20 Reasons Freelance Developing Can Stink
Normally my posts on here are pretty gung-ho about how awesome freelance development is. Heck, I can wake up when I want, make as much money as I want and do the kind of work that I want. What’s not to love?
Unfortunately, like everything in this world, there’s some downsides. After working 16+ hour days for the past week and a half, I’ve gathered a few reasons freelance developing can stink:
- A big name client approaches you with a huge project that needs to be done NOW. You don’t want to turn them down because their name would look awesome in your portfolio. So you work all day, night and weekend to get the work finished, and thus have no life.
- When one person needs a project done, 300 other people bombard you at the same time for their projects, as well as 200 emails.
- When it’s calm, no one wants work and your inbox is empty and you’re bored.
- You never get enough sleep, or you sleep in too late.
- Exercise? What’s that?
- When you’re having a coding problem, you can’t turn to your buddy next to you for help. Instead you’re stuck trying to explain a 100 line long PHP issue in 140 characters or less.
- Your day is planned to the second – wake up, eat breakfast, pee, shower, pee, email, project 1, project 2, lunch, pee, project 3, dinner, project 4, blog, learn, pee and maybe, just maybe…breathe.
- Everyone expects you to drop the client work you’ve had schedule for months just for them at the last minute.
- When something goes bad, you get yelled at, not your boss.
- Your secretary is a bichon frise and you talk to your cat.
- Your inbox is NEVER empty…at least longer for 5 seconds.
- Checking your email, twitter and facebook becomes an automatic reaction every time you sit down somewhere.
- Sick or tired? Suck it up if you have 6 projects due this week.
- Who knows when the client will decide to pay you. They were in a hurry for you to start working, but apparently not in a hurry for their files.
- When a client says he just wants a 15 minute phone meeting, he really means 2 hours.
- It’s ok to call you at 10 p.m about shifting that button 1px to the right.
- “You can make magic work online right? I don’t care if it can’t work, just make it work!”
- Your best friends are the employees at the local Books-A-Million cafe where you choose to “get out of the house” and work at once a week.
- You tell a client you’re too busy to take on another project for three weeks, they then email you the next day asking if you can take on a new project and have an hour long (4 hour) chat about it in 5 minutes.
- Instead of going out on Friday and Saturday night like most people…you’re stuck in your office doing one of three things: 1. coding for work, 2. coding to learn a new coding language, or 3. playing Starcraft II.
All that being said, I wouldn’t trade freelancing for any job in the world.
What do you think?
image by HikingArtist.com
About the author
Amber Weinberg specializes in clean and semantic XHTML, CSS and WordPress development. She has over 10 years of coding experience and is pretty cool to work with. Amber is available for freelance work, so why not hire her for your next project?
Nice little list Amber. Possibly one of the reasons I’m still not going freelance myself.
The other being that I enjoy the security of a full-time gaurenteed wage.
That’s untrue though, nothing is “secure” you can go to work tomorrow and be laid off by your employer. At least as a freelancer you can control where and how you get your work. There’s never a shortage of work online.
Completely true. My last three jobs with the title of “web developer” all ended in such a manner. First job, they hired me in as a college freshman. Paid me less than minimum wage, and eventually let me go because they claimed they couldn’t afford more. Second job was awesome. Casual office, full-time hours, good hourly wages, could work from home, and learned a lot about Drupal and servers. But the company folded in less than a year and everyone was laid off. Third job was on contract with a company that would get me clients. Well, they kept passing web projects over to the owner’s son, who wasn’t a web developer, and cookie-cut everything in an ugly ASP.NET cms. After four solid months of no money I walked…and walked hard.
I usually don’t pee before and after showering, but everything else resonates. But like you I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I’ve been freelancing full time for 2.5 years and it’s great. I’ll keep my dream job over a ‘real’ job any day.
Alan, nothing’s secure. Try not showing up for three weeks and see if they keep paying you.
Nice list i have encoutered a lot of them, i do find it amazing that the clients wants the website within a week, but you end up waiting a long time for the money.
Why are clients always so bad with time management that they require a project in such a short time? Surely like a freelancer you have to try and plan as far in advance as possible.
This is the life we have choosen, i prefer it to full time work as at the moment in UK the recession is bad and people are being let go all the time. This way i can work when i like earn as much as i want and try and have a life, also best thing i can pick who i want to work with…
And if you work from home, you’ll find yourself walking ANYWHERE… for no reason.
Re number 6, Stack Overflow is an incredibly handy resource.
I got a good chuckle from many of these – I’ve fell into most of these traps at one time or another. On the other hand, I’ve been able to turn many of these things around so that freelancing is actually BETTER on some items than worse.
For example: I exercise a lot more than I did when I had a regular job, because I don’t don’t have to do it at 5:00 am or late in the day after I’m already tired.
When I get so busy that I don’t feel like I have any time for me, I remind myself that being a freelancer means I’m the boss, and that it is OKAY for me to take breaks, see other people, and get on my bike. In fact, it is essentional to my mental and physical health!
Haha true. I now go to the gym 3x a week to stay fit and such and yes you HAVE to force yourself to take some time off. Even though I have plenty of work to do, I’m taking tonight off after working two weeks till bedtime…I’m pooped!
Have you been spying on me?!
Every single point on this list sums up my life right now. I still wouldn’t trade it for a job though…
Change #6 to “…you hit the books and/or google.” Change #7 to more learning, less peeing, way more snacking, and a few photoshop tutorials before bed. And, most importantly, in #20…Call of Duty. *lol* On a less funny note, #11 isn’t quite true for me just yet.
Yet.
p.s. I don’t think you mentioned them, so I’d like to add Auction Job Sites to the list. They’re one of the most readily accessible, well-known sources of freelance work. And they’re CROWDED to the brim with freelancers. And they’re a nightmare half the time. Ticketmaster.com clone for $250? Full div-overlay Myspace profile coded for $30? Retouch 50 photos of models for $70? Flash game development for $100? All real.
Yep, Starcraft II on the weekend, or reading a programing book… >.>
Although I am going out this weekend to watch the UFC fight and going to LA next weekend!!!