Before I got into running my own business, I was blissfully ignorant of the things entrepreneurs have to deal with. Now I know the awful truth. Everything conspires to make a small business fail.

At the very beginning, lawyers and accountants exact a considerable sum to set up your business. There are many different forms of business. Each has its plus and minus sides. I'm set up as an "S" Corporation. That certainly stands for "Stupid," my state of mind at the time I set up this company.

After you've received your corporate seal, which is a throwback to the last century but is pretty neat when you need to use it, you now have to breathe life into your new creation. To do that you need equipment and supplies -- computers, furniture, aspirin. Stocking up is fun for the first few months, but when those first purchases are still on your credit-card bill three years later, you kind of regret filling up Staples carts with such abandon.

OK. Now you know all about supplies, but you are still pretty green in the accounting and cash-flow departments. Your accountants try to help you understand that the main idea is to never show a profit on your annual returns so you don't pay taxes. Eventually, however, if you do everything right, this catches up with you. Profit -- and taxes -- are inevitable. The accountants will yell at you about this. But stand your ground, and insist on that black bottom line. There's more to this than avoiding taxes, after all.

Speaking of accounting and tax forms, you will quickly become nauseated by the overwhelming task of complying with what the government calls business taxes. Everything is taxed, including the tax itself. If you collect sales taxes, you had better do it right. If you're exempt, you have to file a form anyway, or you'll get hit with a $50 penalty. There are so many numbers and forms to remember you'll need a flip chart to keep them straight. Sometimes the only way to cope is a slug of expensive cognac. And that's just taxes.

If that doesn't make you want to give it all up and take up dandelion farming in Greece, there are the employee issues: payroll, unemployment insurance, I-9s (that's not an interstate), and the New Employee Notification program. All of these regulations are designed to keep you so busy with paperwork that you never actually communicate with the employee after he or she comes on board -- let alone train the person. The next thing you know, your "new" staffer has either retired or found a new job. And if you fire the employee -- who never got enough training to do the job right -- they file for unemployment, which of course raises your insurance rating and the premiums you pay to the state fund, which in turn lowers your bottom line, forcing you to let someone else go, leading again to more unemployment claims. You get the picture.

This brings us to workers' compensation, which is more complicated than reading hieroglyphics upside down -- without the Rosetta Stone. I truly don't understand what I'm paying, but if I don't pay, the insurance company will pull my workers' comp insurance and report it to the state, and I will lose my ability to hire workers. Not a good thing if you're in the staffing business. And since I'm in the staffing business, I need "errors and omissions" insurance, too -- just in case someone errs or omits, and I'm sued.

And these things, folks, are just the basics. I haven't even touched on exorbitant phone costs for businesses, utility bills, rental charges, and the contract for the guy who waters the plants every week.

I reckon the best insurance a small-business person can carry is a small retreat somewhere in Europe -- or Antarctica -- where you can run away to and think about the money you might have made if everyone else hadn't grabbed it out of your hand before you slipped it into your wallet.

George Giokas is the president and CEO of StaffWriters Plus, a specialty agency that places writers in temporary and permanent positions with corporate and other employers. It also provides editorial consulting work. His database includes 2,500 writers and editors specializing in more than 60 categories. His Web site is located at www.staffwriters.com, and you can E-mail him at george@staffwriters.com.