Worked out of Work...

I have butted my head against a wall today, the wall of a moral dilemma. To work or not to work, that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous laziness or take arms against a sea of employment and by opposing end it. I have been presented with a limited amount of work, which I tend to finish rather quickly—bad girl!—and thereby find myself with no tasks left to complete. I have worked myself out of work, in a manner of speaking.

My momma didn’t raise no fool. I think that if I am being paid to work and there is work to do, I shall do it and do it to the best of my ability. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve played as many games of spider solitaire as the rest of them (between tasks, like a sorbet between courses to clear the mind, or on what should be my smoke/coffee break if I did either of those things—yummm… cigarettes). But I am penalizing myself in a way for being productive because, if I have no work, I either go home and don’t get paid or sit and pretend to be busy. As George in Seinfeld once advised—just look upset.

Maybe the sales book I completed yesterday has gone to my head but the situation just illustrates the implicit difficulties in the employer vs. employee relationship. If it is not your business and your profit to be made, you are more likely to raid the supply closet for extra pens, make long-distance phone calls on the company dime and (ahem) play spider solitaire while looking upset. In truth, I have no incentive to work quickly or efficiently if I am not reaping the reward of that speed. Producing 10 widgets an hour for minimum wage doesn’t do me any good if I can produce 8 and earn the same wage. Might as well put my feet up on the desk and surf the web.

Owning your own business or being an independent contractor is truly the way to function in the business world. That way, I get paid per job that I do. Hence, if I do the job quickly, I get paid quickly. And if I find myself in the situation I am currently in, I could either pick up another assignment or, if there were none to be had, take a day or two off.

I know that there are a lot of freelance writers out there. I am one of them to a certain degree, although I only take on a few projects a month in addition to my full-time, bill-paying job. From what I know personally and from research, it is a full-time job just to land enough jobs to work full-time. And how do we all compete with one another when so many hopeful authors take on projects for free to get a few bylines and build their portfolio?

No, no. I am honestly asking. Any ideas?

To end this post that began with Hamlet, let me “bring it down low” to wrap up with a thought on hard work from Mr. Brad and the tragically defunct, forever-stoned Sublime:

Daddy he once told me, “Son, you be a hard-working man.”

And Momma she once told me, “Son, you do the best you can.”

But then one day, I met a man who came to me and said,

“Hard work good and artwork fine but first take care of head.”