English
Self(un)Employed, One Month In
31/07/07 12:36 Filed in: Work
I went
into the unknown of self-employment tremulously: Would I make ends
meet? Would I meet my own end? Would meat end in my refrigerator?
Would the whole thing spiral into shame, debt and terribly broken
analogies?
I’m happy to report that while I have been driven to a few new extremes, the bills have been paid and life is fresh and interesting. Being handed cash at the end of nearly every lesson is a blunt reminder that I just exchanged my time for a very distinct number of credits. At all of my previous jobs, I walked in, laboured for several hours and staggered home. The two week and one month pay schedules, I have become convinced, are designed to divorce the notion of money from time spent. If people were paid every evening they’d look at their meager fistful of dollars and say, eight hours of hell for the price of a couple cases of beer? This has to change! The discreet envelope every two weeks, or worse, the bank transfer, make payday feel like salvation, as workers with threadbare accounts raise grateful eyes to “he who doleth out weekend beer month.”
The bulk of my time is spend in cheapo classes, mainly because I will take nearly anything at this point. They don’t amount to much per hour, but together they add up to a substantial sum and the hourly wage is better than Aeon, although my travel time between lessons subtracts from that. On the other hand, a few lessons are so ridiculously more lucrative that they are accounting for as much, if not more, thank the scraps here and there. It makes for a strange experience, getting a raise and a paycut alternately, going from class to class.
But that awareness of time = variable amounts of money has been quite valuable. On the other hand, I’ve had a few negative experiences: bicycle roadrage as I spend about 2 hours on my bike a day, tightwad students that require reminding when it is time to pay, no days off, and general uncertainty. I suppose I can transform those situations into positives: daily exercise is good for me, I’ll drop the tightwads eventually as I gain better paying customers, a lack of days off is my own poor scheduling decisions, and uncertainty, well, anyone who needs certainty might as well have one foot in the grave already, because that’s about as much certainty as any of us get.
The question, invariably, when I say I worked 15.5 hours last week (not including prep and travel, which pushes it up to about 25 hours) is: “What do you do with all that free time?” The answer - fix the damage done by my fucked work schedule these last two years. I have been cooking and eating more balanced, regular meals. I’ve been reclaiming time for reflection. I’ve published a new article and written most of another one. I’ve been reading four books at the same time. Scratch that, five. I’ve been working on finding new work and better paying work. I’ve participated in a 1200 year old festival and organized my house at last. I’ve declared war against all jumping spiders and cockroaches. I’ve woken early to dawn and the sun alighting upon the tops of gravestones.
It hasn’t all been good, if I am going to lump the cockroaches into the “good” paragraph. I’ve become reacquainted with loneliness. I’ve suffered numerous rejections to my requests to hang out from people far more busy than I am. I’ve been bummed out that a few of those “busy”s have really meant, “not interested pal.” And perhaps most importantly, I have had to take a serious step back from my highspeed—always a tad late—snarling at people with shrieking bicycles—daily commute.
All that said, I am really happy to be done with Aeon and to be on my own. It is liberating and challenging at the same time. Stay tuned.
I’m happy to report that while I have been driven to a few new extremes, the bills have been paid and life is fresh and interesting. Being handed cash at the end of nearly every lesson is a blunt reminder that I just exchanged my time for a very distinct number of credits. At all of my previous jobs, I walked in, laboured for several hours and staggered home. The two week and one month pay schedules, I have become convinced, are designed to divorce the notion of money from time spent. If people were paid every evening they’d look at their meager fistful of dollars and say, eight hours of hell for the price of a couple cases of beer? This has to change! The discreet envelope every two weeks, or worse, the bank transfer, make payday feel like salvation, as workers with threadbare accounts raise grateful eyes to “he who doleth out weekend beer month.”
The bulk of my time is spend in cheapo classes, mainly because I will take nearly anything at this point. They don’t amount to much per hour, but together they add up to a substantial sum and the hourly wage is better than Aeon, although my travel time between lessons subtracts from that. On the other hand, a few lessons are so ridiculously more lucrative that they are accounting for as much, if not more, thank the scraps here and there. It makes for a strange experience, getting a raise and a paycut alternately, going from class to class.
But that awareness of time = variable amounts of money has been quite valuable. On the other hand, I’ve had a few negative experiences: bicycle roadrage as I spend about 2 hours on my bike a day, tightwad students that require reminding when it is time to pay, no days off, and general uncertainty. I suppose I can transform those situations into positives: daily exercise is good for me, I’ll drop the tightwads eventually as I gain better paying customers, a lack of days off is my own poor scheduling decisions, and uncertainty, well, anyone who needs certainty might as well have one foot in the grave already, because that’s about as much certainty as any of us get.
The question, invariably, when I say I worked 15.5 hours last week (not including prep and travel, which pushes it up to about 25 hours) is: “What do you do with all that free time?” The answer - fix the damage done by my fucked work schedule these last two years. I have been cooking and eating more balanced, regular meals. I’ve been reclaiming time for reflection. I’ve published a new article and written most of another one. I’ve been reading four books at the same time. Scratch that, five. I’ve been working on finding new work and better paying work. I’ve participated in a 1200 year old festival and organized my house at last. I’ve declared war against all jumping spiders and cockroaches. I’ve woken early to dawn and the sun alighting upon the tops of gravestones.
It hasn’t all been good, if I am going to lump the cockroaches into the “good” paragraph. I’ve become reacquainted with loneliness. I’ve suffered numerous rejections to my requests to hang out from people far more busy than I am. I’ve been bummed out that a few of those “busy”s have really meant, “not interested pal.” And perhaps most importantly, I have had to take a serious step back from my highspeed—always a tad late—snarling at people with shrieking bicycles—daily commute.
All that said, I am really happy to be done with Aeon and to be on my own. It is liberating and challenging at the same time. Stay tuned.
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