Makes me feel physically sick. The unspoken dread, the elevated heart rate, stomach flips and tense, nervous headache. No, not the menopausal migraines which plagued my very existence for so many years. Nope, this current state of jitters has been brought on by work. Or, more accurately, lack of work.
And that, my friends, is because I’ve lost a contract. A big one.
Lost, not because of anything I’ve done, or failed to do. Lost, because we are living through an(other) era of cuts. Great big, gigantic cuts. Slash and burn style cuts. Cuts which affect all of us, one way or another. Cuts which are finding their way down the food chain, all the way to small fry self employed people like me.
But do I expect you to shed a tear for my plight? Don’t be daft. My situation ain’t ideal, ‘course not – bills still need to be paid and mouths always require to be fed. And when you live with the one child equivalent of a plague of locusts, the fridge needs topping up, a LOT. Thankfully, I still have work, still have enough income to make ends meet, and that’s more than can be said of the Glasgow folks I witness struggling every single day. So yes, I count my lucky stars, I’m gonnae be fine. I’m going to be fine, because I have to be.
I simply have to keep hustling, keep looking for work – that’s situation normal for small business, innit. Seeing contracts come and go is par for the course. But when a biggie comes to an end, when that contract constitutes a third of your annual income, it’s actually impossible to avoid going into a blind panic, that stomach-clenching state of feeling sick and stressed. I’ve got a case of the screaming abdabs, and no mistake. Unfortunately, that’s the ABnormal side of my chosen way of working – the lack of security, the not knowing where the next contract might come from, the soul-sapping certainty that once again you’ll have to pimp yourself to the outside world.
It’s not fun. Never underestimate the cringe-inducing factor which comes hand-in-hand with self promotion. Sure, it gets a bit easier with time and experience, and there’s nothing like the certain knowledge that you simply HAVE to earn some moolah to propel you past your inbuilt Scottish self-doubt. But bloody hell, it’s horrible. And hard. Hard not to feel like a shyster or snake oil seller when you’re on the marketing merry-go-round.
But would I change it? Would I go back to working for the man, for the security of the 9-5 and paid holidays? The truthful answer is yes, but only if I really, really, really had to. But it won’t come to that. Because I will do what everyone else on this self employment fairground ride does. I will swallow both pride and imposter syndrome and hawk my wares to anyone willing to listen. And right now, folks, that’s YOU.
Photo by Mike Hindle on Unsplash
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