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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?

#111

Post by kerkeslager »

> So how would you justify taking unpaid vacation with family under such circumstances?

Frankly, the circumstances are irrelevant. There isn't a set of circumstances that makes you not a human being with a right to leisure time, and a need for leisure time.

You don't need to justify this. It's an inherent human right and need, and everyone knows that. If they claim some other reasoning outweighs that, they're screwing you over, and there isn't a reason for you to tolerate it. You have the power to not tolerate it. They can't make you work, so don't. There are other clients.

Ultimately, this isn't actually a choice you have. What you're doing isn't sustainable. If you don't take time for yourself, you'll eventually have a burnout and that time will be taken for you, in a much more unpleasant way. It's better to acknowledge facts and take the time for yourself before it's taken for you.

Besides, why are you working anyway? I don't work for the sake of work, I work so I can do what I love doing. It sounds like you'd like to spend more time with your family. If your work doesn't support that, find work that does.

Frankly, I've worked with people like this, and even after I set proper boundaries, I'm constantly having to defend them, which I don't want to do. I've found it a lot more pleasant to work with clients who don't have boundary issues.

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

#113

Post by HeavenFox »

Semi-related, I think the OP doesn’t give him/herself enough credit. Frankly, given then relative abundance of talent in China (1.4 billion population with general preference towards STEM subjects is no joke) and relatively cheap cost (you can hire a junior swe for probably $30-40k/year), there must be a reason the Chinese company decided to partner with you, an European living in a different time zone and speaking a different language. Take your vacation. Charge more. You probably have more leverage than you think.

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

#114

Post by sdegutis »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #42
sdegutis wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a Christian, the same situation could simply be trusting in Divine Providence and not in ourselves or others for security (which so often fails us anyway). In that case, it would be a virtue.

Huh? Could you explain with more detail what you mean?

The more you trust in God, the more he will make it clear that your victory is caused by him, and remove all possibility for the explanation that it's just a coincidence, or that you're doing it on your own.

When Gideon went up with 30,000 soliders against the Midianite army who had 65,000, God didn't want any of them thinking they would win because of their own skill or strength. So he had Gideon tell the cowards to leave, and there were only 10,000 left. Then God had Gideon tell them to drink at the river, and the ones who rested leisurely next to the river and drank sufficiently, he told them to leave. The rest who ran around and drank hurriedly, ready for battle, God said to Gideon, "that's your army." Only 300 men. There's no human way they could win, but of course they did win.

Jesus fulfilled so many prophecies that there was a 82 x 10^120 chance that anyone could fulfill them all. But of course, he did fulfill them all.

Our God is the God of Unlikeliness.

Samson didn't always need extra strength. But at exactly the time he needed it, it was said that he was filled with the spirit, which meant he didn't have strength, but at the exact moment he needed it, God gave it to him, and for no longer than that.

God does not do anything uselessly. God does not give extra. He gives just enough, to prove that our victory comes from him, and not us.

If one has total trust in God's Divine Providence, he may find himself in a situation where there's no earthly way his needs will be provided for, and then suddenly, at the last second, God will provide. Many of the Saints had exactly this happen to them.

St. John Bosco, about 150 years ago, needed a certain sum of money by a certain day, or everything would be closed down, and had no way of obtaining it. The very day he needed it, a man came in as the Saint was praying, and offered exactly that amount of money as an alms, not knowing about the situation.

About 80 years ago, Venerable Fulton Sheen went on a trip to visit Lourdes in honor of Our Blessed Lady, not having enough money for the hotel or to get back. But he asked her to take care of it. And he chose the best hotel, figuring if she could obtain a miracle, she could obtain a small one just as well as a big one. So he went and stayed for 9 days, just as long as a Novena, and on the last day, at night, when he was beginning to wonder how she would take care of him, as Fulton Sheen was praying in the garden, a man came up and asked him to accompany his family who were touring. He also said, "have you paid your bill?"

