I guess its time for me to move on, because everything is fucked. In terms of work and employment at least. But its not that easy for me. Let me explain and start from the beginning:

Its 2018: I just lost my last job in a huge agency and was in between jobs when I decided that its time for me to do freelancing. Being my own boss was something that always wanted. And now there was my oppoprtunity. So I started as a freelancer. Asked the government for a tax id and started to work. I was on my own, there was no plan b and as a motivation my wife just gave birth to our daughter. But I had a blast. I worked with way more motivation that before and, what surprised me the most, I had fun. Actual, real fun. I created stuff. I was creative in ways I never imagined. Heck, I even had a proper instagram account that I regularly used and published stuff on. And people who know me personally would never expect some kind of social media work from me. It was a great time and I really enjoyed it. Then, about a year later, I wanted to push it to the next level. So I grabbed my best friend of that time and asked him if he wants to found an agency for webdevelopment with me. He was hesitant at first but as me and him both could bring in customers from our previous work there should be no issue to get started and be profitable from day 0. And so we began. We used the name that I already was working under (Codezilla IT-Consulting) and then we kept working, we grew as a company over the years and now, after around 6 years, we are about 10 people. It wasnt always easy but we managed to push through. And all that without any venture capital or other sources of income. It feels great.

But its not all fun and games. At least anymore. With the founding as company we had to create corporate structures. Not in the sense that we have to build a huge tower with our name on the side (not that we thought about that) but we had to establish a hierarchy. This is needed in any environment like this because someone needs to steer a company and make sure everybody else (mainly the employees) understand the vision and the goals that need to be achieved. And this is where it all falls apart. The current state of the company is okay. Work comes in, people can word and we can pay salaries that are adequate. But somehow we ended up in a state where it seems that its all about “how many hours have you done this week/month?” “are all your times entered in the system?” “will you work on the weekend?” “overtime is seen as a bonus for the company that the employee is doing freely”

And all this is exactly NOT what I envisioned at all. I was and probably never will be a fan of this kind of work environment. I see why this might be needed under certain circumstances but this was never my intention to create such practices. I want to build cool stuff again and hopefully find the fun in work again. Which leads me to the conclusion that I might leave the company behind me and get back to my roots so I can be happy again.

“But why arent you talking about it in the company?” “Cant you fix it by just communicating and finding a solution?” “Are you sure you want to leave without trying to fix it?”

These are valid questions and it might seem that I havent tried to find a solution. For me and with the company. But its not working. Trust me I’ve tried. Multiple times. All efforts in changing anything lead to me being upset because nobody else seems to care about the work environment as much as I do. Therefore I’ve decided that I need to leave and pursue on my own. This decision is not easy for me but I think that is the right thing to do.

Now for the weird part. I am writing this at a time where nobody besides me and my wife know about my plan. I also left out a lot of things that lead to my decision, just because I dont want to blame anyone specifically for this or set up a pillory of some sort. You just have to believe me if I say that there is way more than just the direction everything is moving currently that upsets me. Maybe I will write about it another time. Maybe I will never write or talk about it again. We will see. For now all that is left for me is to establish a new tax id from the government, search for clients and then start working again with fun and passion like in the old days. And one thing is absolutely clear to me. I will NEVER ever create a company with employees and corporate structures again. Lesson learned.