In honor of April Fool’s Day I thought I’d share a gem from Henry David Thoreau.

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.

The goal, of course, is to avoid, or at least limit, the time you spend as either the lead fool or the follower fool.

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$97 million doesn’t sound like much today, but it was a lot 15 years ago when Microsoft lost a lawsuit and was forced to reclassify it’s contractors as employees.

Back then Microsoft called them “permatemps.”

These days startups of all kinds are relying on freelancers to drive their growth, so many that a new term was coined.

They’re called 1099 contractors and the over-all approach is termed the 1099 economy.

“The most famous examples of 1099 companies are on-demand car providers like Uber and Lyft, but there are dozens of others: Homejoy, Handy, Postmates, Spoonrocket, TaskRabbit, DoorDash, Washio.”

The Feds, in the person of the IRS, are very particular when it comes to classifying employees as independent contractors or freelance.

Behavioral control refers to facts that show whether there is a right to direct or control how the worker does the work. A worker is an employee when the business has the right to direct and control the worker. The business does not have to actually direct or control the way the work is done – as long as the employer has the right to direct and control the work.

The financial control factors fall into the categories of:

• Significant investment
• Unreimbursed expenses
• Opportunity for profit or loss
• Services available to the market
• Method of payment

I’m a long way from being an expert, but after reading through the IRS information at least some of these companies are going to be in trouble.

Uber sets prices, discounts, doesn’t reimburse expenses and terminates drivers who also work for any of the competition.

That’s a lot of control in the light of the IRS rules.

Obviously, any company that can eliminate payroll, taxes and benefits is going to be super profitable—at least until they have to follow the rules like everybody else.

Flickr image credit: 401kcalculator.org

Last Friday I offered you a brain-stretching riddle. Did you get the answer?

You will recall that the shifty moneylender had put two black pebbles in the bag.

The girl put her hand into the moneybag and drew out a pebble. Without looking at it, she fumbled and let it fall onto the pebble-strewn path where it immediately became lost among all the other pebbles.

‘Oh, how clumsy of me,’ she said. ‘But never mind, if you look into the bag for the one that is left, you will be able to tell which pebble I picked.’

Since the remaining pebble is black, it must be assumed that she had picked the white one. And since the money-lender dared not admit his dishonesty out of fear, the girl changed what seemed an impossible situation into an extremely advantageous one.

I like this story because it is a simple illustration of the difficulty of so-called thinking outside the box, but why is that?

Starting as young children we are praised for coloring inside the lines and praise for coloring inside the lines continues as we grow.

The lines we stay inside my not be apparent to an onlooker, but they are obvious to our chosen world. Fashion is a great example, the Goth look that is seen as so outside-the-box by many is framed with as many rules and lines as is any mainstream look.

Fred H Schlegel had a nice suggestion, but it depended on changing the basic nature of the villain and when looking for out-of-the-box solutions we rarely can change people’s basic nature.

Becky Robinson came closest; she was honest and said that she had seen a similar problem previously. But in her synthesizing Becky allowed the crook to take the active role, assuming he would act ethically to maintain his honor, but if he had honor he wouldn’t have cheated in the first place.

Did Becky win? You decide in comments.

Creativity requires us to step away from many of our own basic assumptions as well as going outside the lines dictated by our world.

Doing this is how we enlarge our box to encompass the universe. (My apologies, I just found that this link didn’t work last week.)

It takes effort and lots of practice, but the rewards more than justify the work.

Image credit: piblet on flickr

Do you watch Extreme Makeover Home Edition? I usually have it on Sunday evenings while I’m writing and last night was no exception. For those of you who don’t watch, all the makeovers this season were for ‘heroes’; people who ignored their own situation to give back.

Last night was a makeover for Bernard McFarland, a 37 year old single dad who has become a mentor to all the kids in his neighborhood. He’s a firm believer that ‘knowledge is power’ and that learning and books are the answer to everything. (You can watch it online.)

But what I really like is the slogan he teaches the kids and, obviously, believes himself.

I like it enough to add it to my Rules To Live By (it’s number 24).

If you reach for the moon and miss grab a star.

Great thought, great motivation.

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