What the Heck is a “Real Job”? How I Learned a Business Doesn’t Count
May 31st, 2006 by Matt InglotWhen I was about 15 I had been running a small website on a game called Worms. The site itself was written in MS Word and featured design classics like a button labeled “Best Viewed in 1024×768″ and all sorts of negativity towards Netscape. However I really enjoyed writing material for the site and soon had a repository of unique content on the game.
One morning I received an e-mail that I initially deleted as yet more spam. However something about it caught my eye and after examining the proper English I realized that it was actually an offer from a gaming network to run their Worms Center website. I would be provided with an awesome design, unlimited diskspace and bandwidth, support for scripting languages (back when that feature was relatively rare), and freedom to take the site where I pleased as long as I made it the #1 site in the community. Oh and I would receive money every month for doing so. I was already exceeding the bandwidth on the free webspace provided by my ISP so I accepted the offer and my first job experience ever became building a worm-filled empire.
I didn’t know it at the time, but Worms Center turned out to be my first experience in running a business. I had to hire and manage a small volunteer staff, establish strategic partnerships with other sites, keep on top of the “industry”, manage public relations (got some great lessons there), build traffic, and of course cater to a picky customer base of other 13-20 year olds. In the end it paid for a top of the line computer, a ridiculous amount of pita and sub lunches, and whatever stupid stuff people my age bought. What a great experience!
While I was busy learning about business in an unconventional way and doing so from the comfort of home, my friends were also in the process of getting their first jobs. I was then introduced to a mentality that I didn’t really understand, and still don’t. The moment they joined the workforce flipping burgers and stocking shelves they became really helpful in telling me that I should also get a job. When I insisted that I did have a job and enjoyed it very much the response was always “that’s not a real job Matt”.
In the end not very many of them actually outearned me, and those that did worked ridiculous hours and were covered in grease burns. More importantly I was picking-up real web development skills and greatly improving my writing, which have played an instrumental role in everything I’ve done since.
The most shocking thing about this whole experience was the age that this happened. It’s not like we were forty and disillusioned by years of hard work in the real world. The fear of somebody doing something different, something with an unsure ending, is so strongly built into society that virtually all the high schoolers I knew instinctively tried to tell me that I was on the wrong path. In reality they were scared, and trying to re-assure each other as a flock that their normal path was indeed the correct one.
I wish I could say that this attitude has changed over time, but I still hear the same crap now even as I’m running a viable and relatively safe website development company. It does get better the closer you get to the entrepreneurial crowd, so being in a business program at university finally provided some more open-minded outlooks. Step into other faculties though and you can practically hear a flock of sheep running the moment you mention entrepreneurship.
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May 31st, 2006 at 8:09 am
I believe it’s what every entrepreneur must go through and continue to face. In some ways it’s sad that others can’t see the irony in their “jobs”, but the way I’m slowly starting to look at it now is that not everyone can be entrepreneurial and run a business. In fact if everyone did run a business then it would be very difficult to get a foothold amongst the sea of competition.
At a young age you say to your parents that your time could be better spent building a business than “flipping burgers”. And while they usually support you at first, it soonn turns into the typical “get a part-time job, go through high school, go to college/uni, get a good job to support yourself and family”. My parents have told me this so often over the years that I now completely ignore them whenever they bring it up.
I also found for the last few years I have been basically breathing business down people’s throats… telling them why a typical “go to college, get a job” completely sux when compared to starting a business. But, I found that no matter what I talked about I couldn’t convince people that business is a superior choice. So I’m now at the point where if people aren’t interested in business, I make sure that I don’t talk too much about it or brag about the benefits while around them.
It’s as though we are almost born with a mindset to either want to be involved in business or not.
The key is to listen to everything people say carefully, but know what to store into memory and what to ignore.
cheers
nathan
May 31st, 2006 at 9:02 am
Matt, I have seen this behaviour among most of the people I know. They do not realize that given a single event, being an etrepreneur may be riskier than having a ‘real’ job, but over a lifetime it is probably more secure, and definitely more fulfilling.
May 31st, 2006 at 10:17 am
[…] I just came across this article by Matt Inglot that talks about his accidental start in web design and the misperceptions of his friends regarding his lack of a “real job.” Of course, he was writing online content and they were flipping burgers, so it’s easy to see why they were unwilling to accept his good fortune. […]
May 31st, 2006 at 10:47 am
I really enjoy reading your blog. I just wanted to point something out about this article though. It’s funny how people can sterotype so fast. While people are telling you that you don’t have a real job, when you do; you in turn are calling them sheep because they aren’t entrepreneurs. While many do choose the get a job thing becuase they are scared, others do because they honestly don’t want to run their own busines. However, I think it’s great that you started so young and it taught you so much at a young age. Also, that you didn’t listen to the crowd and cave in is great.
May 31st, 2006 at 11:20 am
The criteria for “real jobs” focus on how much s*** a Process Donkey (oops, I mean *employee*) is willing to eat for how long.
One seldom can do forty hours of “real” work on most “real” jobs. Instead — and assuming one has any amount of native ability — one’s day is spent remedying the results of other’s laziness and incompetence.
Most employers like “stability” because it indicates a high tolerance for nonsense if not pain coupled with a lack on imagination.
Most real jobs are about the willingness to one’s time and intelligence wasted on Process Donkeyism. Anyone that can earn “real” money without a “real” job — more power to ‘em!
May 31st, 2006 at 12:16 pm
Matt,
Excellent, ignore everyone telling you about that. Clearly they didn’t understand what it is you were doing. You where getting paid to do work you love and that is the best kind of job.
