Skip to main content

Get a job... The Frustrating Catch Cry of People Who Don't Appreciate How Challenging It Is to Be Self Employed

Born to Skate, Forced To Work T-Shirt by TET available from Redbubble.
Born to Skate, Forced to
Work T-Shirt by TET
Available from RedBubble.
One of my biggest frustrations in life is people telling me I need to get a job. What they mean is something that has regular hours and a guaranteed pay cheque at the end of the week. Usually this suggestion comes from people that earn their living this way.

I'm the first to admit that working for yourself is a hard way to make a living - especially in the beginning. However, I think, if you believe in yourself and back yourself 100%, the payoff in the long run will be better than any regular job.

With all the skills I've acquired over the years people are often surprised that I haven't been able to find a regular job (especially those job search coordinator people who circle like a vulture when they think I'm an easy prospect for job placement).

It is precisely because of all these skills that I find regular work...well...depressing. I'm not just saying that either. I've had regular jobs and followed the gradual spiral down into monotony and boredom. It's just not me.

Working for oneself is challenging. Working for oneself as an artist is doubly, even triply (is that even a word?) challenging. It is very hard, and I'm always struggling just to make ends meet. I can say that it isn't boring or monotonous but it can be depressing.

What would be useful is, if all those people who've suggested I need a real job, offered words of encouragement instead. Or better yet, offered to refer their friends to my site just for a look... and maybe hinted that they can buy gifts of my art too.

That would be far more beneficial than telling me I need to get a job.

Comments

  1. Thanks for Commenting Lauren. I think in the beginning getting a regular paying job sounds like an easy option but as time goes on those jobs get harder and harder (unless of course you actually enjoy those kind of jobs). Each to their own...if you don't like what you're doing now, take a risk and live a little...:)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, I enjoyed my job when I was young, back in the sixties in the UK of being a window dresser in the ladies fashion shops! (3 altogether until I came to Oz at the age of 20yrs, and only married for about 18mths!)

    I knew at age 12yrs that I wanted to do window dressing after seeing a comedy film with veteran comic (now) Norman Wisdom (WHO, I hear you all say!) who was pretending to dress a large store window with china, though he didn't work there, just fooling around.

    People were anxious to get me into the cotton mills in my village, which is where a few of my less inspiring friends went because of the good pay, but even though I came from a mill family, I was determined that I wasn't going in the MILL!! The Careers people that came to the school to see what you wanted to do when it came near for you to leave tried to convince me that I was a 'factory' type and not a 'shop' type with being so quiet, but I wasn't having it, and ignored them! I haven't regretted it!

    My pay was only half what they got, and I had to begin as a Junior making tea, shopping for lunches, vacuuming, dusting, waiting on reception to direct customers, washing up and general dogsbody, but became a window dresser in the end.

    I didn't get to work in the big stores which is what I really wanted, so as to do backgrounds which was art etc, but one store used travelling men window dressers, and another told me for the 3 attempts I had at getting in at different ages, that you had to have a GCE certficate in at least 3 subjects! At least I got to do what I wanted to do, and it was regular work, but not a flash wage unless you were serving and getting commission, which I did do a bit of when it was busy.

    I would have liked to have gone to art college, but that didn't come about, so I have TET/David and my daughter Lesley to live that through instead!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for the comment (or is that essay?), Mum :)

    I guess you could say I take after you...in that I'm not settling for anything that other people tell me I should do. I'm following the job, career path I want.

    BTW: It's never too late to go to art college...I know people who have retired that are still going to art school simply because they now have the time to do art.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Comments are moderated by an actual human (me, TET) and may not publish right away. I do read all comments and only reject those not directly related to the post or are spam/scams (I'm looking at you Illuminati recruiters... I mean scammers. Stop commenting on my Illuminati post!).

Buy Gifts and Apparel featuring art by TET.

Popular posts from this blog

Movie Review: Superman (2025) *No Spoilers*

T he one thing I like about James Gunn as a comic book movie director is that he leans into the comic book nature of the world and the characters.  He's not trying to do a realistic take on any of the characters. He's simply bringing the comics to life. It's still his take on the characters, but he doesn't shy away from their comic book origins. James Gunn's  Superman  is very much a comic book movie in every sense. Nothing is off the table because it's too 'comic-booky' and might look silly in a live action film.  To me that's incredibly liberating. It lets James actually tell a proper Superman story that isn't hamstrung by reality, or tip toeing into the fantastical just enough to allow Superman to exist in the real world. Superman begins in the middle of a battle. Metropolis is under attack by a super powered being known as 'Hammer of Boravia', however everything is not as it seems, and Superman (David Corenswet) must work with other s...

