The Virtue of Being a Freelancer Now

Earlier, I was happy giving coaching tips to one caller who I got to know from another friend here in New York City. This caller likes to move from Los Angeles to the East Coast, and has been studying the idea of doing massages as one of his sources of income when he moves here. I told him about the travails of doing freelance work, which concept is alien to most people who have been employed on a full time basis, and working for a company, or doing work to eke out a living. I'm far from having a stable source of income by being a Freelancer; it can get scary at times. I'm grateful to have been given positive feedback by at least 25 people in my network who are always in touch with me, and have thought positively of how I go about doing Freelance work. Some of them have referred me to some of their contacts to talk with me about how I go about doing Freelance work, and its quirky details. Some have thought a way to do it, and have started their own version. I've always wished them all the best, God willing. I share what I can share, based on my own experiences, have gathered from my constant readings, and have heard from others doing this same direction.

As my profile indicates, and what some of my postings have mentioned from time to time, I've been doing freelance work, doing mostly part time jobs, and focusing my energies on pursuing my interests and passions. Among my freelance jobs, I've done massages for both men and women (some, even well meaning friends at that, have amusing mistaken ideas about someone who does massages for a living, and on part time basis at that, but I'm not blaming them though!); caregiving tasks, housecleaning, doing volunteer work for an art gallery, doing volunteer work for the pioneering Project Gutenberg e-book site, doing helper jobs for an Interior Designer, Floral and Events Designers, and other Business Owners, teaching Tagalog to interested students, plus doing other tasks that may interest me. Many have tried this direction before, way way before industrialization has taken place, and even way before the onset of globalization and its ill effects (i.e. terrorism, drug trafficking, illegal immigration, white slavery, etc) have been felt by the world's economies. Even St. Joseph himself was a Freelancer, being a Carpenter, which trade became handy as he went about bringing the Holy Family from Bethlehem to Egypt, and back to Nazareth. And I've noted with keen interest how St. Paul himself was a Freelancer, as a Tent Maker, while he was taking action on God's purposes for him to spread the Gospel to the Gentiles in Asia Minor.

I've done Human Resources (HR) work for over 20 years back in the Philippines. This period of exposure to interesting aspects of the nature of HR work (Among other feedback, I've always been told by those who have become involved in "Recruitment," which is an area under HR work, to have found it fascinating as one gets a bird's eye view on how one acquires a job, and how an organization hires a prospective employee) has offered me opportunities to become a Manager, one way or another, as I took lead of processes and people to work on desired outcomes of the Management. In the duration of my work, I have found out from observing trends and developments that the nature of employment has gone a lot of changes in a matter of time when I was actively employed in the corporate world. I've seen how jobs have become badly commoditized by organizations working out all creative means and ways to compete in the market. Technology, as always, has played a lot of role as to why the nature of jobs became more impersonal. The flow of capital, and the interaction of market forces have also played a very large role why values of most jobs have free falling momentum, up and down. The end consumer, the end user of products and services has been linked more face-to-face with the producers (via the internet, mainly), and many layers in between in the process of production have been removed. This impacts on what jobs have to be kept and maintained in an organization. For example, a nurse practitioner now, among other things, is basically doing tasks that are "secretarial" in nature, (ask a nurse practitioner about the volume of paperwork they handle nowadays), if you look closely at those tasks. Why is that? Primarily because Doctors shun away from doing those tasks, and they're focused on making sure they'll keep away from legal complications arising from how medical treatments these days are done. And this in turn, makes it reasonable to have nurse assistants who are actually doing tasks that used to be done by nurse practitioners before. And this happens because the Doctor has become more accessible to the patient and his family, who may just do work on information gathering about the disease by texting, calling, emailing, and other possible ways other than just talking with the Doctor during the usual medical rounds.

And we're not yet talking of disparities of income paid to jobs here (that's reserved for another posting). Suddenly, labor laws become sullied and ignored, as jobs durations have been given timed contracts that are renewed hastily and at the whims of those in management. It has become just so tough keeping jobs (both for Management, and the Employee). Even those in organizations like government offices have become so familiar to these developments. People in management have found it more profitable in the short term to farm out jobs to companies based abroad. This phenomenon continues to cost a lot of untold and unwritten anxieties to those who have lost their seemingly stable jobs to competitors outside of national boundaries. The jargon that you need to take note and memorize has been enlarged by all these developments. Jobs are out-sourced, being farmed out to third party providers. Lately, I've observed that companies in India that have earned a better reputation on acquiring farmed-out jobs from those in the First World, have been exploring the competitiveness and profit margins by investing and putting up companies as they farm out their projects as well to companies in the Philippines. I just wonder up to what point this maddening subcontracting approach to employment will go. It's been leveraging on operations, and finances, as what may deemed fit, as dictated by the market. Jobs have become so cheap, without even considering the person behind the job. I've decided this will continue as long as I'm employed. I made a move, and have since then have not come back. I've learned from those who came ahead of me.

Now, I'm happier I've moved on, and have taken steps to be in lead by doing Freelance work. This can be disconcerting actually to most people. But I keep on going. I go about looking for prospective jobs and gigs online. My favorite site happens to be Craigslist, which has been very generous in sharing its resources to the community where it has a presence (it has worldwide presence via local communities where users have been known to explore what the online world can provide to meet their various needs). It's not the fault of management or even those who make decisions for you to be anxious if you'll still keep your job from now. It's just the very nature of jobs nowadays. We're not going to have employers pay for benefits, or even reasonable pay, anymore. It's not really their role anymore, as they'll be gone soon, even before your know it. It's become so unstable for everyone, all of a sudden. This could be due to some unknown forces that we have yet to identify, or recognized. Happenings have been taking place much faster, on a rate that's just more noticeably past even before you notice that moment. But keep on holding to yourself, on your thoughts, on your vision, on your dreams, on your goals, as any one of these areas can only be the area where you'll still be in the moment, and be much in control.