Once you have been self employed it's difficult to go back the worst i find is the holidays you have to give 3 weeks notice. If the forecast is good and i have a free day during the week and the family are around I'll take the day off and not worry, it makes up for the late nights sometimes.
Although I get most of what you are saying, how do you have a "free day"? I never worked outside an 8 mile radius, and rarely had any "free days", unless I had booked myself out or a punter let me down, which was rare. TBF, I did a lot of small jobs and did not overload the day, but someone would always phone in with an urgency so if things went smoothly, I could do those. If the sun was out, I would do the promised jobs and probably finish earlyish.
I now work for a LA, and they would probably be awkward if I wanted to finish early to go surfin', as inevitably an urgent call would crop up. they would also be a bit puzzled, as the nearest sea is 70 miles away, and cornwall a working days drive
.
But Good Luck to H&S - he may be doing the right thing. I find life is a lot less stressful, and still do the odd private, but even those are limited to small but decent paying, and only on Tuesday teatime or Friday at 1.30
. I am on my drive between 5pm and 5.05pm, and leave home at about 8.15. Lunch break every day, and finish at 1.30 on Fridays.
But there are drawbacks - the main thing being some of the morons in charge, and I struggled for the first month to get my head into the right gear, and to slow down into the new job. If I had to go back SE, I may struggle to rev back up, but not too long till I finsih anyway.