And then I became a contractor - Part I

For years my brother-in-law has been telling me I need to go into business for myself. For years I’ve nodded my head and said, “Yes, yes, you’re right.” And then I’d set my alarm for 5:30 a.m., get up and walk with my friend Susana around the lake, come home and get ready for work, wake my daughter and get her ready for school, take her to school and then drag my ass to the office to work for someone else.

I did that for decades.

In that time I worked in the marketing department of a smallish local bank, a blue ribbon economic development committee that gave the City of LA a blueprint for future economic health, built the first marketing and communications department in a non-profit business accelerator for science and technology startups, sat on two boards for two different arts organizations, bought my first house and sang Baroque music on occasion.

I worked for other people, like I always have.

When I first quit my job, I networked by scheduling walks, breakfasts and lunches with folks I wanted to touch base with and let them know I was available. On one of these meetings I was walking with a colleague who was about the same age as me, and had been running her own consulting practice for several years. She asked why I didn’t go into business for myself and become a consultant.

It’s not like I hadn’t thought of it before, but I had a ton of reasons to talk myself out of it. Such as, it seemed like a lot of work to just get started. There was so much to learn. I’d be vulnerable financially. I didn’t know what to do with my taxes. And finally, which I didn’t share, it scared the hell out of me.

“Women,” my friend said in polite disappointment tinged with the friendliest disgust I’d ever heard. “They are rarely willing to start their own business,” she remarked.

As a frustrated feminist in the workplace, her response stuck in my craw.

I have literally spent every job positioning myself so that my boss would leave me alone and let me run things my way. Finally, unemployed with a palette of skills, and in a position to do my own thing, I was too damn scared to get started.

This bothered me.

So I went back to my inbox to read more job descriptions from Indeed.com. Nothing had changed. Each job was god-awful, and the thought of working for someone else’s company still made me go, “Ugh.”

I was a conundrum. Too fearful to start my own business, and too fatigued by the workplace after decades of expending energy for folks who either considered their employees a) expendable, b) without value, or c) both.

And then last month, in the middle of the late flu that clobbered LA and my family, a friend texted me out of the blue to say his good friend needed someone to write marketing copy for a performance venue project he was working on with a department in LA County.

This was the teeniest tiniest of contracts. It was not in any way going to make a significant difference in my checking account. However, it made a huge impact on my mindset.

Since I had nothing else cooking at the moment, except putting together my taxes (and really, who wants to do THAT?) I said yes to the contract.

After I submitted my final copy to the lovely individual who contracted me, I compared the time spent researching and writing with the fee and realized I was paid about $125 an hour. (A little less than I’d like, but I can get there.) I started thinking about how many contracts I would need to get by – and how not all contracts are created equal. How there is a rhythm to contracts where you submit drafts for approval and notes. How you could stagger work from several different sources using this rhythm. How there are pros and cons to this kind of work, and how the pros are really attractive to me at this time in my life.

For instance, I want to work a maximum six hours a day. In three short years my daughter will leave for college, and even though the last 15 years have been incredibly important, I feel these next three are equally if not more important. I want to be home when she comes home from school. I want time to sing and practice every day. Time to go to rehearsal. Time to take a language class. Time to walk 10k steps a day. Time to finally at 50, live - what has been up to now - the mythical life/work balance.

So I took the call from the friend of a friend, learned the parameters of the job, went to the meetings, did the research, wrote the copy they needed, and got paid.

And just like that I became a contract worker. Hello new world.