At first glance, you may not think rockstars and freelancers are a lot alike. However, when you look a little closer you see why freelancers are the rockstars of the business world.
- Keep strange hours
Rockstars - Play a show at 10pm. Party until 3am. Sleep until 3pm.
Freelancers - Start work at 9am. Break for food / xbox / sleep from noon until 6pm. Work until 3am.
- Make a lot of money
Rockstars - Playing shows, selling t-shirts, selling CDs… money coming from everywhere.
Freelancers - Charging hourly, monthly retainers, residual income… money coming from everywhere.
- Fight The Man
Rockstars - Any good rockstar snubs their nose at the establishment and tells them where they can stick it.
Freelancers - Tells big corporations where they can stick their steady jobs and salaries.
- Work for The Man
Rockstars - Makes all their money through record labels, big music sellers and big venues.
Freelancers - Makes all their money off big corporations.
- Get screwed by The Man
Rockstars - They make like 2% of all the money after everyone (label, venues, agents, etc) gets paid.
Freelancers - Make about the same after theIRS, CPA, lawyer, etc gets paid.
- Wear, look and smell however they want
Rockstars - Have you met one?
Freelancers - Have you met one?
- Have a job that sometimes really sucks
Rockstars - No steady location, no steady income, everybody wanting their piece of the action.
Freelancers - No steady location, no steady income and lots of mouths to feed.
- Take their job wherever they go
Rockstars - Every night after a show the equipment gets packed up and they hit the road.
Freelancers - Everyday after work the laptop and headphones gets packed and they hit the road.
- Will tell you they’re just normal people even though they know they’re more awesome than everyone else
Rockstars - Every night they have fans cheering and people wanting their autograph. Obviously they’re more awesome than everyone else.
Freelancers - All their friends want to work for themselves instead of their 9 to 5. All their friends are constantly asking them advise. Obviously they’re more awesome than everyone else.
- They are what everyone wants to be
Rockstars - Despite what anyone says, if they got a chance to be a rockstar, they would do it.
Freelancers - Despite what anyone says, if they got a chance to be a freelancer, they would do it.
Tim Grahl is a freelance PHP developer and Wordpress wizard. Photo by JasonRogers.
No comments yet.