I’ve gone legit, and it’s still taking me some time to get used to it.
Legit. A “real” job. One where you get up in the morning and have to go to and sit at a desk even if you don’t have anything to do, and go to meetings that for the most part are pretty pointless. Just the other day I was sitting in a meeting where there seemed to be a lot of extra people. It seemed to me all we needed were the account person, the designer, and me, the writer. But we had a few marketing people in there, and even some people from strategy and analysis. I like to count up the people and multiply that number by what I estimate their salaries to be to figure out exactly what a one-hour meeting costs the company, and therefore the client. When you’ve been in business for yourself, it’s not easy to stop equating everything to either what it’s costing you, or what you’re making. You’re either making money or spending it. There’s no in-between.
There are people, nice people, called bosses who tell me what to do. When I freelanced no one told me what to do. I did whatever I wanted. I looked for work and sometimes I’d find work with people who I didn’t like or the work wasn’t so much fun, so I’d charge a little more for the bother, and I knew the project would soon be over. I figured I could put up with just about anything for the duration of the project.
People say I now have a full-time job, but freelancing was full-time. And people assume because I was freelancing that I wasn’t making any money, although now I make only a little bit more at the “real” job than I did freelancing. But now the money’s steady. The hardest part about freelance writing is getting paid for the work. The next hardest thing is finding the work. But getting paid is definitely the hardest. Putting words together is the easiest thing in the world, for a writer. But sometimes I’d be floating thousands of dollars. It’s not that people stiffed me. I actually had really good clients, good people. It’s just that some corporations have policies about billing. It has to do with the IRS and the government’s definition of freelance and contract. When you’re in business for yourself you quickly learn the IRS is not your friend. On paper, it looked like I had money, but another thing you learn real fast when you’re in business for yourself is that cash in hand is all that matters. I started charging advances on large projects, and I began billing some clients weekly, telling them other clients liked the flexibility it offered and how it gave them a more up-to-date idea of what they were spending. Businesspeople like flexibility, and having information up-to-date, so they believed me, but all I was just trying to do is keep a steady flow of money coming in.
A legitimate job makes some things in life a little easier. When you’re freelancing, if you don’t work, you don’t get paid. Now I get paid for holidays, so I’m getting paid along with the rest of the world that isn’t working, too. And I get paid for a vacation, but only two weeks accrued at the end of a year. Two weeks out of a whole year isn't a lot. And your bosses have to approve when you can take your two weeks. It's like being in kindergarten and having to raise your hand to go to the bathroom. I also get a few personal days in case I have to get a filling or my truck worked on, I guess.
When I was freelancing, I could take time off whenever I needed it—in the middle of the day to do something with one of my kids; I could take time to run errands, and I could spend Sunday nights at Sue’s on the Cape so we had three nights in a row together, and I could drive home Monday morning without it affecting business. What I really miss is stopping in the middle of the day and playing the guitar, just for about twenty minutes or so. I love playing, and it was a reward I’d give myself for accomplishing something. It also clears my mind, so I’d go back to work refreshed.
Sometimes I’d get kind of lonely working by myself. I’d work at keeping in touch with people, like instigating email strings. And I’d call people. You can get a little squirrelly working by yourself. I really like the people I work with now. Creative, talented people — the kind that work at this agency — motivate and inspire you to be creative yourself. I suppose I do that for them, too. I don’t know.
And I like riding the train everyday to work. Riding trains is fun. It’s like riding a bike; if you’re open to it, it makes you feel like a little kid. And riding the train gives me time to read. I love to read, but before didn’t have a lot of time to read. Now I do. I also like working in the city. There’s more to do, and more to see that stimulates my mind. There’s also more to spend money on, and I have to watch that.
The thing I don’t like is the loss of freedom that I had. I’m not a man who does well when he’s feeling he’s being told what to do. Ask me to do anything, and I’ll do it for you in a heartbeat. Just don’t tell me. I guess I wouldn’t have done very well in the army. But I’ve put myself in a position in life where I have certain responsibilities for other people. I’m talking about my kids. But it’s a double-edged sword, because I gave up a lot of time with my kids — and Sue — to make sure things are more stable. I guess the big question is: What price is stability?
No comments:
Post a Comment