Is 9-5 Worth It Anymore?

Short answer; it depends. Long answer - the rest of this article.

What is a 9-5? We've all heard the term, let's just talk for a second about what it is. It's a "normal" job where you work a shift, do your thing, maybe advance, and then go home and disconnect. It's what us Americans really know and live. It's about 9 hours (usually 8 working hours and a lunch). If you drive, then you can add drive time, prep time, and decompress time.

But what has it become? I've talked about corporate America in another post, but essentially corporate America is any big corporation where you basically work off of a computer, maybe in an office, but for a large or rapidly growing company. Think big banks, computer companies, AWS corporate, etc. - things like that. Outside of corporate, think about retail, government work, schools and teachers, churches/religious institutions, construction, machine work, etc. - there's a lot of stuff out there to do.

However, in America, what does that get you? We're all just trying to fill our empty hearts and find a place in this world. If you rewind back to say the 1960's, jobs were income, and that income fueled your life, your family, and the rest was up to you and what you could do with it. We also had a lot less job types and people. The work force was definitely a requirement, it wasn't optional. The economy was also well and built for you to be able to live off a single income and enjoy life beyond your job without really having to worry about paychecks. Yes, there were still poor folks, bad jobs, and all the things we have today, but the landscape has changed.

So has opportunity though... yet we're trained as children to be locked into a 9-5 from the get go. If you do the right amount schooling or trade, you get a good paying job and you're set for life... except that's changed a bit. Where the opportunity lies is outside of the 9-5. We have social media, affiliate marketing, online stores, courses, YouTube, and all sorts of online things.

Let's talk about though... that comparison and the reality of "escaping" the 9-5, and also what a 9-5 gives you that is harder to get without it.

Note: A good 9-5. Not like a random minimum wage 9-5. Like a job that will pay you good enough to live life in a fashion where money is good. You may have to watch it, but you're not struggling. A livable wage basically.

Here's from my experience what you need -

• Experience - jobs don't just hire you without experience. Even "entry level" jobs requires heavy amounts of education or a few years of experience, and they don't pay well. You really need either dual income at home, or if you want to live you'll probably need somewhere in the wheelhouse of 4-6 years experience in some skill to really make some good money.
• Proof - Proof of everything you claim. You'll need references, you'll need your job history and what you did there, and you'll need to perform well in interviews, often to prove you have knowledge, skills, and a personality that will fit in the job.
• Patience - Job hunting isn't easy in today's world. Just go online or on any social media site and search jobs. You'll see videos of people struggling, AI apps for spamming resumes, and thousands of jobs. You will likely, even as a highly experienced individual, spend months of time submitting resumes, doing interviews, and filtering through insane amounts of jobs.

Not a lot of requirements here, but it is a TON of time and effort, patience, gaining experience, and learning how to nail interviews.

What Does It Get You?

Let's assume you land a good job, it pays well, and you get through months of time and you land it. Yay! So... what did you sign up for? Honestly, a relatively low risk venture. Is there risk? Yes, but we'll talk about that later.

You'll get hired. You'll get onboarded, most places also give you training. So even if you BS'd your way through an interview, you got time to learn quickly. Expectations are often clear and well laid out. Most companies that pay well also have goals, so you know what you're working towards.

Benefits - Most 9-5 jobs offer these benefit packages that usually include; discounted health insurance for you and your family, discounts with their connections, 401k, sometimes profit sharing or stocks, allotted or earned time off (usually includes holidays off), and some sort of opportunity to learn and grow.

The biggest thing you get from a 9-5 is consistent expectations. You get paid X amount of times, and it's often the same paycheck every time, or somewhere in the wheelhouse. Those lucky enough to not be salary may also get overtime pay when they work over. It makes life real easy to budget.

What Are The Downsides?

With any 9-5, their are some pretty standard downsides for the way that the world works for us Americans.

