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I'm late to this thread, but I hope you read this: If you go freelance, watch the fuck out. This post reads like you're depressed with the direction of your l
by RickS 9y ago
I'm late to this thread, but I hope you read this:
If you go freelance, watch the fuck out.
This post reads like you're depressed with the direction of your life, and are bucketing the causes into your workplace because it's intellectually easy to do.
I don't mean that to be disparaging - I say it with authority because I do it too, and your post reads exactly like the monologue that runs through my head every day.
I was a freelancer for many years. It's 85% pipeline management - networking, lining up your next gigs months in advance, and tending to relationships with existing customers to turn them into repeat customers. The actual "do the work" part is trivially simple in comparison.
The personality types that write posts like these tend to do poorly with the high-extroversion high-orderliness traits that make or break a successful freelancing career.
Be extremely fearful of the scenario where you quit your job with spite in ambition's clothing, and find yourself struggling to make money because you thought that making money freelancing was about output, not network.
My advice? Talk to somebody professional and really do an insanely deep autopsy on why you hate working the way you do. I think there are hard answers to be unearthed.
Now if only I could take the advice I'm writing to myself as much as I am to you...
- vanderreeah 9y agoI know your comment is well-meaning, and the warning about the necessity of networking is sound, but I think you're projecting a little. It seems presumptuous to read irrationality (i.e. something unexamined in his psyche, which is what I take you to mean when you talk about seeing a professional) into what seems to me to be a 100% sane assessment of his situation. Nothing could be a more accurate picture of most of our working lives than the OP's post: spending 48 weeks a year in the offices of a company getting richer from our energy expenditure, an expenditure which in any just society would benefit us, or at least benefit us and others in equitable proportions. He shouldn't feel personal pride in that, he shouldn't feel happy that his boss is profiting from overtime, he should feel miserable at this situation. It's a miserable situation to be in, and most of us are in it.
- amiuba 9y ago> a 100% sane assessment of his situation. Nothing could be a more accurate picture of most of our working lives than the OP's post To be fair, it is extremely hard to tell, even for me (OP). Sometimes I feel like I'm nuts because everyone else seems to get by and just deal with it. Am I so special or fragile that I can't just suck it up and do like everyone else? No matter what angle I look at it though, I don't see how this could not make anyone at least a little bit sick. Spending 40 years (or 10 years if you're aiming for FI) using your life and health away to make some stranger even richer while the best you can hope for is keeping your job. It's absurd, and I can't understand how a lifetime of taking one for the team doesn't make people revolt. But maybe we're the crazy ones because we're the minority, and can't adapt. I honestly don't know and struggle with this question.
- vanderreeah 9y agoI can't comment on the sanity of adaptation - it may well be the most expedient reaction. But your original description of the relative economic positions of worker and employer, and of who accrues the most benefit from the energy expenditure of the worker (hint: it's not the worker), is just simple 20/20 clarity. Not even the most conservative economist could disagree with it. To adapt to this seems an act akin to Stockholm syndrome, but to struggle with it, though perhaps more clear-minded, is also unlikely to bring happiness. But once you've seen what you've seen, you can't unsee it.
- amiuba 9y ago> But once you've seen what you've seen, you can't unsee it. What do you do then?
- vanderreeah 9y agoI do not know. But there are of course millions of people in our position. I suppose any possible solution can only come from the only strength we have, which is the knowledge of our shared, common situation. EDIT: Jesus I sound pompous sometimes...
- RickS 9y agoI never said it was irrational. I believe it's extraordinarily rational, if a bit narrowly scoped. I'm a big fan of depressive realism. However, I also believe that this can be accurate of your life (let's be honest, it's accurate of 80%+ of people's lives) and yet not be a cause of constant misery. This seems to be the case for many people, who have much harder jobs than the average HN type and yet are quite happy. I think getting to that state is a route worth exploring. Unexplored areas of the psyche and rational situational assessment are not at all mutually exclusive. They get along just fine.