I bought this website over a year ago, but after some basic set-up, I never did much with it. Then in September this year, I decided to finally start doing something, but work, church, family, other projects, and health issues got in the way. Finally, today is a good day to blog, even if it isn’t for the happiest of reasons.

Yesterday, my oldest and largest client decided not to renew my contract with them. I have done their bookkeeping and accounting since about 2006, but now that their new CEO has two years under their belt they have elevated their vision and decided they need a CPA to satisfy the demands of this new vision. Thankfully they were not the only company I work with, but as a result of their decision, my work/life balance which was already a mess has been flung off balance in a whole new way. I still have the same amount of life, but I could use a little more work.

My old problem was that my work had started to frustrate me, rather than fulfill me. My biggest client felt like a mill-stone around my neck. I was back and forth between wanting to fix the accounting system to be more efficient for their new directions and wanting to leave the moment I walked through the door. Making any headway was agonizingly slow. I now realize that part of my frustration likely stemmed from the fact that the client may have been more focused on what they were doing behind closed doors to plan this new vision forward and replace me than working with me to satisfy their current accounting needs. I wouldn’t call it good management, but it wasn’t necessarily bad management either. It just wasn’t management that was favorable to me and by extension their current accounting situation. In the long-term, I assume their management choices will pay off major dividends, but it was a long and uncomfortable several months.

My current plan is that for the rest of this week I will regroup, pray a lot, and start building a solid foundation for a major client recruitment effort, or job search. I include job search because while I have enjoyed being self-employed, this experience has helped me remember that even though some clients may make it feel like I am part of the team, I am not. I feel that a collaborative team environment is a feature I will be looking for in future opportunities. The reality is that a contractual relationship is more distant than an employment or partnership relationship. Either that or I may skip working with clients that require a major time commitment and just focus on bringing in a lot of small clients that just need narrow services such as reconciliation and reporting. I don’t know yet and I don’t intend to decide on anything this week.

For the next stretch, the focus of this blog will likely be on what I do to chart my new career course and how I put that new course into action. Will I close my business and become an employee for another business? Will I go back to school to get my bachelors and sit for the CPA exam? Will I change careers altogether? At this point, everything is on the table. Maybe by next week, I’ll have an update with some answers and a plan.