You never work as hard as you do when you own your own business or do your own contracting. You miss out on all the benefits of sick leave, annual leave as well as the certainty of an end of the month salary. I think the stress alone will put many people off it but when things are going well, of course the staff think that they are doing all the work and you are just relaxing. They never see the e-mails that you reply to at 7 in the morning or 9 at night or all the dictation, administration and other work you might end up doing all weekend when they are relaxing.

When things are going well, they certainly would not believe that the amounts one pays in tax and when things are going badly, of course they are not interested in anything other than that salary at the end of the month. There are certainly benefits to running your own business, but I wonder how many people would live far longer lives if they did not!