Raises/Promotions - These are at the will of the company, and they are often too standard to make sense. Climbing the company ladder is often extremely difficult and when you do, it's more for experience than pay. If you start somewhere making 60k, you could get promoted 4 times at a standard 10% and still not be at 100k. However, now that you're 4 levels up, you can easily go somewhere else and make 140k. Then though, you have to go job hunting and start from ground zero. It kind of sucks.

Work/Life Balance - You'll often hear companies boast about this, but here in America... there's unspoken standards that either put your job at risk or require more of you than 40 hours. If you're running up a deadline, if you're in tech and something needs to be done after hours, if you're on call, etc. - there's many reasons that up your hours, and here's your choice; you can say no, which puts a bad taste of you out there, puts you at risk of being "not a team player," and denies you opportunity, or you say yes, work yourself to death, for a hearty "thanks" if you're lucky.

Personal Satisfaction - With a 9-5, there's a give and take with most jobs. Especially in corporate. You're basically working for money and nothing else. Very few of us get to follow our dreams and get real fulfillment from our jobs. Most of us go to work so we can live our dreams afterwards. Even if you're lucky enough to have a job that aligns with your passion, there's often a good chunk of the job that just plain sucks and you hate doing.

Restarting is Difficult - Building a career requires a lot. If you wanted to switch up careers, you don't get a pass on what you had before... it's skill and experience based. You need to start from the ground up unless you got connections.

What Are The Risks?

Just because a 9-5 is stable doesn't mean that there aren't risks; though risk is relatively low, what risks there are, become a heavy burden if you're unlucky enough to run into these situations.

Layoffs/Fired - For those who live in America, this is standard, but those outside... not so much. Most states are "at will" states - which mean that neither you nor the company you work for needs a reason to fire you or let you go, so long as you don't violate any laws. That might be you get canned because they are downsizing staff, you might not be doing good and they fire you, if you suddenly don't fit the culture, they can let you go. Now part of this is up to you, but it's also out of your control a lot of the time.

Change - It isn't your company, it isn't your decision. Your job role, your responsibilities, or your pay could change at ANY time. You could have a skill that's super nice, but the company decides to move to something else and doesn't require that skill anymore. You may have to constantly learn new things to keep up so you become specialized. Also, people come and go, so you may have different coworkers, managers, and C Levels that constantly change, and that could change your work environment.

Starting a New Job - Companies aren't always clear what you'll be doing and who you're working for. Any job you start, there's always a heavy risk there of what you're walking into. I've been in a few situations where the job was pitched to me one way, and once I got in there, it was completely different. It sucks, you end up either being miserable forever, or going to the job hunt again.

Who Are They For?

A 9-5 is for those who want predictability, consistent pay, and just want to live. Follow the rules, do the thing, and move along with life. Your dreams don't matter. You just want to live or live your dreams after work. You don't want to worry about medical insurance, discounts, and time off to completely disconnect.

Alright, so the very first thing is options. You have a ton. So not doing a 9-5 is going to look different for each person. Here's some ways, though it's not all of them -

• Freelancer/Contractor - This is where you take your skills directly to the market instead of using them for a single company. You'll need experience, building a portfolio, and learning how to market and sell yourself.
• Online marketing/sales - Lots of folks know how to talk and sell. Some know how to do that technically, but not personally. There's plenty of options here to make money, but again, you'll need the experience and all that.
• Social Media/YouTube - You'll have to gain a following doing some sort of content, and then you'll need to sign up for monetization, take advertising sponsors, or sell something along with your presence. It takes a grind.
• Online Business - So you're selling something; products, courses, etc. - basically anything you can sell online. You'll need to understand a bit of everything, but not be an expert anywhere; a little about business, marketing, products, and a way to bring people in.
• Odd Jobs - There are plenty of people that just take random jobs to make money, usually part time or on demand. You really don't need experience, but you need lots of time and flexibility to do it.
• Creative Ventures - Something like music, art, videos, etc. - all require similar experience to running an online business, however it's your creativity that sells.

There's plenty more, but you get the general idea here.

