Pick your problems
Every career path has problems that are built into it.
For example, as a government contractor W2 employee, you have problems like
- Lower pay compared to private sector work (potentiall)
- Annoying middle managers
- Uncertainty around contract renewals
- Government bureaucracy and your own company's bureaucracy
- Collateral duties like working on proposals
- Unfair or nonsensical promotion processes
- Limited growth opportunities
- Job interviews where you have to be an actor and pretend you love your prospective company
As a solo 1099 sub-contractor, you have to deal with:
- Having to find your own projects
- Doing boring business admin stuff
- Risks of contracts or projects falling through and not having an income
- Having to do everything yourself (no co-workers to help you)
- Finding your own health insurance
- Falling victim to government security clearance processes
- Annoying prime project or program managers
- Annoying clients that you can't easily leave or complain about
Most people want a lot of the same things. More money, vacation, freedom, etc.
But people have vastly different problems that they're willing to deal with to get those things.
I'd rather deal with the 1099 problems than the W2 problems.
What kind of problems do you prefer to deal with?