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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.
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Comments

  1. TET (David Arandle)June 04, 2006 10:06 PM

    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. AnonymousJune 05, 2006 8:41 PM

    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. TET (David Arandle)June 06, 2006 1:51 PM

    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

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