To not understand why some people are so against employment?

[MilkyYay]

I'm on a local whatsapp group and we have a few people on there who are badly struggling (financially) but continue to pursue only various "businesses" or self employment options and will not consider any form of job working for an employer.

Its really hard to know how to respond, two in particularly will regularly message the group asking what we think of their latest "business venture idea" and they are always terrible. Poorly thought out, based on what's easy rather than what there's a demand for, often complete copycat of things there are already several of. They will try out something new every 4-6 months and fail "because of the economy", while also saying how skint they are. Not mlm either.
Things like:

• buying and reselling items on vinted at a mark up
• buying very cheap knock off kids items (character tat mainly) on amazon & reselling it on market stalls
• making bog standard candles & trying to sell for high prices
• getting t-shirts and jumpers printed with fairly naff slogans and selling at high prices

Am i missing something? What's so bad about getting an ordinary job? What's so appealing about this sort of buy/sell "business" as a main occupation? There are a lot of jobs around where we live & a massive range of flexible options - several childcare providers offering school hours jobs, lots of evening and weekend, choices of full & part time options are available.

Have you been self employed?

Because all the points happen just not from "boss".

You have to answer to your customers at a level you never had to as employee somewhere. And HMRC🙈
You totally get reprimanded by customers. They don't put you on review though, they just go to competition.
You can't go as you please in many jobs. You have deadlines/workplace/customers. Same for wear.
Bullying depends on what industry you are in but customers can be really 5* bullies (many are of course not!).
You don't have to pay lip service to changes because you will be the one having to come up with them.
The politics might be right but again. Customers.

Many people have very romanticised idea of self employment. Depending on industry it can be tough as hell.

Self employment may offer opportunities for those with a criminal record. Many jobs now require a DBS or enhanced DBS.

Minimum wage full time work won’t pay enough to cover full time childcare. Many of these roles won’t offer enough flexibility to those with young children/dependents .

Some of these people may have applied for umpteen roles and have been unlucky.

No driving licence or car is another factor which could limit work opportunities.

Toxic work cultures forcing out individuals through no fault of their own.

Low level learning disabilities.

Mental and physical health problems.

Addiction.

Lack of motivation. Lack of skills to be job ready.

Living in a DV household.

One of my acquaintance recently picked up some coaching (about 4th venture now). Apparently not mlm, tbf it doesn't look like it but... I don't think generally negative person who is bit of a know it all and not at all patient would fit a coach profile....

In my experience other than a very very wealthy and successful entrepreneur, most people , like the ones you describe mess at rhe low end trying to make a few bucks for one of several reasons

fundamentally lazy , they don’t want to get up and go to work every day
Over inflated ego and do not like to be told what to do , to such an extent that employment is a significant problem for them , as they always think they know best, the boss is an arse and they should be running the company,
no one will give them a job , or the type of job they could get they’d rather fuck about reselling shit than do it.
people who have caring responsibilities and are too low income to pay for a professional carer to provide support.

it’s seldom an entrepreneur focusing on business growth and usually someone trying to make a few bucks

I know a family like this. In all fairness, the husband had a well known company making prints and banners
He started just before covid and made lots of those prints related to social distancing, thanking the NHS, etc so he had lots of business then and seemed to make a lot of money then but the business has since dried up and he keeps complaining about lack of business because most of those companies don’t need banners made that often.
Wife used to work as a TA but resigned to work for the business when it was booming. Issue now is that they barely have much to do but rather than the wife going back to get a day job as before and maybe him getting an evening job if he still wants to keep the business running, they both just sit there daily, incurring costs like rent of the premises for the business etc and barely making ends meet, getting into debt and all advice fall on deaf ears

I'm self-employed and this pretty much describes my life. Being free of workplace politics is a big one. (Of course I do get exposed to some politics. But much less than an employee.)

I'm good at what I do though, make good money doing it, and have a pension.

I've come to the realisation that I would simply not make a very good employee. I'm not good at toeing the line and I don't do hierarchies. I think some people's personalities are better suited to self-employment and some people's are better suited to working for a company. The world needs both types.

It’s likely they are on benefits.

Personal buy and sell is tax free. It’s debatable what’s personal but if you have children for example and are selling children’s clothes or toys - even in quantity your likely to get away with it without paying tax, ni or affecting your benefits.

Theres also the side hobby income allowance of 2k.

My cousin's wife is a bit like this. We're not in touch any more (because I got so fed up with constantly being approached with her doing the hard sell for whatever rubbish she'd decided to flog this time). But my sense was, with her, that it was a pride thing. She had a normal job and lost it (I can't remember if she was made redundant or if the company folded or what). Then she constantly seemed to get into things she would present as a very glamorous hobby, the next big thing, OMG so amazing I get to do what I love and get paid! She did Avon for a bit, then some dodgy company doing gel nails, then something else cosmetics-related. It was always presented as something she absolutely adored.

She was (and presumably still is) one of those women who really believe the most desirable lifestyle you could ever have would be to be supported entirely by your wealthy husband, while you basically spend your time being professionally beautiful and pampered. Making out Avon was a lifestyle choice was the closest she could get to that.

