If you choose a job you love, you’ll never work a day in
your life. Sounds like wise advice. To bad it’s a load of crap.
Of course you’ll work. It’s a job. It will always be
something you have to do, even when you’re not in the mood, when you’d rather
be doing something else that you also love to do. Whether you do this job for
someone else or work for yourself it is still an obligation that you have to
complete in order to support yourself.
Chances are that you will only love part of the job, but you
will have to complete other tasks as well.
An Example:
I once had a job where I worked on a boat. It was a neat
little Air Boat similar to the one in the picture above but bigger. It had a flat bottom so it could go where no other boats could
reach, and a Chevy 350 big block engine that made it faster than most of the other
boats on the water. This boat was bad ass, at least by Pennsylvania standards.
Most people in the area had never seen a boat like ours because they were made
for navigating swamps in the south. Everyone, and I mean everyone who saw this
boat wanted to ride on it, but they couldn't. Only I could, because I was the
lucky son of a gun who got paid to do it.
I loved that job. But it was still work. In order to get to
the point where I could go out and cruise around the lake on a gorgeous summer
day I had to do all kinds of other stuff first, including get my tired tush out
of bed at 6:00 am and drive the kids to the babysitter so someone else could
witness all of their milestones like first steps, first words, first high fever
and such.
Once I got to work I had to do inventory and load hundreds of pounds
worth of chemicals onto the boat and truck. Occasionally I had to drive the
truck towing a boat through insane traffic and terrifying narrow allies with
less than an inch of space on either side.
There were other people in this truck. People who liked to
listen to country music and only country music on long 4 hour trips across the
state day after day. And people who had colds and coughed and sneezed there
germs in the tiny shared space, all but guaranteeing I would be sick within a week.
If I wasn't sure that my mother would most likely read this post, I could tell you a rather unflattering story about the day I learned that
boats and hangovers don’t mix. It was a lesson that my boss made sure to teach
me, and I’m fairly certain she chose the most amusing teaching method she could think of.
At the end of every single day the boat had to be unloaded
and scrubbed down. Empty chemical bottles had to be tripled rinsed and prepared
for disposal, and paperwork had to be filled out and turned in.
Once my husband got the bright idea to surprise me by
renting a boat for a holiday weekend. I was horrified. I finally get away from
work for three whole days and he wants me to spend it doing the exact same
thing that I do every single day!
Despite all that I still loved the job. Just because you
love your work doesn't magically transform it from work to a hobby that you get
paid for.
What’s the point of all of this you ask. How does that
relate to starting your own sewing business?
- Sewing will only be a small part of your business.
At least half, if not more of your time will be taken up by the various everyday
tasks of running a business. Including but not limited to paperwork,
bookkeeping, marketing, and customer service. Even after your business has
become so successful that you can hire help you will still have to oversee most
of these tasks yourself because you will be the one responsible if something
goes wrong.
- It will take up your time. There may be a little
more flexibility in your schedule, but you will still have deadlines to meet.
The customer is now your boss. This will mean less time with your family, less
time for relaxing and less predictability in your schedule. How will you handle
it if your website goes down an hour before your daughter’s birthday party?
- You’re going to have to find a new hobby. You
don’t necessarily stop loving your hobby when it goes from being something you
want to do, to something you have to do, but you can get burnt out. If you want
to keep sewing as something you love, you’ll have to remind yourself not to
overdo it.
- You will deal with people you don’t like. Don’t
get me wrong, I loved my coworkers. They were great, even when they were oozing
viruses into my breathing space, but they had bad days too when they were not
the most fun people around. When you run your own business you will have to
deal with customers and vendors even on their less than spectacular days. You
can’t just hang up the phone. You need them. They are what keeps your business open.
All of this has been on my mind lately. It's been years
since I have worked outside the home, but we are at a crossroads in our lives.
My medical condition has been taken care of and I am now able to work. Not only am I able, but I need to work if I ever want to buy fabric or patterns again. While
I am looking for a regular job working for someone else, I am also thinking
about the long term. I've always wanted to turn my hobby into a business, and
with all of the resources available on the internet, it seems like an entirely plausible
goal.
What are your thoughts on the subject? Have you ever
considered turning your hobby into a business, or actually taken the steps to
do so. What other factors do you think someone should consider before making the
leap from working for someone else to working for themselves in a hobby based business?
