Every so often – not so much these days as it used to be – I find myself talking to someone just on the starting end of self-employment. Newbies are always cute. You see the younger version of yourself. They say and ask all the same things you used to say, and much of it boils down to a single question: how long before I can stop worrying about the day-to-day stuff?
And the answer, of course, is you never can. Stability is temporary, fleeting and often illusory. Clients go. Projects change. Checks arrive when they arrive. The bills relentlessly show up in a steady flood. Often everything doesn’t perfectly line up. And sometimes you have to think fast.
We had a moment like that this week.
Our biggest client – they were responsible for more than half of our billables last year – had an unexpected and serious staff shakeup this week, and we lost our primary contact over there. No one saw it coming, and now there’s a cloud over the whole work group as everyone wonders if they’ll be next. We’re in a somewhat different place as an outside contractor; you can’t really get fired per se, but the phone can certainly stop ringing. Work can stop flowing. Invoices can get caught up in red tape. Things can happen.
So far so good. A few days into the new regime, there’s been little indication that our relationship with this client is in any jeopardy. But we’ve had many what-if conversations. Planning to plan. Taking stock, thinking out the angles. A lot can happen in the coming weeks and months as this situation continues to unfold, and it’s back to day-by-day again.
But then, day-to-day is what it’s always been. That’s the deal. For me, it’s been day-to-day now for over ten years.
Back in 2003 or thereabouts, as I was the struggling newbie, I spent a lot of time reading the writings of a guy named Tom Myer, a technical copywriter who did pretty much what we do today. He wrote an article that I clipped and kept around, called “The Tao of Freelancing”. Part of it went like this:
Know that as a freelancer, especially a freelance copywriter, that you will have deadlines, and with deadlines, come stress and late hours. Know also that you can choose to take the day off if you want to (or need to) and enjoy time with friends and family.
That you will have times of abundant work, when you won’t be able to beat the clients off with a stick; also, times where you wonder if the world of economics even exists where you live.
That you’ll have clients that love everything you do, no questions asked, and pay generously and on time; and that you’ll have the chiselers who second-guess you every step of the way and find ways to extend net 15 invoices out to 120 days and only respond to a subpoena.
That it can mean travel to exotic places working for high-profile clients on exciting projects; or it can mean learning the intricacies of setting up QuickBooks in order to streamline the way you handle money.
That your small investment of money and huge investment of energy and time might be rewarded by the universe, giving you financial stability and spiritual comfort; and that everything you do might turn to dust for any number of reasons, all of which are outside your knowledge or control.
The only thing I know is this: that freelancing is a narrow path beside that great cyclical river; that many wish to walk this path; that only a few really do; and even fewer do it well enough to find out where it leads.
The path offers many entrances and even more blind alleys, exit ramps, and pitfalls, and sometimes, the best that can be said is that you had the privilege to walk along it for what seemed too short a time.
If you’re already a freelancer, then look around you at all the others who share this path. We are the fortunate ones, the ones who are really awake, if at least only for a mere moment.
Damned right, true every word. On weeks like this, I think a lot about the path beside the river, before knuckling under and getting back to work.