Professional Nomad
By LMReviews on Mar 26, 2009 in Self Culture
Courtesy of Reurinkjan
I’ve discussed before the concept of how everything is a trade-off. I’ve been temping for the last two months in addition to completing freelance assignments. Many of my “co-workers” have inquired as to whether I wanted to get hired on as a permanent employee. Of course, in this economy anyone who doesn’t have a thriving business or who isn’t independently wealthy must want to get in some place on a permanent basis. But how permanent is it? How secure or dependable is it?
Many of my “co-workers” have spent the last few months worried that they may receive the proverbial pink slip. Needless to say, they were suspicious that I , the temp, waltzed right in while they were all fearing that they’ll be walked out.
And yes, knowing there are freedoms as a temp and in some cases too much freedom, I go from week to week wondering if my assignment has come to an “end”. However, it has been freeing too. No begging for vacation time or sick time–I just let the temp agency know. When an assignment begins to get stale, I can take a break and be assigned to a new one.
That same freedom comes with freelancing. There’s hard work in landing those clients no matter what your service is, but once you’ve landed them and you work well together there a kind of bliss that occurs. The desire not to be bound by any one employer or client some call it freelance or independent contracting. That may be what I do, but what I am is a professional nomad. I come and go as I please with only the basic responsibilities.
I never thought I would be crave that freedom again knowing the anxiety of not being sure when the next dollar would come, but as I have been clocking in to the temp job day in and day out for the last ten weeks, I find a severe case of professional wander lust brewing in my soul.