In addition to "what you need" to do, if you're trying to replace a 9-5 or get the money of a 9-5, you're going to need a business. You may not need it in the beginning while you start, but eventually want something like an LLC - why? For tax and liability purposes. If you get sued, they can take down your business, but they can't get you. Without an LLC, they can take your house, cars, and any money in your account because YOU are liable. LLC (limited liability company) will front you. Imagine it like a shield to you and your personal life. The worse that could happen with it is that you get sued, they win, your business goes bankrupt, you close the doors and start another one. There are plenty of companies out there that make it easy, but you will need a few hundred bucks to drop to get that off the ground.

What Does It Get You?

This gets you whatever you put into it. That's the beauty of working for yourself. If you're a freelancer and you've gathered a solid customer base that pays well, but you need more money, then all you have to do is find more customers. Expand your skillset and find something else similar that pays a little bit more. Your income is entirely within your control - again, what you put in is what you get out.

Oftentimes, doing business for yourself here also means that you can do whatever you're best at without all the hassle of the crap of a 9-5. It results in a much more fulfilled life. You get to blend your passions into your life.

Also your time is yours. Obviously you have to put in the work, but it's really up to you at when you work and why. If you create content, maybe you spend 3 days each week grinding making videos and social media posts, and the other 4 days, you just go and hit the post button and move on with life. If you need to take a vacation... no one cares. Take it. Need a day off? Doesn't matter, take it. Often work is online anyway, so you could take your work anywhere without having to worry about being stricken somewhere.

Also, change comes easy. Once you do it once, often you'll be able to build it again. So let's say you do a creative venture, and you gain a following. That following is very specific to you, as an artist. If you decide to take a venture, you can take your following, and all the mistakes you made before, you won't make them again, so starting over becomes a lot less stressful.

What Are The Downsides?

It's a lot of work, especially in the beginning. Whether you realize it or not, you're basically running a business. If you don't have a business, and now you have a business, you've got to start from the ground floor - absolute nothing. Often what that means is your first few years are learning, discovery, and most importantly; a grind.

You really need to be good with your money. You need to know what to save, how to invest properly in your business, and you need to have taxes setup. When you work for yourself my friend, anything could happen. You could make 25k one month, and 200$ the next.

You also need to be disciplined. Sounds easier than it is. When you're working 9-5, there's a clear expectation of responsibility. When you work for yourself, there's none of that; it's entirely up to you. It's much easier to be accountable to a business than it is to yourself, because why? Why would I need to do that today? I don't want to take this particular job. This video can wait. That doesn't work when your livelihood is on the line.

Also... insurance and taxes. You don't get that sweet 500-800$ ripped from your check and a company. No, you got to pay out your booty to get decent health insurance and constantly shop around for the best rates. Taxes are something that is now solely up to you. You have to manage and keep track unless you want the IRS shutting you down.

Lastly, work can vary... greatly. Running your own business, doing your own thing, you just never know when an emergency or time consuming situation can arise. I'll actually add another point here that you also don't have a team or anything in most cases that you can hand stuff off to if you need it. No, it's all on you buddy.

What Are The Risks?

You are at the mercy of the market, the platforms, or anything you do that can ruin your reputation. This means anything could change at any time.

Let's say you're a front end web design freelancer. You're doing pretty well doing small business pages and stores, it's going well. One day, your customers start leaving you; they're done paying you 800$ to make a cool site with integrations, when they can go to Wix, pay 25$ a month for Wix to handle all of it and build it with AI. Well dang. There goes your paycheck.

Maybe you make YouTube videos. You grinded for a couple of years, got a good 250k subscriber count, and now you've got a loyal following. One day you post a video with political opinions, and suddenly you lose 50k subscribers, and your view count drops 70%... which means that 70% of your income just disappeared. In that same vein, if your YouTube channel gets 3 copyright strikes, you're whole channel is dead. Taken offline. You're now at square one.

If you have any sort of online business or services/skills you're selling, you're in a giant pool of competition. The problem with this is if you aren't constantly keeping up, there's likely someone who will outwork you and take what you build and turn it into obscurity.

