Earlier today I had a conversation with some of my friends who live in Japan. The discussion consisted of taking turns swapping entertaining stories about old workplaces. That eventually evolved into a more serious conversation about ‘escaping the salaryman lifestyle’.
Salarymen (or josei shain) are perspectives that don’t really exist in the West. While it’s common here for people to work a “9-to-5”, the experience typically doesn’t overwhelm someone’s identity. At least, not in the way and to the extent it commonly does in Japan.
While contributing to the conversation with as much relevance as I could muster, I realized the story of my own employment journey engaged the topic more affectively than I anticipated. I may not be as familiar with the oppression of a life-consuming workspace, but I understand how it feels to find my individual freedom from ‘the grind’.
I haven’t worked for a recurring employer paycheck in 16 years (not counting the years I provided myself a ‘paycheck’ from businesses I owned). The common dynamic between employers and employees, the office team, workcrew, or shift workers is something that simply hasn’t been a part of my day-to-day life for nearly two decades.
I do what I want, when I want, how I want… within reason. I still have responsibilities, deadlines, and expectations I have to meet, but the routes I take to achieve those are extremely flexible. I’ve lived this way for so long that sometimes I forget how restrictive being bound to an employer often seemed.
That got me thinking… How long did I actually spend with my days structured by a workplace? My first regular job (that wasn’t a temporary internship) was when I was 16 and was at a local pizzeria in 1996. I worked at a few of them during the years I was attending college. That would continue through a long series of employers in increasingly tech-related positions as I worked my way up the ‘corporate ladder’ until the day I founded my web development firm in 2010.
Fourteen years. Aside from the initial psychic shock upon realizing my work history spans thirty years now, I realized it also meant that I’ve spent more of my life working for myself than I have working as an employee of someone else.
As we discussed this, what surprised me was how revolutionary or radical that concept seemed to my Japanese friends. To simply choose to do something and just make it happen. I think I’ve come to take the opportunities to do that for granted. I haven’t really thought of it as being anything unique or particularly special; just the way I chose to live my life.
So now, apparently, I’ve earned the nickname Rōnin. Which, I mean, sounds badass. At least until you dig into the connotations of the title. In Japanese history, a rōnin was a masterless warrior who held no social standing. A symbol of freedom, but with the connotation of being someone who disturbs the order of things. The proverbial wayward son.
Given the context of the conversation, I’m going to embrace it as a badge of honor from them.
Rōnin toshite ikitemasu!