James Gunn's Social Media Monkeys Joke Was a Highlight of His Superman Movie For Me

B efore James Gunn's Superman Movie was released there was a whole rumor going around that the movie would feature monkeys on computers trolling Superman's social media, sparking much outrage. #supersh*t. I didn't know this was even a thing until just prior to writing this article. I did a search to see if anyone had posted a clip of the monkeys scene from the movie and got pages of discourse featuring videos and articles prior to the film. Most of it from Gunn detractors (let's say) seeing it as some kind of childish swipe at them... well not them specifically but, you know, those other people who have every right to hate on anything sight unseen. Anyway, I'm not going to give even one such example a link or air because it's kind of sad watching someone devote so much commentary to a throw away gag that is absolutely a nod to James Gunn's Superman trolls.  The whole reason this post exists, is to say I loved the joke, because fourteen years ago, and I...

I'm Confused About Why People Prefer to Say Discombobulated?

D iscombobulated. Is a word that I think someone rediscovered about three or four years ago (maybe more because the pandemic years have thrown out my sense of time) and now I hear it a lot. It's not a new word by any means, but when I started hearing multiple celebrities using it in everyday sentences, I actively had to look up what it meant. Define it with as many synonyms as you like but essentially it's just another word meaning 'confused'. Seinfeld Quotes: Quotes.net The words are pretty much interchangeable. He was discombobulated by too many choices. He was confused by too many choices.  My confusion is the length of the word. It's unnecessarily long with too many syllables. There are many other words that mean confused, and therefore also mean discombobulated. Most of them are shorter and easier to say. So why not just say 'confused'? Perhaps discombobulated sounds more intelligent, maybe?  Hawaii Five-0 Quotes: Quotes.net I've noticed it gets us...

Movie Review: A Complete Unknown (2024) *No Spoilers*

Y ou would think the Bob Dylan story would be 'wind-swept and interesting,' to quote Billy Connelly, however, despite  A Complete Unknown  being quite an engaging film, it feels like it missed the years that really shaped him as a song writer/performer. The film starts in 1961, with a then unknown, 19-year-old Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) arriving in New York City with his guitar.  From there he forges relationships with musical icons on his meteoric rise, culminating in a groundbreaking performance that reverberates around the world. The problem being, according to this film, Dylan arrived in New York, for the most part, fully formed as a folk singer/song writer. In virtually no time he makes a very important connection that puts him on the trajectory of doing the work and becoming a name, before making his world changing performance. While there is some drama behind the scenes with his various relationships, none of it is particularly unique to any number of up and com...

I'm Joining the Illuminati Brotherhood By Personal Invitation of Hiltom Rothschild... Wait, What?

How special am I to have finally come of age (53 years young) and am now eligible to participate in building the world alongside other members of the Illuminati Brotherhood... Yes I've received the call by way of an email, which I'm sure is real because I had to translate it from the Dutch language and it was personally written by Hiltom Rothschild, one of the non-existent members of the Rothschild family (or perhaps deep undercover because Google has never heard of them?). A Transcript of the email below: To: etourist From: Illuminati Brotherhood  Subject: Illuminati Broederschap (Illuminati Brotherhood) I am Hiltom Rothschild, a member of the Rothschild family, one of the 13 families of the Illuminati brotherhood. I'm here to let you know that you've come of age and are eligible to participate in building the 🌎 world. It is a calling and a privilege to honor him with pride and gratitude as not everyone will ever be chosen by the LIGHT, many are called but few are ch...

Australian Federal Election 2025 - World's Most Boring Government Re-elected by Landside - We're Even More Fine!

Anthony Albanese Victory by ChatGPT and TET. W hen I started writing about the 2025 Federal election the polls were suggesting the world's most boring government was crusing to a defeat . As it turns out, boring is good, and Australia wants more of it, handing the current government a landslide win with a majority vote. Anthony Albanese became the first PM since John Howard to win a consecutive term, and the first Labor PM since Bob Hawke to do so. Some of that comes down to the leadership revolving door both major parties had through the mid 2000s. Although Anthony is my preferred PM over Dutton the irony is Dutton sounds more like a leader with a fairly commanding voice and an ability to speak well, without sounding like he's waffling and dodging questions, even if he is. Anthony, on the other hand, does have the ability (and speech writer) to say a lot of inspiring things but it gets lost in the delivery. He doesn't seem to know when to emphasise a point for effect. In h...

Unitree's R1 Humanoid Robot Brings the Cost of Advanced Robotics Hardware Down to Less Than USD$6000 (Robot Uprising Update)

Unitree's R1 Humanoid Robot. The first humaniod robot prices under USD$6000. C hinese robotics developer, Unitree, has launched the  Unitree R1 Robot , an advanced humanoid machine, for under USD$6000. Standing at 5'5", this very agile robot walks with a very natural 'human' gait, and can easily perform cartwheels or get up from a fall. It is controlled by AI and is capable of conversation but also comes with a remote control (so you can turn it off if it starts asking about someone named 'Sarah Connor'). Rather than me describe it, watch AI Revolution's video (below) to see it in action and hear their take on why this robot is a big deal. China’s New AI Robot Is So Good and Cheap It’s Scary: Unitree R1  -  AI Revolution You'll notice that the robot doesn't have proper, human like hands, but apparently this is an option you can purchase as an extra (dexterous hands are listed as 'optional' on educational versions of the robot on Unitree...