21
Mar
2010
21.03.10 A New Swing
Happy day-of-rest readers, because whatever you’re really doing tomorrow, you can pretend it’s going to work!
Continuing with last weeks theme of the virtual office, here’s a piece I wrote about an unemployed epiphany I had.
Enjoy, and pass my name on to the smart people you know and my pictures to modeling agencies.
Today I had an “aha” moment—a buzzword entrepreneurs use to describe the moment they figured out how to make money. Mine had nothing to do with getting rich. In fact, it meant being comfortable making almost no money.
It happened where most important realizations do: in nature. Adam and Eve learned being naked is naughty, Thoreau learned the meaning and life, and I learned if I’m going to enjoy unemployment, I have to be less uptight.
I should clarify that unemployment means I still haven’t found a steady gig in journalism, which is the challenge this blog is based on. I have been employed, as of now, entering names into an excel sheet for my mom’s friend for $16/hour (highest paying job yet!) and as of late shredding medical documents for another of my mom’s friends.
Journalism-wise, I’m a proud freelancer. What does this mean? In my case, I force myself to wake up at eight, read the paper, read the internet, check my e-mail, and write to editors when I feel I have the slightest hunch for a story. Sometimes they write back to me, and I write a story for anywhere from 10 to 50 cents a word (which I use to calculate that how many hours to put in so I’m not making less than $10/hour ). If I wasn’t drinking the wine in my parents fridge I wouldn’t be drinking wine at all.
It’s a tough biz. Being a successful freelancer usually involves having a career and contacts already under your belt or approaching the whole thing like a business. One of my journalism profs said it took him two years of solid pitching before he started hearing back from editors, and my photojournalism prof who regularly freelances says during the good periods he eats at restaurants and during the bad ones, ramen noodles. It’s extremely unpredictable, and I’m a person of structure (which is why you get a new entry of this blog every Sunday).
I’m at my desk at nine—the time I would be if I had a “regular” job. I’m working on a story and had just heard back from an editor with things I needed to change. I was waiting for a phone call back from the guy I interviewed so I could fix up the article.
Unfortunately, if people were computers they’d be the kind with an overheated battery: never turning on when you want and always turning off when you don’t. This is fine when you’re getting paid by the hour, but when you’re getting paid by the word, you need to be flexible. This means taking free time when you can get it, not when your boss says you’re free to leave.
After watching my cellphone bathe in sunlight instead of ringing, I realized I was the one that needed a tan. My mom had suggested I take a bike ride, probably noticing the lack of tapping or talking I was doing while sitting in front of my computer. As I thought of putting on bike shorts and heading out for a ride, Corporate Carol popped onto my shoulder.
“What if you miss the phone call?” she snaps, taking a sip of a double frappuccino.
Maybe she was right. I guess I should stay at my computer for office hours.
“What office hours?” says Laid-Back Laura, who obviously wears sweatpants. “All you’re doing is wasting time.”
It is really sunny…
“You’re supposed to be productive,” says Carole. “And productive means staying at your desk for business hours.”
“Productive means being smart with time,” says Laura, who I think is lighting up a tiny joint. “Do you want to be the kind of person who doesn’t enjoy life because they’re afraid….”
Wow. Laura was getting pretty deep, but she managed to drown Carole in her own coffee and get me to put on spandex.
I made a call to my friend and said I was going biking as if I was Pope Benedict confessing to Irish Priests for sex abuse in the church. “Kate. I’m going biking. Because. I. Have. Nothing. To. Do.”
I hang up and join the rest of the people with time to be on the bike path on a Wednesday afternoon: seniors, moms on mat leave, the homeless, and the me’s: people without steady work.
I used to be blind...then I saw the light.
I put on the Forrest Gump soundtrack and follow the path that lines the Ottawa river. The water is sparkling, a homeless man is throwing pinecones at giggling kids and I almost bail on a patch of snow that hasn’t melted.
Somewhere between Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” and Elvis’ “Hound Dog” I realize Laid-back Laura is right. This is fuckin’ fun and I’m not missing anything. Freelancing means taking sunny days when you can and working them when you have to. Being my own boss. I have nothing to feel guilty about. “Aha.”
I used to be blind. Then I saw the light.
I’m just one of the millions of people dealing with making their own structure. At least it’s not after decades at an office job like some. If you’re not a Laid-back Laura or a type-A personality that thinks you’re always right, making choices can be scary. But since virtual offices are the new offices (according to this article by INC, which interviews young, tech-savvy CEO’s over skype who run companies without office space), I’m glad I’m learning early.
When I get back home, I check my phone and find I haven’t missed any calls. Feeling uninspired at my desk, I decide to go to a coffee shop, and tell Carole to fuck off when she said I’d lose time on the travel. NO ONE IS CALLING ME I yelled at her, and then took a toke of whatever Laura was smoking.
By the time the person I needed to speak with called, it was after five, probably the end of his regular work-day. While people around me drank beer for St. Patty’s day on sunny patios, I typed like a madwoman for longer than I should have, probably driving my hourly wage under $10. At ten, I met a friend at a pub, and let him decide when we left. Tomorrow morning, I had nothing to do.
AFTERTHOUGHTS
If you’re planning on going into the freelance biz, here are some tips from my mom, who’s been freelancing since she quit her job working for the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) since (tk). Though she does more editing and consulting than writing, she’s still a pro and this is one of the topics I will take her advice on:
- Always get dressed. If you wear pyjamas you won’t mentally wake-up.
- Exercise. You get contact with people and endorphins. Plus, you can laugh about the people who can’t make the nine o’clock class because they’re in an office.
- Milk your contacts. In her case, she had ten years worth of them from an old job, but be creative and think about who you know.
- Remind yourself that you don’t have to be involved in office politics.
- Remind yourself that you’re not drinking scotch and eating chips at ten p.m. because you just got home and are too stressed and tired to cook. Drink scotch and eat chips because you’ve freed up the time to do it.
Here’s some inspirational music from the Forrest Gump so you can have an epiphany of your own.
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