Moving from freelancing to full-time work: pros and cons

Whether you are 25 or 55, as I am, transitioning from pajamas to pin-stripe suits can be a daunting experience. Once day you're eating PB&Js and working from 10 to 4 or 11 to 10 and the next you're expected to be in a cubicle by 9 and play nice with strangers.

Having recently taken a staff reporting position - after 10 years of freelancing - I can attest that there are growing pains. I take responsibility for my independent skin, one that got tougher as I aged, and so learning to be in a team is sometimes tricky. Mom put it this way: "You're like Luzie (her elder cat); you don't like people to get too close."

Now, Luzie and I happen to have a lovely, warm relationship. She'd wait in the doorway of "her" room alongside Mom during the four months I spent at Mom's in South Texas. She'd "meeew!" and I'd "meew!" and know just how to pet her before she bit me. So yeah, perhaps that's me, at least on days when I'm tired.

The benefits to being on a staff are that you'll get a regular paycheck, of course, but you'll also forge relationships that can last a lifetime. I am still friends with people from my last job, close friends with one of them, and occasionally e-mail my ex-boss just to joke that it's Summer Sausage Season again.

What I would recommend before you decide to jump the freelance ship is that you ask yourself these questions. If you don't know the answers, and especially if the answers are more no's than yesses, then get back in your PJs and take the laptop back to bed:

1. Are you comfortable with not only one editor critiquing your work but a team of editors?

2. Do you mind centralized air and not being able to open windows? Many jobs if not most fall into this category.

3. Are you social enough so you feel comfortable saying hi to dozens of people (if it's a big company) each and every day?

4. Can you smile and be chipper even when you're tired or down?

5. How comfortable are you working with members of the opposite sex? Are you prepared for everything from subtle misogny to unwanted flirtations or unwanted attractions? Can you remain professional and see everyone as, to the extend possible, gender neutral?

6. Do you have the physical toughness to work in a loud office where you sometimes can't hear yourself think? Can you conduct interviews either in person by phone with lots of ambient noise?

7. Are you more of a chameleon than an iconoclast, who can blend in easily with most office cultures? I came from the New York area to the DC area and there are differences, especially in how men and women work together.

8. Can you keep your opinions to yourself if need be? Can you share ideas when called upon? Can you accept that many of your ideas will not be accepted by higher-ups?

The pros and cons of full-time employment tip the scale one way for some, another way for others. Obviously, how well you get along with your boss(es) and coworkers will go a long way toward tipping the scale in a positive direction.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons images: BEN_6159, May 23, 2012, European People's Party: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BEN_6159_(7255866304).jpg