Mental Meanderings

As many of you already know, the last day of my contract with my current employer is next Friday, June 4th. So what come’s next, you ask? Well, even I can’t answer that with a specific answer right now, but I have some pretty big ideas for myself. Before I even found out that my contract had ended, I was pursuing side jobs as a freelance writer, blogger, and creating SEO & SEM articles for internet marketing agencies and their clients. I was already working for for one agency by the time I heard the news, and in the past couple of weeks, without even trying, I have several potential clients who have either already committed to working with me or with whom I’m currently having discussions about potential work.  And it all feels perfectly natural: the work that I’m doing, the interactions with clients, the lack of an office… it all feels right. There has actually been enough interest in my work that Chris has recommended I back off on pursuing more clients. “Back off?” I asked him, “But I haven’t even started looking yet!”

All of this is great news for me, and I really believe that I can turn what I had intended to be a “side hustle” into a full time career. I had never really considered working for myself until Chris & I moved to Phoenix, but I’ve been absorbing information about it from the people I’ve met through attending events like LaidOffCamp. There are honestly too many people to mention as influences, but three major ones for me are Susan Baier, Erik Proulx, & Pam Slim. They have shown me that, while it’s not easy working for yourself, it is rewarding in a much different way than working for a corporation could ever be. I just haven’t ever felt much excitement in working for a corporation and carrying out someone elses ideas while being treated like a number. Not that it’s a bad thing for everyone; I just don’t really think it’s for me. Not anymore. I love the perks of working out of my home, and maybe occasionally visiting my client’s worksites. I can choose my own work hours (except when there’s an urgent deadline), I can work in my bathrobe if I choose, and there are no annoying coworkers to deal with. Unless I decide that I need some work companionship, and then I can visit one of our great, area co-working establishments, like Gangplank. But it’s all on my terms, and that’s what I love most. I’m not working for a company where I have to sit at a desk for 8 hours per day in an environment that makes me unhappy.

Corporate offices have always made me miserable. I am very particular, almost to a fault, about my surroundings. I loathe florescent lighting, climate control that is not under my control, uncomfortable office chairs, lack of windows & natural light, weird coworkers sneaking and startling me for their amusement… I could go on and on. But what I hate the most is the routine. Some people love routine, but I get bored very easily with my work. The opportunity to have multiple clients, frequently changing projects, and a flexible, ever-changing schedule is something I want to seize while I have the chance. Sure, there will still be boring stuff to work on at times, but working on that boring stuff on my couch, at a coffee shop, or at a co-working facility is a lot more appealing to me than working on boring stuff in an office building.

I am more excited than I can truly express about being an independent contractor, but that didn’t stop the pit that formed in my stomach a couple hours ago when I sent a regret email to a corporation who wanted to interview me for an in-house writer/editor position. The feeling was a perfectly normal one, of course, but still not easy to deal with. One moment I’m seeing endless opportunity for myself and the next moment I’m questioning if I’m making a mistake. Am I passing up a great opportunity or career move? Should I have done it for the insurance? Should I have done it for the job security (what little there is left in corporations anymore), or the fact that I’d receive a regular paycheck? Those are all good reasons to have pursued the job, but I realized that the bottom line was that I just wouldn’t be happy. I’ve skipped from one corporate office to another over the past 10+ years and wasn’t truly happy at any of them.

So, with the support of my husband, I’m going to venture into this scary, but very exciting, world of freelance writing and see where I end up in a few months. I may fail (that’s always a possibility), but I’m already doing rather well and, as I said above, I haven’t even really tried yet! Plus, I know that even if I do end up having problems that cause me to suck up my pride and slink back to the corporate office building, I’ll have gained a lot of wisdom from the experience.

With that, I close this session of Mental Meanderings with a rather topical quote from one of my favorite writers, Hunter S. Thompson:

“Who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?”