It’s a lovely spring morning, and I find myself sitting, looking out of the window over the sea with cliffs in the distance. I am contemplating the meaning of life! Don’t worry. I’ll get back into work mode shortly.

Is self-employment a curse? Does it change you for the good or the worse? When I was an employee, many years ago, I went home from my job and never gave it another thought until the next working day. Once you have been inducted into the black arts of self-employment, can you ever truly switch off? I think that being self-employed changes your attitudes and your whole outlook and the way that you think. You will have to decide if that is good or bad. I have been self-employed for so long that I cannot imagine anything else. Mind you, it would be very nice if someone would just give me money at the end of each month again. I even got paid when I went on holiday!

Mind you, there is a question to consider. Could I actually work for somebody else? Once inducted into the black arts, can you ever comfortably go back? I probably could now, but for most of my working life, it was something that I would never have contemplated. I suppose that our business, although still small in the grand scheme of things, is big enough that we are just cogs in the wheel, and in many ways, we behave like employees at least for part of the day. But I don’t get paid overtime for working weekends.

There are some funny things about our status when it comes to filling in forms. Am I employed or self-employed? In reality, I consider myself self-employed, but I am actually employed by our own company. But if I am self-employed, the form asks for my profit, but it is the company’s profit. If I say I am employed, the form asks for my earnings. My payslip says I earn around £1044 per month, which does not cut much ice with most application forms.

Then there are the questions about our trading. Are we sole trader, partnership, limited company, LLP, etc? But we are none of these. We are an unlimited company. That means we don’t have to file our accounts at Companies House, so you cannot see our results. But, for the form we must choose between partnership and limited company. In many ways, our company operates like a partnership. In a partnership, you are jointly and severally liable for all the debts of the partnership. In an unlimited company, you are only liable for the share of the debts represented by your shareholding. Given that Helen and I own all the shares (50:50), we really are stuffed if it all goes belly up!

So, what do you learn from being self-employed? You learn how to deal with sleepless nights. You learn how to make decisions and how to sort out the mess because you got it wrong. I think you learn self-reliance and understand that the buck stops with you.

In the end, I think it changes you. When you look back to when you were a “wage slave”, you see a very different person. Your attitudes change, and you become self-motivating because if you don’t get it done, nobody else will, and you could lose the roof over your head.

So, is self-employment good or bad? I will leave you to contemplate the answer to that question. Should I go and get a job to see what it feels like in practice after all these years? Probably not. I don’t think anybody would want to employ me now, anyway. Helen might.

I think I need another holiday.

Alan E Long

The Long Partnership

07770 738770