OK, I’m back! I’ve not been ill in a very long time and that flu really knocked me out; every time I thought I was getting over it it would hit me again and I was back to the Night Nurse.
It’s times like the past fortnight that highlight the downside of freelance…if you don’t work you don’t get paid. So I dragged my diseased self to my computer monitor everyday because there was no way I was going to take two weeks of unpaid time off if I wasn’t going to be spending it on a beach somewhere balmy with a large fruity cocktail in my hand. On the whole, freelance is a positive experience: I’m a pretty easygoing boss. I’m not picky about punctuality, if I decide to start work at 11am instead of 10 then that’s just peachy. If I hit a wall at 1pm and feel like having an extended lunch break then I take myself off to the beach or go play with my daughter and nobody gives me any dirty looks. If I get through a lot of animation and finish up at 3pm then I pack up and go downstairs and nobody gives me “the talk” about being a teamplayer and staying late with everyone else for the sake of team solidarity.
On the other hand, communicating with workmates via MSN can be kind of lonely compared to long chats over the desks, especially when they all sign off to go to the pub on Thursday evening with a long weekend ahead of them.
Am I the only one working today?
5 replies on “Back In The Saddle”
NO, you are not the only one. I”m at my desk finishing off somehting I really should have looked at over the weekend. I hope that helps. I am off to the gym now and you’re right, no one can give me any gip about it. See? It’s all good.
Here I am, checking in from work! No rest for the wicked 😉 I’d love to do freelance work from home. I’m really not much for the whole intra-office political game, and love to self-direct. I guess that’s part of why I’d love to make a living off of writing novels!
I’m working too…I totally connect with you about being freelance…holidays, weekends etc all blur when I’m on a deadline…But I would be a terrible employee at this stage so there’s no going back for me 🙂
Claire,
It’s the way of the world for our generation – I love working from home and am getting very protective of it. They would have to pay me a bunch more before I would consider going back to the office. I love seeing my kids in the morning, at lunch and dinner. The commute to work is easy (ok…tripping over toys gets on my nerves!)and if the baby is up at 2am and I can’t sleep, I’ll get a few hours work done!! The only thing I need to remember about that is, my buyers are not necessarily up at that time as well. I feel a story coming on…..not too long ago I was doing a fax blast to my customers – the next morning I got a call from a groggy buyer to say her fax was in her house and she heard it ring and it kept her up the rest of the night!! Oops!!
Claire,
I’m just catching up. I too was working on Monday, bank holiday. The particular piece of work I was doing didn’t have a client. Probably will never have a client. But it was hard going all the same. I had to fit in the work around a walk by Lahinch beach, pushing a Stokke which contained a child whose legs pumped faster than the wind.
My office was the sky because every so often I’d stop and write some more in my note book. I got two scenes in my first play completed on that promenade.
A while ago, I went back to an office in an organisation after 7 years running my own business. I was surprised how much I enjoyed the company. The ever-full intray was a bit of a bind though.
But it was also good to get away from that again. I think I’m a bit of a project-worker.
Stuart, I love that fax story.