And time would fail me to mention similar stories that happened to St. Francis of Assisi, St. Benedict, St. Francis de Sales, St. Theresa of Calcutta, and many others...

Our God is the God of Last Minute Victory, lest anyone think it was his own devising or cunning or planning or scheming that gave themselves the victory.

If a person had trust like these great Saints, they might find themselves in a situation where they're living paycheck to paycheck, with no savings, no retirement fun, no backup plan, only barely enough money for their essential needs of life, and no guarantee of how long the work will last, and yet this lasts for years.

Because God works all things for the good of those who love Him, and God works with those who love Him for the good of all things.

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

#115

Post by balfirevic »

BrentOzar wrote: post #93
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #78

Don't forget you work to live, you don't live to work. Even if you love your work, you don't love it every moment of the day. Sure, if you're close to a breakthrough invention to cure cancer, or have to race the competition to the first patent, and this urgency is credible and has a likely and credible high-payout in the end, you can crunch for a finite amount of time. But just churning out one project after the othe…

> Don't forget you work to live, you don't live to work. A variation that I first heard from Lori Edwards: "The people you really work for are waiting for you at home."

You don't have to live to work even if there is no one at home.

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

#116

Post by tartoran »

Markoff wrote: post #59
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…

Automate your job and where you can’t, just delegate work remotely to workers in other countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine (you can find cheaper good quality labor in this countries). Remove all the references so you don’t get undercut and forward all the finished work as if you did it yourself. You’d still have to “approve” the work but that’d take way much less of yout time.

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

#117

Post by kuon »

michaelgrafl wrote: post #81
kuon wrote: post #74

I have been self employed for 20 years. I used to put my work first, and in 2012 I did a serious burnout and nearly died (common virus can make a LOT of damage when you are exhausted). So I changed my view of life. Now I consider myself on vacation all the time, and work comes second. I work less and get roughly the same amount of money because I plan projects better and select only the ones that pays well. But my ki…

I still have trouble with giving time estimates that seem realistic to me when I feel the customer will think it should be done in a shorter amount of time. I hate this, because I turn out to take longer and have to push the dealine back on short notice, which makes me feel awful. Especially when I knew from the beginning that my estimate was very tight.

Yeah, I had the same problem, but you can explain why it takes so long to the customer. Another tactic I use often is to cut of features, or simplify them in ways that are subtle to the customer but change a lot in term of development time. For example, let's say you need to display search results of some sort, instead of displaying all the results with pagination, you can just display the 50 highest results. The customer might not notice, and you just cut yourself some development time. Of course this is just an example, but you get the idea.

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

#119

Post by dustinmr »

meerita wrote: post #95

I did quite few things: 1. Getting better at work. I do things x10 faster and better than when I started. That releases me of spending more hour. 2. Be pragmatic with the solutions. 3. I don't accept any job that is not well defined. 4. I do allocate time for me: gym, bycicle, etc.

Seems like an important detail to number one is to properly manage the way that gets presented to the client.

In the OPs case it sounds like if they do that, they won’t realize a benefit. Their client will expand the work to fill the available time.

I do the same to myself often. It’s hard to avoid.

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

#120

Post by duxup »

I think one of the hardest things about small businesses is saying no, finding good clients, and firing bad clients...but if you don't you're going to pay for it with time or etc.

I worked for a company that just before I joined turned down what looked like a jackpot. Millions, possibly tens of millions in revenue.

The reason, it was too much work for their team, and despite the bags of money being offered it wasn't clear the company offering the business were quite on the ball, something was off and they said no.

Another small company said yes. They got a windfall of cash, grew...6 months in and they were a big success story...and in 18 months had lost their past customers because they knew they had been put on the back burner, their own people quit because they were working like you are, and the client was endlessly upset because of unrealistic expectations and a real power imbalance in terms of setting goals and realistic planning was out the window.

In short if you can't take vacation...you need better client(s).

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