There is no problem per se with 100% meetings, or even mental space 'starting out'
The issue is one of agency. Working for a place where you are not an independent agent, but where the corporate politics dictate what time you do what, when, who you can hire and fire, what your team versus another team does, who gets called when something breaks, and what priorities are what. 'Striking out on one's own' is an attempt to retrieve agency. Without agency you're working for a biweekly paycheck and pats on the back, but you're disconnected from your labor.
What priorities are what. If you disagree as a senior leader what priorities are set by management, and the fallout falls on your staff, it can be demotivating. Want an example? New tech management comes along, and now there are two giant platforms, each with their own tech debt and CI/CD automations. Management decides that rather than address frailties that cause outages in production (poorly architected Kubernetes setup, lack of monitoring, etc), that the priority is to take 30% of the DevOps staff and dedicate them for 6 months to converge on one CI/CD system. By the end of the 6 months, the number of outages has drastically increased, and the convergence has not been complete (still two separate CI/CD systems). Upper management cracks down harder on everyone. Another example. Tech management changes priorities every few weeks for everyone in DevOps, meaning projects remain half-done, people get context-switches from one tactical thing to the other, and people outside of the team complain that the DevOps team never delivers anything.
These are the types of 'if I were in charge' type of events that would not occur, as they were entirely predicted but overruled.
At some point, you become too old to put up with this anymore. And the mental space of the above frustrations is already 24/7/365.
The difference is that someone else gets to charge the clients.
you are not an independent agent, but where the corporate politics dictate what time you do what, when, who you can hire and fire, what your team versus another team does, who gets called when something breaks, and what priorities are what
Having clients is doubling down on all that, not an escape from it.
With the added stress of irregular income and a real possibility for not being paid at all.
And probably for less money because you don’t have good clients.
The biggest red flag is you are here on HN playing house instead of getting rejected by cold calling…everything is easier to stomach than rejection — including failure of the business.
If you can’t see why things are the way they are at your employer, how are you going to understand why things are the way they are at a client business?
Are you challenging me to re-think the concept of striking out as a consultant because you believe I don't understand the business I am in as an FTE, including the management decisions?
Because I underestimate the work, and all along I expect to work less?
Why haven't I started already, and why I am posting on HN? That answer is easy - because I work enough hours as an FTE that there's no time left for that. Posting on HN is easy (and fun). And it's 'decision-time' - which is the point here.
I am hunting for some advice or positive suggestion beneath the veneer of warning and negativity. So far the messaging I am getting is, Try to Understand the Business Better, and Don't Expect to Work Less. Is that right?
There is no problem per se with 100% meetings, or even mental space 'starting out'
The issue is one of agency. Working for a place where you are not an independent agent, but where the corporate politics dictate what time you do what, when, who you can hire and fire, what your team versus another team does, who gets called when something breaks, and what priorities are what. 'Striking out on one's own' is an attempt to retrieve agency. Without agency you're working for a biweekly paycheck and pats on the back, but you're disconnected from your labor.
What priorities are what. If you disagree as a senior leader what priorities are set by management, and the fallout falls on your staff, it can be demotivating. Want an example? New tech management comes along, and now there are two giant platforms, each with their own tech debt and CI/CD automations. Management decides that rather than address frailties that cause outages in production (poorly architected Kubernetes setup, lack of monitoring, etc), that the priority is to take 30% of the DevOps staff and dedicate them for 6 months to converge on one CI/CD system. By the end of the 6 months, the number of outages has drastically increased, and the convergence has not been complete (still two separate CI/CD systems). Upper management cracks down harder on everyone. Another example. Tech management changes priorities every few weeks for everyone in DevOps, meaning projects remain half-done, people get context-switches from one tactical thing to the other, and people outside of the team complain that the DevOps team never delivers anything.
These are the types of 'if I were in charge' type of events that would not occur, as they were entirely predicted but overruled.
At some point, you become too old to put up with this anymore. And the mental space of the above frustrations is already 24/7/365.
The difference is that someone else gets to charge the clients.