This editorial was originally published on Mar 20, 2007. It is being republished as Steve Jones is on vacation. 

Are you ready to leave the corporate world and become a consultant? It's a tempting thought and probably one that everyone in corporate America considers at one time or another. Especially those of us in technology who have skills that can easily be used to help some other company.

Here are 10 reasons not to go into business for yourself, which is an interesting list. It's from someone who evangelizes the benefits, joys, and methods of escaping the corporate cubicle. If you're seriously considering becoming a consultant, starting your own business, or going out in any way on your own, I'd recommend her site as a place to learn some things.

Coming from someone that helped start this site and has worked for it for 3 years this might sound funny. I don't really like being in business for myself. I know, I've been successful, had a good life, let you all know about large parts of it, but the truth is I didn't love working for myself. If not for Andy and Brian supporting me, I'm not sure I'd have done it.

Working for yourself, even when you're successful, isn't this easy, amazing job. It's a hassle and it's hard to worry about the different parts of a business. I'm a writer and a techie. As much as I pay attention to marketing, sales, and other groups, I don't want to do their jobs. I have an opinion and am happy to express it, but I don't want to get more involved than that.

I'm not really advocating one way or the other that you should or shouldn't start a business or stay in a cubicle. Rather I want to caution you that it's not as easy as tuning queries. The marketing, accounting, and collections will be as much as the job as the T-SQL.

Read about other's experiences, think hard about it, and consider all the parts of the job that you'll need to do. There's always more than you think and remember that just as with a new job in corporate America.

The grass is not always greener.