Transcript: “Listening Time” Episode 29

Welcome to the Listening Time podcast. I'm Conner from polyglossa.com, and
you're listening to Episode 29 of the Listening Time podcast. If this is your first time
here, welcome! I'm glad you found this resource that will help you improve your listening
comprehension in English. I hope you're all doing well. It's currently the end of August,
around that time. That's when I'm recording this podcast. I usually record each episode
about a week or a week and a half in advance. So, there isn't too much time between
the recording and the airing of each episode. In English, when we use the word "air" as
a verb, "to air", we're saying that something is broadcast or published or made public.
So, if I say "the episode aired in March", I'm saying that this episode was published in
March. This is when people, actually, were able to listen to it.
So, I record each episode close to the time when it airs, and I've been able to
maintain this pace for a while now, at one episode per week. Hopefully, that's good
enough for all of you. As I've mentioned in previous episodes, or maybe just one
episode, I think, one podcast episode per week is about my limit right now. I'm not able
to do more than that. But in the future, if the podcast gets more popular and I get a
bigger audience, I might be able to dedicate some of my work time to recording more
podcast episodes and maybe preparing them a little bit more before I record them.
As you've probably heard, I don't do too much preparation before each episode. I
just have a couple notes, and I just speak as the words come to my mind. Of course,
this means that each episode has natural English in it. I'm just talking as I think, right.
I'm not reading anything, but I know that sometimes it can seem a little bit disorganized,
or I might not have my ideas fully fleshed out before I record. In English, we use the
phrase "fleshed out" to mean that some idea or thought is fully explained or fully
explored. If something isn't fully fleshed out, that means that that idea might not be
100% organized or explored or explained. So, my ideas in these episodes aren't always
fully fleshed out, but hopefully it's good practice for your listening and it's still interesting
for you regardless.
But hopefully, down the line in the future, I'll be able to dedicate more time and
more energy to recording and preparing these episodes. I used the phrase "down the
line". In English, when we say "down the line", we're saying at some point in the future.
For example, "I want to start my own business at some point down the line". This means
that I want to start my own business at some point in the future.
Okay, so the subject of today's episode is self employment. So for me, this is a
very important subject because I'm self employed, Maybe you are too, or maybe you're
not, but regardless, I think this is an important topic to talk about. Before we start,
remember to sign up for our $1 Listening Practice Seminars at polyglossa.com if you
want more in-depth practice for your listening. And of course, share this podcast with
anyone who might find it useful, and help this podcast grow, so that in the future, I can
dedicate more time to it. And also, don't forget that you can access the transcript for
each episode in the Episode Notes. So, if you need the transcript for this episode, just
go down to the notes, and you'll find it there. Alright, let's get started.
So, what does it mean to be self employed? This simply means that you don't
have an employer. You don't have a boss, right. You don't work for a company that
offered you a contract to work for their company, right. If you are in that position, then
you're not self employed. But being self employed means that you don't work for a
company. You don't work for another person who is employing you. And legally
speaking, someone who is self employed doesn't have the same rights or benefits
under the law that someone who is employed has. So, there are a few factors that are
different when it comes to someone who is self employed, and a normal employee.
So, what are some types of self employment? Well, first of all, you might own
your own business, right. If you, maybe, start your own online business just by yourself,
you're self employed, because you don't have a boss or a company over you who gave
you that job. You are creating your own wealth, right, You are your own boss. So, this is
one type of self employment.
Another type of self employment is freelancing. A freelancer is someone who
doesn't have just one contract with one company. They don't work for a company, but
certain companies or certain individuals might hire that freelancer to do a project for
them. But once that project is over, normally, the freelancer moves on. This means that
they don't stay with that company or that individual. They just go to a different project.
So, freelancers might work for multiple people and multiple projects at the same time.
They're not limited to just one company, and they don't have a fixed contract with a
company with benefits and a bunch of rules and things like that. So, they're free of that
contract.
So, another type of self employment is the gig economy. You might not know this
phrase. This is a relatively new term, but the gig economy refers to companies such as
Uber. Right. So, you don't necessarily have an employer if you work for Uber. You just
use their platform, their app, and then you can work when you want and where you
want. Right. This is different from having a company or a boss that assigns you certain
hours and a certain type of task at a certain time. When we use the verb "to assign" in
English, we're saying that someone gives you some task or responsibility to do. For
example, "My boss assigns me many boring tasks". This means that my boss gives me
many boring things to do. So, if you work for the gig economy, if you have a job like this,
you get to decide when you work and maybe even how you work. So, that's another
type of self employment.
