The response I get to the statement: I own my own business is varied and sometimes kind of wild. A lot of times I get the, “I could never do that” like we talked about the last couple of weeks. Sometimes I get something much more like: “Wow! It must be so nice to be able to make your own schedule!” Or, “It must be so great to not have a boss!” In some ways, it is great. I am much more capable of tweaking my schedule than most people and I have the freedom to work when I’m productive and not just when someone tells me to but there’s a lot more to it than that. I’ve worked every weekend for 5 weeks in a row because of short staffing and new programs. I may not have a weekend completely off until my vacation in a month. I like to think it’ll be worth the time in the end which softens the blow a little. We all work harder to “pay our dues” in the early stages of our careers so that’s not new and at least for the most part I’m making the choice for myself.
The tremendous difference to a small business owner is that ultimately, EVERYTHING falls to you. Printer doesn’t work? You have to fix it, or pay someone to fix it with money you don’t have. Client is angry because a dog walker made a mistake, you handle the call. Taxes didn’t get filed, your problem. Sales have gone down, you once again. Sales are fine but profits are down, all you. I remember one time one of my employees was learning a new software. We both had had the same training on it but she ran into a problem and didn’t know how to fix it. We both had the same access to the software’s help desk and the same amount of experience but it was still on me to mess around with it until I figured out how to do it and then explain it to her. It was that moment that I realized that everything, truly everything, was on me.
It seems so simple, but take a moment and think about how many times you kick something up the chain. You say to yourself, “I don’t get paid enough to deal with this crap” and then you DON’T deal with it. You forward it up to your boss and then you forget about it. You might take a little note about what’s going on in case your boss wants more details, or follow up on it in a couple of days to make sure it got done but you don’t have to do it. This is a luxury that simply doesn’t exist for small business owners. Even with staff, there’s only so much you can turf away and if they have problems with it, it’s all you. When I am leaving my friends to their movie in a snow storm to drive what is already a 40 minute drive but is now over an hour due to the storm, to battle my way to a client’s house so their dogs can pee only to get a call as I’m finishing up there that they’re on their way home because their flight was canceled and I didn’t end up needing to go, there is nothing I can do but laugh. At least I don’t have to go back in the morning right? When a dog walker calls because a dog had a major accident and I have to go look and make sure the dog is OK and clean up so the dog walker can stay on schedule, I think to myself, “Yep, owning a business is so fancy.”
Some days, I have back to back meetings with different organizations to grow business, staff meetings with dog walkers and high level organizational work to do when I get home. Sometimes, I’m elbow deep in a printer trying to find a paper jam that the printer swears is there (it’s showing me a video) but that seems lost inside the magical printer gears never to be seen again. Some days, I’m writing about all the things I’ve learned as a business owner and giving start ups advice and reassurance while others I’m running out of Christmas dinner to walk a dog because a dog walker has a flat. When a dog walker makes a mistake, I can be mad at them or frustrated but ultimately, I didn’t train or manage them properly and I’m the one that has to explain to the client what happened, why, and how I’ll fix it.
Being the boss definitely has its perks but there are some things that you cannot foresee, you cannot plan for, and you cannot kick up the chain. You are the last, strongest link and if you don’t do it, the whole thing comes down.