What a Way to Make a Living

Unemployment went well.

Technically, I’ve been employed since mid-March. Yes, I’m employed on a technicality. Usually employment implies something approximating a regular paycheck. In the past three months, I’ve worked all of 75 billable hours.

It’s odd to be sure. Especially since I was hired for an urgent job. When we first started talking in February, word was they wanted me “yesterday.”

Let’s face it, corporate priorities change and individuals are always more anxious to get hired than companies are to hire them. Much patience is required.

The "urgent job," I’ve been told, has been turned off and on several times. With each passing day, the scope changes and the deadline remains the same. Since then, too, there have been changes to the resource requirements; instead of remote writers, they want onsite writers.

Sounds good for the onsite writers, doesn’t it? Yet there seems to be not enough work since projects are turning off and on like lights at an OCD convention. I’ve heard writers are routinely being sent home early for lack of anything to do.

Here at home, however, we’ve been busy managing our own scope, schedules, and resources.

The pool is up and running for our physical well-being. Blueberries have been picked to completion. We’re cutting our utility and home entertainment costs. And, sadly, I’ve signed up for social security to begin years before I wanted it to.

And I’m back to looking for a job. Even though, yes, I’m technically employed. After all this, the situation is neither urgent nor dire, but I would still rather work. I’m calling myself semiretired because I still have hope. I am also self-limiting my opportunities by seeking remote writing jobs only. I’m grateful that I have that luxury.

It gives me something to think about while floating naked in my pool.