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Comment by ryandvm | Hacker News Reader

This is true. When you are a consultant or contractor, you still have assess to kiss and jerks to take orders from. You actually have to work a lot harder at keeping the folks in charge happy. And worse, they can fire you in two weeks instead of 6 months.

The upsides are that A) you're hopefully making more money as a consultant and B) you at least get a change of asshole scenery every 18 months or so.

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C) Incentives are clearer. As an Asperger, dealing with corporate games and social games and the fakery of managing everyone’s mood is unbearable. Now founded a startup, the only job I have kept more than 2.5 years… and 8 in fact, and going strong. Either a customer is happy, or he isn’t because we don’t fulfill his need, and that’s easy to deal with for me.

When you are a consultant or contractor, you still have assess to kiss and jerks to take orders from. You actually have to work a lot harder at keeping the folks in charge happy. And worse, they can fire you in two weeks instead of 6 months

You can choose between the illusion of security or the illusion of freedom, that’s the choice

> And worse, they can fire you in two weeks instead of 6 months.

In the US regular employees can be fired in two weeks most commonly, though big companies traditionally give a few months severance in good economic times.

The upside of this is you can also walk away from a crappy job/boss/etc with two weeks notice. With contracting, you may be on the hook for the contract duration plus being pestered for support help forever.

Umm...not quite.

Most US states have at-will employment, so an employee can be fired for any reason, at any time, effective immediately.

For an employee, the implied social contract is to give two weeks notice.

By "can" do it I mean are able to without burning bridges or feeling like you've betrayed people. A big difference from walking away from a small business you run, by contrast.

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