4 ms·

key bit: working 6-8 hours a week call back when you have to work a real job. whiny idiot.

RobGR 18y ago
The tone of the article is not whiny. For a freelancer, or for a person doing a bootstap startup, a job that only requires one day a week is wonderful. It provides a baseline of income, hopefully a decent bit of social interaction, and one consideration for a serial entrepreneur or freelancer, is that it provides a way for you to accumulate social security disability benefits. One of the biggest downsides of being a freelancer is that a safety net is either non-existent or much more expensive. Eight hours a week at retail clerk wages may not seem like much, but I think one of the things YC has shown is that it doesn't take much money to do some pretty awesome things. I'd be interested to know if anyone here has experience or advice on "sustance" type jobs that provide ramen and rent while not taking up so much time that you can't work on your main project. I'm not looking for such a thing now, since freelancing is more than paying the bills at the moment, but things can change quickly.
blackguardx 18y ago
As a former freelance consultant, I can tell you that it gets very lonely and disorienting. It's like being unemployed. I often had no idea what day of the week it was. I sympathize with the author. Her one day a week retail job allows her to get much more work done in her freelance gig. If I ever went back to freelancing, I would seriously consider getting a "normal" job one day a week to keep me grounded.
- nazgulnarsil 18y ago
  you say that you didn't know what day of the week it was as if it was a bug and not a feature. what better metric of freedom is there than the fact that you are no longer subject to the whims of other people's schedules? And to the point where you don't even have to know what day it is. What is the week but an arbitrary way of keeping track of working time?

RobGR 18y ago

The tone of the article is not whiny. For a freelancer, or for a person doing a bootstap startup, a job that only requires one day a week is wonderful. It provides a baseline of income, hopefully a decent bit of social interaction, and one consideration for a serial entrepreneur or freelancer, is that it provides a way for you to accumulate social security disability benefits. One of the biggest downsides of being a freelancer is that a safety net is either non-existent or much more expensive. Eight hours a week at retail clerk wages may not seem like much, but I think one of the things YC has shown is that it doesn't take much money to do some pretty awesome things. I'd be interested to know if anyone here has experience or advice on "sustance" type jobs that provide ramen and rent while not taking up so much time that you can't work on your main project. I'm not looking for such a thing now, since freelancing is more than paying the bills at the moment, but things can change quickly.

blackguardx 18y ago

As a former freelance consultant, I can tell you that it gets very lonely and disorienting. It's like being unemployed. I often had no idea what day of the week it was. I sympathize with the author. Her one day a week retail job allows her to get much more work done in her freelance gig. If I ever went back to freelancing, I would seriously consider getting a "normal" job one day a week to keep me grounded.

nazgulnarsil 18y ago
you say that you didn't know what day of the week it was as if it was a bug and not a feature. what better metric of freedom is there than the fact that you are no longer subject to the whims of other people's schedules? And to the point where you don't even have to know what day it is. What is the week but an arbitrary way of keeping track of working time?