Now I should mention that it was valuable for me to get some experience flipping steaks and making pizza and working on a farm (which paid for my first computer). It will provide valuable perspective on those who weren’t able to achieve what you did at an early age. You might already be well rounded, so I am not accusing you of that, but this is what came to my mind when I read your post.
BTW: It has been posted on reddit. I am sure a interesting and completely different conversation on the topic will form.
http://reddit.com/info/6xxq/comments
May 31st, 2006 at 12:18 pm
Nathan,
“The most dangerous liars can be the kids’ own parents. If you take a boring job to give your family a high standard of living, as so many people do, you risk infecting your kids with the idea that work is boring. ” [1]
[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html
May 31st, 2006 at 12:27 pm
[…] It's true. People think owning your own business is not a 'real job' […]
May 31st, 2006 at 1:02 pm
If I ever have a “real” job again I will consider myself a failure until I quit.
May 31st, 2006 at 1:29 pm
I agree that people who think that entrepreneurship is inherently a dangerous and unstable source of work are being unreasonable. There are some kinds of jobs that I think an individual will be able to base a small business on for a long time, and be assured of a reasonably stable job if they’re good enough at what they do. Web design and small-scale software development, for example.
However, not everyone is cut out to run their own business, and not everyone who wants to work for a larger organisation is a sheep. There are some careers you just can’t have without working with a large group of people - many careers in science, for example. A single person can’t build a large telescope or a cyclotron, manage its upkeep, have time to use it for research, and actually make money.
May 31st, 2006 at 2:45 pm
What you’re doing isn’t a “real job”. It’s a business. You should at least get a REAL JOB once in your life, just so you can sympathize with your friends.
May 31st, 2006 at 8:14 pm
I completely agree with this, and also Boris’ comment - “being an etrepreneur may be riskier than having a ‘real’ job, but over a lifetime it is probably more secure, and definitely more fulfilling.” With new labor laws just introduced (you can be fired now if your boss ‘doesn’t like you’?!) I think you’re much safer in the long run building your own income outside of a traditional work environment. That way -you- are in charge of your financial security, not your boss.
I think we’re still seeing generations of kids brought up by old-school thinking from their parents - “get a job, stay there for 50 years, buy a house, that’s the way things are done.” It’s thinking that just doesn’t make sense in today’s flimsy job market.
I will say one thing for all this though, the idea of getting a least a year or two actual work experience in a 9-5 job can prove invaluable for people wanting to start their own business because it helps you to see things from the other side. One of the worst people I ever contracted for was a 23 year old running his own web design company straight out of uni, he had no idea what a professional work environment was supposed to be like and no idea how to treat staff. An actual job in his case, before he started his own business, would have given him some much-needed real-world experience of how people expect workplaces and managers to be.
May 31st, 2006 at 9:34 pm
I think the one good positive you can take out of that “real job” attitude is knowing that anyone who says that is not someone you want to work with. If they can’t see what’s staring them in the face, I don’t think you’ll be very happy working with them.
June 1st, 2006 at 4:52 am
Harmony,
Your last point is really good. It’s definitely true that you can gain a tonne of experience working a real job, but out of all the reasons to do it this is probably one of the strongest. I’ve learned so much from my last position at a start-up on how to actually run a business that keeps its employees happy, and I’m learning even more on this summer contract. No substitute for that kind of experience.
June 1st, 2006 at 6:07 am
Everybody (including my parents) tells me to go to university and then get a job at company. What’s funny about this is that when I ask them if they like their job and they ALWAYS answer that they absolutely hate their job. Isn’t that ironic?
June 1st, 2006 at 8:07 am
Wow, that’s weird. When I first started having to work for a living me and all my video-games-industry friends used to bless our luck at NOT having to go get a *real* job. Real jobs, you see, suck arse. That’s right, you have to do stuff you don’t like and you have to do it every day for half the day and you have to keep doing it until five years before you die.
Jobs, you see, are evil. And the more real they are the more evil they are.
“Repent, Quit your job, slack off” - “Bob”
June 1st, 2006 at 12:18 pm
I guess I don’t have a real job either then - but I make a decent amount of money and I love doing what I do everyday! It isn’t for everyone though - I’m personally glad that I have a bunch of friends in “real jobs” that get to be my customers from time to time. At least in my industry, it’s the people in the real jobs that pay me to do my “not so real” job!
August 9th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
[…] I just came across this article by Matt Inglot that talks about his accidental start in web design and the misperceptions of his friends regarding his lack of a “real job.” Of course, he was writing online content and they were flipping burgers, so it’s easy to see why they were unwilling to accept his good fortune. […]
November 12th, 2006 at 5:02 am
It’s frustrating, yet encouraging, to be reminded that all entrepreneur/business types have people telling them that what they’re doing isn’t a “real job”.. or that it isn’t going to work.
Frustrating.. because I think more people should be encouraged to learn about running a business and to start their own.
Encouraging.. because it’s hard to hear discouraging remarks from so many sources and still believe it will work. Hearing that other people are told the same thing is heartening.
And I totally agree with Brian Clark too! If I ever get a REAL JOB again I will feel like a failure until I quit.
December 3rd, 2006 at 11:11 am
[…] What the Heck is a “Real Job”? How I Learned a Business Doesn’t Count […]
April 16th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Wow, that’s pretty much the same experience my husband and I are having. I write web content, articles, ebooks, etc. and people are very quick to assume that we sit around the house all day doing nothing, when in actuality I am puttin in about 60 hours a week on work, not to mention keeping up with my website and life in general.
October 4th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Exceptional article. I’ve been a Process Donkey for so many years and only recently started my own website. This is so different - and so much fun comparing to the ‘real job’. But scarier too, I must admit.