There are a lot of posts in this sub about how awful it is to work bullshit jobs for crap money under overbearing and unreasonable bosses. I wanted to share a more positive antiwork story just for variety, and maybe to offer a little bit of hope.
I (48f) spent my whole adult life until the pandemic thinking that unless you're very privileged or highly educated, most people will have to work at shitty jobs they hate until they die. Myself included. Made me want to speed the process along TBH.
When I got laid off and “stay home” was trending, everything changed for me. I did stay home. But I still needed something to do. So I farted around. I learned some new skills, returned to some old ones. Eventually started doing favors for friends (building websites) in trade for things like haircuts and toilet paper.
Pretty soon people were giving me money for those things. Not much, but enough to get by, and more than I was making in the job that laid me off.
When they called me back to work, I said no. Then they invited me to write my own job description and salary expectation and I still said no. I realized I had somehow crossed over into a whole new world of possibilities. I had no bosses, only clients and collaborators. And even though I had less money due to working only a few hours a week, I was way happier. Like actually happy – not depressed, not anxious. I decided I will never have a boss again – life is too short. And I'll never waste my time on meaningless work again.
Today I hit a major milestone. I've just finished a $10K consulting contract (100 hours or so) in the exact same thing I would be doing if I didn't have to worry about money at all. And I'm just buzzing. I've invented a whole new career path for myself, that doesn't really exist anywhere outside of what I offered to my clients and then delivered.
On top of that I went from plugging in lights for a living to having a series I co-produced with a friend coming out on TV next month.
It's like as soon as I decided “fuck work, never going back”, the skies just opened up and offered me a whole new pathway to economic freedom that doesn't involve working for wages at all.
I don't know who I can really share this feeling with. It's a lot to process. But I thought it might interest some of you and give you hope or inspiration. It's not crazy to believe you can get out. I'm privileged in that I don't have kids or debts, but I'm not and never have been rich.