There are pros and cons to being self employed, there’s no doubt about that. While people frames ‘being your own boss’ as a kind of idealised situation in which you get to manage everything about your business from the workload to the money, making your work flexible around your life and your family, for many the reality is rather different.

Long hours for low pay while the business is getting off the ground, chasing invoices and dealing with customers who pull out at the last minute, leaving you with no pay. Having some months with very little money at all because invoices aren’t being paid, and having to make seemingly endless changes to a product that the customer isn’t happy with, but can’t really articulate why.

Sure there are benefits to seeing all the money that comes into the company, and not having your working life and schedule dictated by someone else, but there is a lot more to working for yourself than meets the eye.

Saying that though, it really works for some people. Because if you’ve got a constant flow of well-paying jobs, someone to manage the paperwork and the finances if you’re not prepared to do them yourself, and a decent support network to lean on, the lifestyle of a freelancer or self-employed businessperson could really work for you. And for the dad in this story, self-employment is really working – for him and his family too.

Read on to find out why.

My dad’s boss has to pay three new people instead of giving my dad the pay that he worked for

I’m fifteen and genderfluid, while and my younger brother is eleven.

My family have a good stable life financially, but recently it got better and we’re finally able to do things we want now.

My dad (40, male) has just gone self-employed because the company he used to work for didn’t pay him a good salary for what he actually does.

For context, my dad is a floor layer and does little handyman jobs here and there for friends and family.

Let’s see how things were before he left his old job.

His old boss, we’ll call him A, always loved my dad because they started their floor business together. A became the manager and my dad was always the top employee.

He did so much for this company that he was going to inherit it when A stepped down. But thing is, every customer who called up usually got my dad because he was happy to go above and beyond to make sure these folks are happy with how the final floor looked.

He brought in so much money to this company that he definitely deserved more than he was being paid (practically minimum wage).

The injuries he’s had while working have ranged from miniscule things like cutting himself, to things like cutting his thumb off and electrocuting himself. So you can imagine he’s entitled to the raise he eventually asked for.

Let’s see what happened when he asked for the raise.

A agreed to give him the raise. But he never did. My dad asked again, same thing. My dad then put up with this until their friendship was basically falling apart because A was always starting arguments over paying my dad.

A claimed he didn’t have the money to give him a raise, and yet has a gorgeous house, two nice cars as well as the work vans for loading carpets and stuff and his entire family knows very well he does not need to spend all this money on things that don’t matter much.

They can live in a normal house, sell one of the cars and be peaceful. But no, A wants to refuse giving a raise to his best employee.

So my dad recently put in his two week notice.

Read on to find out how A reacted to this.

A then started begging my dad not to leave them, to no avail. He offered a pay rise like my dad asked for. My dad declined. He’d been setting this up for a while.

My mum and I helped him build his own business from the ground. I work with him on my days off school and I’m going to be doing it for work experience too. I plan to work with him after I’m out of school too.

My dad now gets the pay he deserves and still makes people happy with their floors or anything else he’s hired for handyman wise. I post on a TikTok account to help with advertising so he’s never short of jobs.

Right now he’s got three weeks of work booked ahead.

And things for A? They couldn’t be worse.

A then had to hire three new people and pay them all what he paid my dad. Each.

So he’s paying more than what he would’ve paid my dad had he just given him the raise.

And my dad’s doing well for himself. When my dad told me about the new hires, I swear I facepalmed so hard there’s probably a dent in my skull.

What a fool.

The old saying ‘you don’t know what you had until it’s gone’ could not be more appropriate here.

A was so reluctant to give his best worker a raise, and now lo and behold he has to pay even more across the new workforce.

And that goes to show that he could have afforded the raise after all.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who stops speaking up in his Zoom meetings after getting constantly interrupted.

Let’s see what the Reddit community made of this.

This person explained that sadly, stories like this are more common than you’d think.

And plenty of Redditors backed this up by telling similar stories of their own.

Meanwhile, this Redditor thought that this sounded like a lovely family.

It’s great that the father had the confidence and the ability to start his own business. It’s important to know your own worth, and the amount that A was paying him, especially considering his status as the company’s best employee, was way undervaluing him. But this only truly became clear to A once the guy had handed in his notice, after which point he surely had some major regrets. But nothing will have measured up to the regret he felt when he realised that he’d have to replace one underpaid employee with three others just to fulfil the one guy’s workload.

In doing this and following through on his plan, this father is setting a great example for his kids. He’s not letting himself be taken advantage of any longer, and now he’s his own boss and can manage his own money instead of doing a great job and the rewards of that going straight into A’s pocket. No doubt he will have a very successful future and leave his kids a legacy to be proud of. And all the time, A will be sat there regretting his decisions.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a team that agreed to work overtime, but then not everyone showed up, leaving the rest holding the bag.