It was the day I started my first full-time job.
Don't get me wrong, the job was ok. What got to me was the implacable way it swallowed your life, your time, your thoughts. Get up, go to work, come back, eat, go to sleep, get up, go to work, come back, eat., go to sleep., get up.... Its all my life was, all I could see in the future, grey grey grey.
Where was the person I thought I was going to be as an "adult"? What about the extraordinary things I was going to do, the places I was going to go? That person had no place in the dirge of a 9-5 job.
Right, before I go on, I have to make it clear: I am not bashing anyone who works full time. I admire anyone who can make themselves do this, who can keep a job. And I know some people enjoy their full time job etc etc. This post isnt about you, its about me, so dont get ruffled.
But for me, a full-time job just equaled unhappiness. I could cope for 6 months then it would seem my life had no meaning. How can life just be turning up to this one place and shifting papers or whatever, forever? I've had loads of jobs, nursery assistant, teaching assistant, speech and language therapy, admin, customer services, yoga studio lackey. But every time I would feel this bursting sense of restlessness and claustrophobia.
In 2009 I started my PhD with a view to getting a job which was well paid enough to let me work part time and not be skint. But that didnt work out. PhD fell through and I found myself unemployed and sans direction, again. Last year was one of the hardest and most miserable I have had, but two good things came out of it. I hit a low and had an epiphany:
I WILL DO ANYTHING TO NOT FEEL THIS MISERABLE EVER AGAIN! I CANNOT LIVE LIKE THIS ANY MORE!
The other was, I started working for myself with burlesque stuff, out of necessity, but over 8 months I developed it into a liveable wage, and I realised I need to be self-employed. I realised I had to stop limiting myself with what I "should" be doing. Somewhere along the line, I was taught that jobs had to be at least a bit of a bugger, but that paying the bills was the thing to focus on. I learned to beat myself up cos I just couldnt be satisfied with 9-5. And last year I unlearned that.
I am never more miserable than when I have been in a full time job, in a workplace, for about 4 months. Truth. I hate skintness and uncertainty but I would choose them every time over the above, in order to get freedom, creativity, independence and variety in my work. And boy, have I endured skintness and uncertainty!
But I love what I do, its insane how much I love doing shows. They do my nut in too, of course, and the stress levels can be high, but I am so lucky to do it and earn money from it. A girl at my last hen party commented on my luckiness, and I was really stuck on how to reply. So much of our bonding and identity comes from complaining about work and the idea of the "noble long-suffering employee", if you have a job you love that doesnt involve the usual dirge, you feel a bit stuck!
So basically, I think you can have it all, if you really work at it. It might not be exactly what you envisaged, and it may be harder than you thought, but you can have a creative job that you love. You just have to have balls of steel regarding cash flow and future plans. I have fought for years with the ideas forced on me about work, and only now, out of professional and financial catastrophe, do I rise like a self-employed phoenix to give a flaming finger to everyone who suggested to me that I should just get a crappy job and find my fulfillment outside of work hours. When you are sitting in your house watching Strictly, I am gigging, when you are having a Saturday afternoon pint at the pub, I am teaching borderline hostile and lary hens, when you are tucked up in your bed, I am enduring a god-awful road trip on the night-time motorway, when you are commuting to work, I am desperately seeking my next paid job, and when you are watching your savings grow and planning your holidays and your house purchase, I am worrying about how to pay the rent cos my latest invoice hasnt come through. But I love it, I was born to be self-employed, and its right for me.
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