What I learned as a W-2.

I’m through with being someone else’s employee after five years. But I gained some real personal understanding along the way.

For some, it’s a form. For others, it’s a form of punishment.

For most of my career, I have worked for myself. I owned an ad agency. I was a freelancer for 20 years. I prefer it. It suits me. Today, I likely would not accept any job offers from companies that want me to be a rank-and-file employee unless it was for piles and piles of money, they had a puppy paternity leave policy and I could work anywhere I wanted.

That said, I’ve just finished five years and two months working as a Creative Director at a mid-sized independent ad agency. I enjoyed that as well. But in a very different way. Here are my takeaways from the experience.

1. I’m an awful employee. First, I’d like to apologize to my former employer. I am just the worst at being an employee. If you are thinking of hiring me, don’t. You will regret it. I don’t like — well, actually, “hate” is not too strong a word in this context — I hate being told what to do and I have a very hard time putting up with what I perceive as corporate bullshit. This will come as no surprise to anyone who has worked with me. I’m always suggesting a better way to do things and I often want to get around the rules that, to me, make no sense whatsoever. I’m much happier as a…