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Dear Ed archive

December 2008

Dear Ed

How do you cope with the insecurity of freelancing? Is it stressful?
Dave

Dear Dave

Is freelancing stressful? Of course it is. But it's not insecure; it just lacks the illusion of security cultivated by most 'permanent' jobs. And before you start thinking my brain's gone wobbly, let me share a real-life fable.

Last week I came to the end of a job I'd been working on for eight months and I had nothing booked until July 2009; nothing, not a jot. I was feeling apprehensive, to put it mildly. Then I bumped into M—, a colleague from my teaching days. M— had a black cloud over her head. She'd just been told that her employer, Big Entity, was going to retrench 270 people.

After exchanging retrenchment stories, M— asked me what I was doing these days. Who did I work for? How did I find work? 'It must be great being freelance,' she said. 'You can work when you want to.'

Now that's not entirely true; freelancers pretty much have to work when the work is there. But the contrast in our positions couldn't have been greater. M— was feeling insecure despite holding down a job with Big Entity for 18 years (which to me seemed like an eternity) and I was feeling despondent because I had no immediate work. Yet if M— and I were both temporarily without income, I could generate my own income and M— would be dependent on finding someone to pay her a wage.

I thought about that morning's work. I'd made three phone calls in search of work; I had a hint of work in four weeks' time that I needed to chase up; I had one mention of possible work 'if we decide to outsource'; I'd emailed my editing CV to a potential new client; and I'd posted off a collection of writing samples.

Nothing I'd done that morning had produced any income, but I knew it would pay off in weeks or months to come. I actually felt that I was more secure than M– because I wasn't expecting anyone to pay me a wage on a regular basis.

Happy trails