I think this is a part of it. A lot of people don't want the super market/cafe/childcare job because they think they will be perceived less positively. Or they perceive people who do those jobs as lesser.

Also, it's all very well saying that a proper job is the norm but that massively underestimates the reality that for a lot of people, the "traditional" job just isn't doable because of their personality etc.

My brother does okay and earns good money but personality-wise, he has never managed to hold down a traditional job for longer than a year or two. He's fixed this by doing short term contract or freelance work, and it's working well for him, but he's lucky enough to have specific skills that are in demand and well paid. So he doesn't have the interpersonal skills to operate in a traditional office environment but can work around that.

I’m one of these people. I don’t like working for others, I hate workplace politics and I struggle working to a 7-8hr day. I am autistic, so that’s part of it. As a self employed person, I set my own hours. I’m crap in the early afternoon so I don’t have appointments then in general, I’d rather take a break and work into the early evening. There are downsides - lack of security, difficult to take time off - but on the whole I prefer it. I think it’s much more difficult to have a successful business selling products (particularly tat you can get anywhere) than services though; my business is the latter.

I'm the opposite. I guess I'm kind of institutionalised and, having been a teacher for nearly 30 years, I'm used to a schedule governed by exact timings. I can sort of see the appeal, but I think I would be useless at running my own business and rubbish at organising myself or promoting my stuff. I also find it a bit odd when people are so keen to turn a hobby into a business. I'm a knitter and crocheter, but doing it for a living would take the fun out of it for me!

I partly did self-employed peripatetic teaching for a while and it was kind of fun, but the pay was rubbish for the amount of travelling around and creating my own resources I had to do!

I have a lot of empathy for people who despise being employed. It can really eat away at your soul. Spending most of the day with people who you don't really like or care about, having to carry out tasks which are tedious, pointless or you just can't be bothered with. The commute, the lack of control. It really takes a lot of mental 'effort' to sustain full time employment.

Not everyone will meet even basic requirements for qualifications, even low paying jobs usually want GCSEs. If you have a criminal conviction you will struggle.

I have a young relative like this.

She is a life coach.

She gave up a perfectly alright job to post memes and pouty photos of herself on insta-Facebook. I don't think she has any qualifications or indeed any particular life experience that would mean she would be in a position to coach others.

She was supported financially by bank of mum and dad and now is living with someone who I would imagine earns well so she doesn't have to worry about mundane things such as actual money.

I 'like' her posts out of family niceness but far as I can tell, this business consists of her and other like minded FB folk congratulating each other on how great they are not to have to be constrained to 9-5 etc.

What a load of bollox it all is. God knows who would hire her as a life coach; you'd have to be out of your tiny mind.

So she's an influencer. They can earn a fucking fortune. I'd know I work with them. One with 20k followers charges £1000 minimum per ad post.

I know a few people like this. Both well educated women who are running businesses which stemmed from hobbies. One of them told me that she would hate to be chained to a desk, have to work when it's sunny, put her kids in nursery etc.
I ran a stall with her once, it involved getting up at the crack of dawn, loading stuff from a garage into a van, driving, setting up, standing up all day, buying an overpriced toastie and then packing it all away again and going home. It was one of the hottest Saturdays of the year and her husband was with their children. She did that most Saturdays and Sundays all year round apart from the months of November, January, February and March when she just made no money apart from online sales (and it wasn't the sort of product people would search for). That day she made £20 once the stall fee, food and petrol was taken out of it.
To this day I don't understand why she would choose to do it.

It can be due to mental health problems that you don't know about. Some people wear their heart on their sleeve, but many don't and you will never know (even if you think you would).

Neurodiversity, diagnosed or not, can be a factor (just 22 per cent of autistic people in the UK are in paid employment).

Someone with recurrent clinical depression/anxiety or schizophrenia or OCD or PTSD might have worked very hard at their recovery, be on medication, do CBT and other therapy, but still cannot work in a conventional job. Every time they have attempted it in good faith, it has led to a breakdown, which was even more humiliating than being judged for working from home.

They might have been bullied and harassed when they've been in previous work and other social situations when people make false assumptions about them, and have social anxiety which makes it difficult to work with others.

Many (women especially) will 'mask' their differences, and want to keep their dignity and appear OK/strong to you and everyone else who doesn't know. They are far from lazy.

Its just as likely that they are registered with hmrc as self employed.

The income allowance is 1k, not 2k.

I doubt it. Sure there are lots of actually self employed people who succeed in these areas and who will. But those flitting from candles, to eBay, to Facebook marketplace, to Etsy and back again every few months are absolutely not filling in proper paperwork.

Most of these people won't be earning anywhere near 1k, though.

In that case it isn't a viable business and they won't be able to claim uc alongside self employment after the first year of trading

They won't be telling anyone official that they're self-employed!

Most people don’t have 20k followers, though. They have a vague dream and a few mates who give pity likes.

You aren’t earning that on 20,000 followers now. I’m on just shy of that and a few small freebies is all it generates, it’s just a hobby for me.