One other type is if you do e- commerce. So if you do e-commerce, this means
that you sell things online. A lot of people do this nowadays. It's a good way to make
some extra money. Or some people might do this full-time. In English, we use the
phrase "full time" when we're talking about jobs that are the only job that you have, or
the main job that you have, and you work normally at least 35 hours or 40 hours or
more. So, some people sell things online as a part time job. A part time job is the
opposite of a full time job. It just means that you work some of the week doing this, but
it's not the whole week. It's not a 40-hour job. So, some people work part-time selling
things online, and some people do this for a living. When we say that someone does
something for a living, this means that it's their main source of income. So for example, I
can ask someone "What do you do for a living?" This just means, "What is your job?"
"What do you do to earn enough money to live?"
So, one last type of self employment that I want to mention is online teaching.
This is what I do. I'm an online teacher. So, I don't have a boss and I don't have a
company that employs me. So, I have the freedom of being self employed. I can set my
hours and set my price, and I can work how I want. So, these are some different types
of self employment.
Now, let's talk about some of the disadvantages and some of the advantages of
self employment. So, let's start with the bad, the disadvantages. So, the first thing that
could be considered a disadvantage is that if you're self employed, you don't have a
fixed income. When we say a "fixed income", this means that you don't have the same
amount of money coming in every month or every year. It's completely
different, depending on how much you work, right. So, if you're an employee at a
company, you have a fixed income, or a fixed salary. You already know how much
money you're going to make this year because it's in your contract. But if you're self
employed, you really don't know how much money you're going to make. You can
estimate this, but really, an estimate is just a guess. You don't really know. So, that's one
disadvantage.
Another disadvantage is that you don't have fixed hours. Again, I use the word
"fixed" here. When we use "fixed" in this way, we just mean that you don't have
something established. It means that this thing is constantly changing. So, you don't
have fixed hours, and you don't have guaranteed hours. This means that maybe you
want to work 40 hours a week, but that's not a given if you're self employed. So, you
might not be able to work all of those hours because you don't have enough clients, or
you just don't have enough work in order to do the job full-time or complete the hours
you want to complete. So, that could be another disadvantage, because maybe you
don't work enough hours to make a living, for example.
And another disadvantage, this is one of the biggest ones, is that you don't have
benefits that other employees have. So, in English, when we talk about benefits in the
context of jobs, we're talking about things like insurance, paid holiday days, or
retirement plans, things like that. If you're an employee at a company, usually you have
these types of benefits if you work full-time. For example, you probably get your health
insurance subsidized. When something is "subsidized", this just means that someone
else helps pay for it.
So for example, in the US, if you have a full time job, this means that your
employer has to pay a large percentage of your health insurance. So, this is a big
advantage in the US because health insurance is very expensive. So, that's one benefit
that you miss out on if you're self employed. When you "miss out on" something, this
just means that you don't get it, or you don't experience it, for example. And another
benefit that you don't get is paid time off. We sometimes call this PTO. So, other
employees might have some paid time off during the year. They might be able to take
some vacation days, and they'll be paid for these days even though they don't work.
If you're self employed, you obviously don't get this benefit, right. If you don't
work, you don't get paid. So, you don't really have any paid vacation. You can take a
vacation because you make your own schedule, but it will be an unpaid vacation. And of
course, there are no retirement plans, or things like that, connected to your job if you
work as a self employed individual. So, you have to take care of all that on your own.
So, you miss out on those benefits.
So, one more disadvantage of being self employed, at least in the US, is that you
have to pay more tax. So, in the US, normally, employees have to pay a certain
percentage of their income as payroll tax. Payroll tax includes Social Security and
Medicaid. These are government programs that are funded with our tax money. So,
employees have to pay, I think, about seven or seven and a half percent of their
paycheck. And what happens is that the employer pays another 7% or so to cover this
tax. Those aren't the exact numbers. I'm just estimating, but it's around there. So, the
employer and the employee both pay about half of this amount that is owed to the
government, this payroll tax. But if you're self employed, you don't have an employer to
pay the other half of this money, so you have to pay the full amount. So, you have to
pay almost double of what other taxpayers pay. So that's one last disadvantage.
