“One Day I’ll Work for Myself: The Dream and Delusion That Conquered America”
by Benjamin C. Waterhouse
2024/W.W. Norton & Company
$29.99/274 pages
Ever had a job you hated, that sucked your soul dry? Entrepreneurship sounds pretty good when it’s quittin’ time, and it seems to have its moment now. So, learn the big picture on being your own boss in Benjamin C. Waterhouse’s “One Day I’ll Work for Myself,” but beware: you might change your mind.
First things first: You’ll want to know that “One Day I’ll Work for Myself” isn’t a how-to book. There are no advice sections or end-of-chapter tips and hints. This is a history book, and the lessons are buried inside the timeline, the stories, and the case studies that Waterhouse shares. Stay open to them, and you’ll see how modern work works. Why Granddad’s business thrived but yours doesn’t makes sense. How we got here—with work-for-yourself having such cachet—will be clear.
Waterhouse says most companies in the U.S. are small. Eighty-one percent of those businesses have no employees except the owner. Around one out of nine people in today’s workforce are self-employed. So how did we get to that point?
By the early 1900s, Waterhouse says, Americans worked for someone else for benefits and a paycheck. Politics, cultural shifts, and social changes then altered the way we work. It changed again in every recession in the past 50 years. And then there was COVID-19, and why return to an office?
“One Day I’ll Work for Myself” is an interesting read for any level of businessperson. If you’re thinking about entrepreneurship, your new boss will love it.
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