Lastly, a lot of these venture, yes while money is in your control, it's likely not going to be consistent, and if it is, it won't be that way forever. You're going to constantly have to move towards where the money is, and that goal may shift many times.

Who Are They For?

They say there's only a certain type of person that can do something like this, but it really only boils down to two real qualities; drive and time management. If you can get those two things down, then the rest of your concerns are basically risks. Most people who own businesses fail. They either get up and try again, or they have to rebuild, or they give up.

There's also a lot of failure. You're going to fail many times, and you've got to have the drive to get back up and do it different.

Come again? Look, I think passive income is a thing, but it's not literally passive. You can't just like set up a thing, and then run off for 12 years while it makes you money. That's not reality, so if that's what you're thinking you can replace both of these with, you're out of your mind. All the requirements and breakdowns you could literally steal from the previous section.

Are there people who have done it with relatively passive income? Certainly, but are you the lucky 1 in 1,000,000,000 that gets that lucky? Probably not. That doesn't mean you can't try though, you just need to set proper expectations.

What people consider passive income isn't really all that passive... it falls into a couple of categories here; high effort to low effort, or low effort to low reward. Passive income is still a thing where you get what you put in. Sure, if you spend like 10 hours a week doing something that brings in say 500$ a month, that's pretty good. Low effort, low reward.

Let's say though you want something that you only want to spend like less than 5 hours a week on. Well that's different. That's the first category. Take drop shipping for example; that is a successful business model. It's kind of crowded now, but it still works. However, there's a ton of up front effort that you have to put in. Like a lot. You need to setup a store, troll to see what sells, get some sort of following, ads, all those crazy things to set it all up. You'll probably spend 3-6 months setting it all up with little, if any profit at all. Then you probably won't hit the lucky cash grab from the get go, you'll have to keep switching out products until you find something that hits well. Then you have to scale it. Now you're like a year in, putting 20-25 hours a week in, plus investment money, but now your shop is killing it. All you have to do now is make sure your products are up to date, deal with customers, and that's about it. Not much to it. High effort to low effort.

The thing about this though, again, it's not really all that passive. You can't just step away and make hundreds of thousands of dollars. There's still a grind, there's still work.

However, "passive" income like this does have one advantage to other things; it's very repeatable. If you can do it once, you can streamline and do it again, and again, and again. Until your "passive" income is now full time money and then some. You'll still be working full time hours, but hey, it's all just basic maintenance.

It really all depends on you, what you need, and what you're after. There's a trade off on each of these. If you are really looking for stability, structure, accountability and benefits, then a 9-5 is where you belong. That's going to give you all of that. If you're looking for fulfillment, freedom, and control, then you're looking for something outside of it.

The thing is, you have to take the trade offs. 9-5 is going limit the amount of money you can make, and you'll have to play the game; there's not a choice in the matter or you could get canned. You'll have to learn and adapt to the market, deal with job hunts, and corporate crap. However, escaping the 9-5 isn't much better. There's a ton of high risk, and never knowing when or how your hard work is going to pay off. Things can change, and you also need to have a lot of responsibility.

Know also, that there is a middle ground. Often times in the 9-5 game, you will sacrifice your happiness and passions for money. Most of the time a career usually when you're paid a little less... tends to be a little more fun, free, and enjoyable. As you get paid more, join larger companies, and deal with a lot more people, your work will become stale. Maybe though, that kills you, but you really want the stability.

What if you took the initiative to start a side hustle? You build your own business to make a little cash on the side, scale it a little bit, and you fill your passion with it. When you make enough, maybe you take a 9-5 that pays a little less, but is so much more fun and less stressful than your big boy corporate job.

Often people think of side hustles as just "extra cash" but let's be real, if you're doing a side hustle, you are basically building the framework for being outside of the 9-5. If you're making money on a side hustle, that's money you can control. You can have both the stability of a 9-5, plus the control and passion project of an escape. Is that a lot of work? Sure, way more than just doing one or the other, but if it brings you joy and peace, by all means, it's an option.

So is the 9-5 still worth it? It can be, depending on who you are and what you're after. Have fun out there y'all!