Now, let's talk about some advantages. Number one, you're your own boss. You
don't have any boss. You don't have anyone who's telling you what to do. You can work
however you want. You can create your own style, your own environment, and really,
you get to set the rules. This is really cool. Most people really like this. It's a great
advantage of being self employed. Another advantage is that you get to set your own
schedule. So, in a normal job, if you're an employee at a company, they create your
schedule. They tell you you're going to start at 9am, and you're going to end at 6pm for
example. If you're self employed, you don't have these same restraints. The word
"restraint" just means some type of limit, something that limits you.
So, if you're self employed, you get to decide what hours you work and what
hours you don't work. For example, in the past, I used to start my work at around 9am
every day. But then after a while, I realized that I wanted to start earlier so that I could
finish earlier. So, I started working from 7:30am after that. I just made that change, and
it was that easy. No one could tell me that I couldn't do that. I decided to change my
hours, and so that's what happened.
So, that's also a great advantage. For example, if you want to take some time off
and just not work for a month, you can do that. You can decide that you don't want to
work for a month. Of course, you're not going to get paid for this time because you don't
have an employer who pays you for these days. But if you want, you can take all of
these days off. You don't have to work. So, I've done this several times. Like, for
example, the first time I went to Europe, I took many days off. I worked very little
throughout that time, and it was okay. I didn't have a boss who could tell me that I
couldn't go on on that trip. I just went and changed my own schedule. So, that's a huge
advantage in my opinion.
Another thing that could be an advantage is that many people who are self
employed can set their own price, depending on what they do. Maybe they sell
something, and they can set the price that they want, or, like me, you might give
classes, you might teach something, and you can also set the price of your classes. So,
if you want to increase your income, you can simply raise your price. Customers might
not buy your product or your classes or whatever if you raise the price, but you have
that right. You're able to do that if you want. And that's really cool.
Another advantage is that you don't need any type of degree to do many types of
self employment jobs. So, in many traditional jobs, the employer who is interviewing you
or the recruiter will look at your CV and see what degrees you have... if you have a
bachelor's degree or a master's degree or a PhD, etc. And if you don't have one of
these degrees, this could hurt your chances of getting the job. We use the phrase "hurt
your chances of" to say that something can decrease the possibility of something else.
So, if you don't have a degree, this might hurt your chances of getting a traditional job at
a traditional company.
But if you're self employed, you obviously don't need to fulfill any of these
requirements in terms of education. Obviously, some jobs will require education, but a
formal degree usually isn't necessary for many of these types of jobs. So, you can just
start working when you're 18 after high school, and you don't have to go to college, and
you can just start working on your own and earning money from that young age. That's
another big advantage. And lastly, one other big advantage is that you have a lot of
room for growth. When we say "room for growth", we're saying that you have the
chance to move up, to get better, to make more money, for example.
So, if you are your own boss and you are creating your own product, for
example, you can succeed, and you can grow your clientele. Your "clientele" just means
the people that you have as clients, the total amount of clients that you have. So, you
can increase your clientele, you can increase your price, you can increase your
production, and maybe hire more people to work for you, or something like that. In many
jobs that are self employment type jobs, there's a lot of room for growth. And if you work
for a traditional company, it might be harder to grow fast, to move up fast in your field.
So, those are some of the advantages of being self employed. I am self employed,
obviously, and I really like it, and I definitely recommend it to anyone that's thinking
about the idea, but of course, it's good to know what the advantages are, but also what
the disadvantages are.
Alright, why don't we stop there for today. Hopefully, this episode was interesting
for you. And hopefully, it was good practice for your listening. Of course, remember that
you have access to the transcript in the Episode Notes, so you can go down and click
on that link if you need the transcript. And of course, sign up for our $1 Listening
Practice Seminars at polyglossa.com and remember to share this podcast with anyone
else who might find it useful. Thank you for listening to this episode and I hope you'll
come back for Episode 30 of the Listening Time podcast.

*IMPORTANT: This episode was recorded a while ago, and I don’t use the Polyglossa
website anymore. Now, you can access my Listening Practice Seminars by becoming a
member at www.patreon.com/listeningtime