So first things first: Im in my mid 30s, i dont have any serious financial obligations like kids or a mortgage, just expensive brooklyn rent and im on medicare because NY has somewhat comprehensive public healthcare.
That out of the way, man oh man, I missed being a freelancer. Prior to taking my previous job, I was a freelancer but due to bizarre circumstances where a few of my biggest clients went under all around the same time, work had dried up significantly and I was on the verge of literal financial ruin.
At that time, I swallowed my pride and ended up taking a full time job at a company, which at first seemed good. As time went on of course it proved to be kind of a shit gig between the pretty low pay generally but especially considering the degree of extreme labor that entirely violated nearly every OSHA rule imaginable (and i would know as Im OSHA-10 certified). Unfortunately (or fortunately) I stood up for myself and fellow coworkers to the slave driver of a boss we had for asking us to do something completely unreasonable and apparently this was enough for them to let me go.
Fortunately, I had already been laying the ground work to phase that job out by picking up new clients and near immediately I had work booked all through the following two months. In those two months, ive made what I would have made at the previous job in about 6 months. All while on my terms for wages I negotiated and on hours that are far less time and labor intensive. (And on weeks where i dont work, collecting unemployment cuz fuck those people). Basically At this point I kind of only work when i want/need to and usually its only 2-3 days a week to make ends meet.
The trade off of course is that Im inherently in a precarious position given that work could always dry up as its never guaranteed clients will need something when you need them to hire you. That said, Id rather the freedom of that precariousness than the misery of job security. Theres an old quote that reads “those who would trade freedom for security will have neither” and that underpins alot of how I think about work.
Now obviously freelancing isnt perfect. Indeed and again, work isnt guaranteed but short of unionized worker ownership and liberated labor, freelancing is to my mind the next best thing while still struggling under neoliberal capitalism. Its also worth remembering that the deeply cynical legacy of the obama regime was to normalize the highly precarious and often illegal “gig economy”, so take this evaluation of freelancing with a grain of salt in line with your personal values.
I fucking hate work and to my mind we shouldnt have to do it. Labor, sure, but work as a specific commodified expression of labor? Fuck that. It’s cartoonishly absurd that global society is organized along the rules of a game where the prize is not dying, rather than a sober world crafted by adults that recognize society is literally definitionally pointless if people’s needs arent being met. Capitalism is barbarism and neoliberal capitalism has by far and away exceeded even the wildest oppressive aspirations of any 20th century authoritarian regime. It is truly a cynical and deeply offensive affront to the miracle of being human for the short time we have where theres nothing after this and we’ll never do it again.
That rant/context in mind, my partner and therapist have independent of one another said im noticeably lighter since returning to freelancing and I have to concur. At the end of the day, while freelancing is certainly more precarious and while there of course is no autonomy, no agency and no liberty—which should be understood as limitlessly distinct from freedom—under capitalism, Id rather have a client than a boss any day of the week.
A client signs a check for you and thats basically it, a boss—human and fallible as anyone is—can decide whether or not you can make rent and eat. You work with clients, you work for bosses
Fuck bosses, fuck capitalism and fuck “security”.