*This of course is completely anecdotal but I have the suspicion many of you have encountered similar “workaholics”.

My former VP would routinely show up around 6 or 6:30am even though 8:00 would have sufficed. He would then hang around till 6:30 or 7:00pm thus checking the box of physically being at the office and “working” 12-13 hour days. This guy would rarely take a day off and it was not uncommon for him to come in for a few hours on his days off.

During his 12-13 hr “work days” he was well known for spending 20-30% of his time floating around the office as a social butterfly shooting the bull about all kinds of topics.

It became apparent that this guy didn’t seem to like to be around his wife and children much but being the noble provider he was he had the convenient excuse of being at work. From my observation he could have easily completed his tasks in an 8-9 hour day like most American workers but the social hour errrr hours he seemed to Love was far too valuable for him. It was reminiscent of my high school assistant football coaches who went unpaid but just couldn’t get enough of being with the fella’s in the locker room and on field.

That said, I think most people recognize if you are self employed working longer hours comes with the territory if you’re striving for greatness or more income. It isn’t neat though if you work long hours, it’s called being self employed. There exists a natural drive and motivation that can only be found when you know it’s all on you.

Most people work for a corporation and are either salaried or paid hourly which inherently removes the incentive of working beyond 45 hours a week.

Bottom line, there are obvious pro’s and con’s to being self employed and just being a regular wage worker. Until the wage worker becomes self employed and the until the self employed person becomes a wage worker the two aren’t really comparable.