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0 pointsviraptor4y ago0 comments

> Gaps between contracts are desirable! Having a whole summer off to live on your accumulated war chest and chill out, it's amazing.

If you can do that, that's amazing. Unfortunately many contractors fall into the "if I don't work I'm losing money" mentality and never stop. Then they start converting everything to how many days it cost them to earn and try to never spend money. I've seen it so many times and it's so unhealthy. Strangely it seems to mostly affect people who do get stupid-high rates.

The most absurd case was a contractor guy in a big corp at lunch with employees from the same team - he was pulling 3x our employee rate equivalent and complaining how he can't afford to take any days off or he'd be "losing" his daily rate.

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compiler-guy4y ago

This happens with everyone I know who is self employed. Lawyers, auto shop owners, repair shops. If you bill hourly, or by the job, it is very easy to calculate how much you lose by not working right now.

Nursie4y ago

It's true, and you do get into "If I take the week off I'm losing £X!" headspace sometimes. But it's important to remember that if you don't take that week off, you're more likely to burn out.

And it's also important to remember why you got into it in the first place - being able to take significant amounts of time between contracts was a big part of it for me. I intend to take three months downtime a little later this year.

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