eh, the social drama is different, and it depends on the industry. For instance, I can hold down a SysAdmin job just fine, as a contractor or not, but I lack t

eh, the social drama is different, and it depends on the industry. For instance, I can hold down a SysAdmin job just fine, as a contractor or not, but I lack the social skills to rent out people who work for me as sysadmins, even when they are obviously good people and I'm charging below market rates. in some cases, I've given up and suggested the people for direct hire... and they got hired, at rates higher than I would have charged, even including my cut. I think either way, there is a tradeoff. If you get shit done, people will put up with a lot of social problems, in both situations. Like the guy who wrote a hn story about how I didn't answer his support email. He refused a refund and wanted to remain a customer... the thing was, he wanted better support, but when the rubber hit the road and it was time to cut a cheque, he chose cheap over good support. You can set up your company so that social skills don't matter as much, but that limits what markets you can go after. You can also choose your career while working for others, and get similar tolerance for social oddity. (of course, the OP's problem was not so much social skills as flexibility, and being self-employed almost always is more flexible than working for other people.)