Thursday, April 20, 2006

PKL OWO

Yesterday I woke up @ 6am to have a free breakfast. It was one of the many, empowered, networking sessions organised for entrepreneurs.

It was supposed to be for about 20 people only but there were at least about 40 of us there.

Not all of these people are 'full time' entrepreneurs. Many of them hold a day job and moonlight/ freelance in their own business. It is not surprising that so many want to be their own boss. I guess everyone thinks of making it big on their own.

And entrepreneurs mean anyone who is doing their own thing.... from insurance agents, to freelance designers, to consultants to people who may have have a few thousand people under them like Li Ka Shing.

The lure of being answerable to you, yourself only is surely tempting. Just imagine:
- no more reporting to your boss
- no more preparing reports/ proposals that you boss will either not read or will tear them to pieces
- no more long meetings
- no more office politics
- no more trying to reach sales target
- no more jostling with the thousands of people on the way to work

That's what all my friends say to me enviously.

Nearly 7 years after being on my own, I can only say this:
- no more reporting to your boss, but you report to your customers
- no more preparing proposals that will go unread by bosses, instead they will go unread by your customers
- no more long meetings, but you also end up with less ideas and no one to blame for projects gone wrong
- no more office politics but that also means no one to speak to (unless you want to call in to radio stations)
- AND no sales means no income

Many of my friends are now GM, VP or hold some high profile positions. They are earning more than me too. Sigh... My namecard doesn't have any position. If I could, I will probably put this down:

CEO/ Sales Manager/ Receptionist/ Office lady/ Deliveryman

In short, a PKL OWO...
A Pow-ke-liao, One-Woman-Operation


But it would be misleading to say I'm regretting everthing now.

I still enjoy what I do....and I do get to do things that I want to do only. There are aspects of my life that I woundn't give up now. Perhaps one day I will be a billionaire like Bill Gates or Li Ka Shing... though I seriously doubt it. But I can always dream right?

Now excuse me whilst I have my cup of tea in the balcony.

6 comments:

Fei said...

Well.. nothing is perfect in life, isn't it? When you are working for people, you dreamt of working for yourself. When you are working for yourself, you wish that you can throw all other tasks to some people and concentrate on just at most a couple!

For myself, I'm the one who holds a full time day job, partime selling stuffs at bazaars/flea marts occasionally. :)

bbmag said...

hey, at least you've a much higher chance of making it as big as mr creative sim than i do :p

p.s. actually even for people who work for other people, we too are sometimes PKL, you know... so it's just the typical case of the grass always look greener on the other side, tho we all know it ain't true in most cases...

tiffany said...

bb, according to the speaker yesterday, I will need luck to succeed. It's not how hard you work, but the right person and the opportunity must appear at the right time... sigh... I may as well not work.

Hehe! I've always wanted to do the flea mart thing. But cannot do now coz got no time.....

yeelee said...

gee...this is one OWO who's had enough and wants out and everyone thinks i'm mad!

Anonymous said...

well, being own boss would be the best retirement job i think,need not report to anyone n can get all the freedom to fulfill our dreams in the job that i like but.. honestly self discipline is very important factors here as one tends to get lazy sometimes 'cos no fix working hrs.. ^^

ah.. flea mart, it's really an interesting job for some who hasn't got a chance to be own boss , not easy, rain/shine has to set up store, open/close shop took up alot of time n sometime hv to pay summon when u try to save some cost for unloading goods (that was my experience when i did it at Indoor Stadium flea mkt) that was quite a fun experience n good memory ^^

bbmag said...

actually, i would agree that in most success stories, luck is a rather important element too. i associate it with timing too.... you know, being at the right place doing the right thing, and most importantly, being seen by the right person.

but even that's not enough... when a window of opportunity opens, we have to be able to tell and grasp that opportunity.

anyhow, i believe in being as good as you can be all the time at work, coz you never know who's watching. and, as luck would have it, the only rare moment you relax and not work so hard could be the very moment that right person comes by and sees you thus :p