I’ve been working for myself (either fully, or alongside employment) for over four years now. I like to think that I’ve got to grips with what it entails to work for yourself, be your own boss, rock the entrepeneur lifestyle etc etc.
My “desk” yesterday. Note the remnants of the kid’s breakfast to the right of my diary.
Of course, I’m talking out of my bum.
It’s not all ‘pant suits and heels’, working 4 hour weeks and jetting off around the world to luxurious locations every month. It’s more like working in your underpants til noon to save time getting dressed and regularly clocking in at 11pm to meet a deadline the following day. (But I took the kids to Wales in August if that counts as luxurious.)
Don’t get me wrong, working in my pants is a pretty big advantage to self-employment, and I like being able to work on what I want with people I want to work with (within reason), but it’s not all unicorn farts and glitter.
One of the biggest cons to being my own boss is not having any back-up if something goes wrong. And that “something” is usually mental health related: because if I’m having a bad-PMDD month and can’t drag my butt out of bed to even put pants on, what do I do?
It sometimes means I let clients down, and I’ve lost projects AND even clients because of it. And I’m not sure how to say to a client “sorry, I couldn’t work on your thing because I was in bed” without sounding like a lazy arse.
I’m learning to juggle. It’s taken a long time but I’m getting there. If my anxiety keeps me bedridden one day, I let the client know I’m otherwise engaged and I get up at 5am the next day to catch up. If the thought of a phone call induces a panic attack I e-mail and rearrange. If the brain fog descends and I can’t think straight, I adjust timescales with clients and then power through some basic admin or schedule social media posts.
The important thing through all of this (and I’ve learned this the hard way) is always to keep the client up to date. I don’t have to tell them I’m basically insane, I just need to manage their expectations and communicate my intentions. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned — both working for myself and for others — is that a client who knows what’s going on is MUCH more flexible than a client left in the dark. Sometimes I just have to accept that I’m not working at my best and accept the bollocking that comes along with it.
At the end of the day though… you can’t beat working in your pants.
21 Sep at 1:18 pm
You need some right-padding on .entry-content to stop it crashing into your sidebar.
21 Sep at 1:23 pm
As mentioned in the previous entry, there’s some temporary issues with themes while I deal with a Google-related issue.
But thanks for leaving a completely irrelevant comment.
23 Sep at 4:33 pm
LOL love the snark. I’m glad you’re still blogging (cough, unlike me), since it’s always reassuring to read about your (mis)adventures. I have the same issues, where I just get randomly super discouraged and then beef so major opportunity. Sigh!
22 Sep at 3:08 pm
as we’re being mega picky, I think you’ll find it’s ‘padding-right’
22 Sep at 4:46 pm
Also, as a front-end dev, I’d go with margin-right if you want to push an element away from another element.
21 Sep at 2:11 pm
Yes! Everything is about managing expectations! That goes SUCH a long way in smoothing things over. 👍🏼👍🏼