monet into it.

Re: Ask HN: How do you justify taking unpaid vacation as self employed?

#57

Post by Spooky23 »

You budget working 46-50 weeks a year and get it in your contract. Most people whom I know who are happy with contracting have multiple clients and assume a certain amount of bench time.

Call it professional development or whatever you need to. Build your rate card around that timeframe. If that’s not acceptable, you need to think about what you want and work towards that.

Re: Ask HN: How do you justify taking unpaid vacation as self employed?

#58

Post by Markoff »

mbreese wrote: post #15
Markoff wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one company, multiple projects (but basically two main ones and under them subprojects), each has many tasks (some of them smaller doable in minutes, some of them bigger taking hours) I could drop one project I really don't like, because how unprofessional they are, so I started to get quite bitchy about it and also refused recently task and voiced my objections about their workflow/mismanagement. I would not mind at…

If you are accepting / rejecting work in 20 min units of work, you might want to rethink things a bit. The micromanagement level at play here would make any work/life balance out of whack. Maybe the question to ask is — can I start bidding on work in units of 1-2 week increments? You’d still have multiple smaller tasks in that block. But that would start to give you more flexibility in how to organize you days.

in 95% of my income I'm not paid per hour/time (rarely I have tasks paid per hour, which I usually don't like), but per size of the task, I just use time/money cost for easier understanding after calculation, if I average my income my minimum hourly rate would be between 60-200USD depending on how efficient I am with certain task

and the tasks are assigned by currently 2nd biggest company in their field (over 100bln USD revenue last year), you seriously don't expect me telling them how should their multiple teams manage their tasks and workflow? I'm not doing any bidding, I have my rate and I can decide if I accept or reject task they assign to me (and pretty much all of them go first to me, then to my official backup).

working per hour/time would be worse for me, because I'm much more efficient than other people so some average 1-2 week income would be much lower than what I can get per size. and getting some fixed size for 1-2 weeks would be still pointless because all these smaller tasks have usually deadline within 24hrs, many less than 12hrs. they have vry strict daily deadlines and you can do nothing about it

anyway I was not complaining about my job as most of the commenters picked up, I am happy with with how much I earn for work I do, I would just prefer to have less work, but that's not really an option unless I would subcontract someone working for me, but anyway I would need to check up on their work and it would bring lot of paperwork. if I would start refusing tasks regularly to lower workload they will just find someone who will not refuse, because they need consistent results.

so I was basically asking in my OP how to manage vacation with such schedule/circumstances and how people without fixed monthly income justify taking days off and letting the money go

Re: Ask HN: How do you justify taking unpaid vacation as self employed?

#59

Post by Markoff »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #32

If you only look at life as a balance sheet, you will only experience life that way. When I contracted, I set my rates and anticipated annual hours to include (1) holidays (2) vacations (3) a bit of sick time (4) un-paid work (like finding new clients). I could always make more by working more, but I didn't want to. ------ It's really no different that a salaried job. I could take "vacation" from a salary job to work…

that's rational approach except I am not paid per hour, but per job, not that it would change things much, it all comes down to that if I know there are money to earn I don't value my spare time at as much as I earn, especially considering that this won't last longterm and when it's gone I will have plenty of time doing nothing (read working as regular employee for peanuts) with no option to earn that much

in regular job as employee with fixed salary you have paid vacation by law and it's standard for almost all employees, same as it's standard that almost none of them work during vacation and local bank holidays and most of their salaries are shit

in recent months I earn on average 5 times more than is average income in my city (even more if you consider median), so you can see my conundrum why I don't want to give up on such income even during vacation. if I would be earning as much as majority of people, even majority of people in my field (still more than double) I would care about lost income during vacation much less than I care in current situation

Re: Ask HN: How do you justify taking unpaid vacation as self employed?

#60

Post by Markoff »

wayanon wrote: post #14

There are alternative employment opportunities out there. You shouldn’t have negotiate for time with your family - this is a form of bullying by your employer.

not with income I have, I earn 5 times my city average income and 2-3 times my position average income and I'm prety sure this won't last for much more years, so I want to bank on it

if I would earn much less I would value mu spare time much more than I value it now currently with this opportunity, I don't know anyone who bought their first apartment without mortgage and help of parents in my age and is planning to buy second soon in same conditions

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