ARTIVISM
We Should Be Paid
Because writing is fucking hard
It’s time
I have always overextended myself and undervalued my skills as a business person.
I’m that employee, or freelancer, who would answer every email as quickly as possible, work weekends and wee hours late without question, and who always went beyond the Call of Doody.
I would quote on a project. I would then, often, be inspired and become caught up in the creative possibilities… and I would frequently blow my own budget. Or the client would do this and I was, more often than not, unable to say a simple no.
I never felt okay about charging extra for the extras.
In fact, I would always add some secret extras as mandatory extras, because it was the correct way to do things both artistically and technically, as far as I had gleaned from people who did things well.
Bus(y)ness
I worked in web development for many years.
It can be an unethical business, and not many people know that there are additional “finishes” that, really, should be included to take a website to the next level, both design and development-wise.
An untrained eye would barely notice the difference of a slightly darker-toned, one-pixel border around a button, for example. Yet the same untrained eye would be more drawn, naturally, to a site that is “finished” like this.
This behind-the-scenes magic extends to optimization (load times), clean code (same), security, and more bells and whistles than a client may either be aware of or ensure are included, in a quote or final product.
And most developers wouldn’t, therefore, bother — because time, in this game as in many others, is money. And apparently, money talks nowadays. More loudly than it did in the good old days, it seems.
I blame Facebook. Of course.
So, I have always been that person. The one that went the extra mile. The one that didn’t charge for a small update. The one that was perpetually, and unhealthily, available because I liked my clients. I also fired the ones that I didn’t like.
I would do this at a stall that I ran for many years as well. A small business that was festival and market-orientated. I made and sold fucking funny, and fucking offensive, t-shirts.
Not specifically in that order.
If a customer asked for a discount and I liked them… I would give them one.
If they were rude or disrespectful… I would adamantly decline their business … and prefer to lose a sale. Because fuck that, quite frankly.
So not a very good businessy person.
Still. That stall turned some record sales throughout the years and, hell, it was an entertaining way to make a, sometimes, vaguely decent living.
My web business had clients ongoing many years, who I happen to, still, like immensely as well.
The web development was hard work, though, despite the fact that I love it and all Tech everywhere and every which way.
Sixteen hours plus, desk-bound days is hard on every aspect of physiology. And the internet never sleeps.
Also… I was never “working on the back-end.”
A personal joke about dodgy developers, who miss deadlines, take hours longer than they should to finish briefs and who shuffle clients around with technical jargon
They usually aren’t “working on the back-end,” just so you know. The next time someone uses this excuse on you, feel free to snicker and ask whose back-end they are working on.
Intention is everything
I don’t think there’s much wrong with wanting to do a job well.
My late father shared some great inspiration regarding his approach to life and his perspective left lasting impressions on me. He shared valuable tools and he told a story well.
He also had a great work ethic, and he was highly successful in his arena.
He once explained to me, while I was pretty young, that it didn’t matter what job I was working at. CEO or factory sweeper, if I did whatever it was with dedication and care, it would be the efforts of doing it to the best of my abilities that would reward me with a sense of satisfaction of a job well done.
This perspective was reaffirmed by him, to me, in a variety of ways during our time together.
It was aired again some years later, in a story that my father shared about an elderly Chinese shop owner that he had come upon unexpectedly, during a trip to the Far East.
He had entered a fish and aquarium shop and had witnessed this ancient man, bent intently over a fish tank, looking through a microscope while he arranged each tiny leaf of a water plant, one by one, with an impossibly thin, long pair of tweezers.
My father was mesmerized by the absolute focus and determination of the store owner, to present the tank as beautifully as he could. He retold this story more than once.
My father did, however, also have an obvious work addiction that lead to an early passing, by his own hand.
Perfectionism is a form of addiction.
I will say it again.
And again.
Healing
During my own recovery for a variety of (so-called) “addictions” (methods of avoiding myself, mostly), my own work addiction became clearly obvious at one stage.
For the hours I was pulling during those years, I should be fucking retired by now, in fact.
But codependency and low self-worth. Never feeling that I deserved more. Or that I was good enough to ask for more.
I even worked for free at times, although I had little time available to do so.
I managed one website for a charitable organization pro bono. I would do this still because I strongly believe that we should all share some gifting of skills and resources (if not financial donations) as standard practice, life orientation and just care a bit fucking more 101.
Abundance is very much a matter of personal perspective, combined with a good dose of gratitude, in my experience.
I have had very wealthy connections, with mansions in elite suburbs, declare themselves “broke” and unable to afford any amount of any kind of donation.
And I have been gifted with a bag of groceries, by a man on his way to a night shelter one evening, when I was still out and about trying to sell old clothes for food during a severe life challenge.
This small bag of groceries was all he was carrying. That and the clothes on his back.
He had asked for change for the shelter and the “me”, at that moment, had exploded with exhaustion, fear, and frustration that I (no longer) had any money, or anything else, left to give.
This man walked on, clearly hurt at my stupid reaction. Shortly afterward he hurriedly returned to find me… to give me his small bag of food.
I dissolved into tears at his unexpected gesture and tried to refuse his offer, but he pushed the bag back into my hand and he pleaded, “For the love of God, just take it.”
That small bag of groceries fed me for the next few days. And I knew that this person went hungry that evening to do this for me.
I have never, in all my almost fifty years, been so humbled by another person’s such utter compassion, selflessness, generosity, and grace. And I will never forget him. Ever.
I have been hoping I find him again, in fact. I want to take him out for dinner.
What I do know is that, wherever he is, this human being has an enormous sense of abundance.
It is when we are able to be grateful for how much we have, no matter how little this may seem to be at times, that we always have enough to share.
So, in a sense, that man was far, far wealthier than my so-called “wealthy” connections.
I had thought that I had always given freely. And I had, at times to my own detriment.
But I was an educated but ignorant and enormously privileged individual, who had little idea of the real value of a simple act of random kindness… at just the right time.
Because I had never experienced the other side of the coin. Pun intended.
Nor how this sense of abundance should be cultivated daily in our Doing.
Even when it is hard to give.
Especially when it is hard to give!
Back to business
I also did websites for so-called friends, here and there, entirely for free. Or for highly reduced rates.
I did this while I was struggling to find enough time to be with my kids, to pay the impossible bills of the not-worth-the-time-lost-lifestyle that I was maintaining, and trying to find the time to build the business to find more time.
Hindsight. Right?
Things are always so much clearer looking back with more experience and awareness.
How much time we could save, and how much disappointment we might avoid if we were just courageous and conscious enough to see a radically honest reality in the now.
And be and do what actually makes us truly content.
Precious time.
Worth the brief discomfort of the brutal truth, alone.
I just put a bit of my portfolio back up today. The business went awry with the rest of the life that I am busy trying to rebuild now.
Not to blow my own horn (although it is a good feeling to be able to say this instead of the crippling self-doubt and negative self-talk these days), but my portfolio is pretty fucking good!
New eyes, I guess, even though I can barely see much these days after those endless nights and weekends of screen time.
I will do it for a set fee. It’s fine. Let me get this. It was only half an hour. I won’t charge you, because…
You get the drift.
No more thanks. I am, officially, “worth it.”
Even if I can no longer afford the right shampoo.
Writing is hard
Writing is harder than designing and coding a website.
Writing is harder than packing a trailer, arriving in a strange new town, and hitting the ground running for a ten-day festival. Thunderstorms et al. While you camp at night.
Writing is harder than sitting at a boardroom table with a lead client from one of the biggest retailers in South Africa. With shoes on.
And I fucking hate shoes.
Writing is harder than getting up in the almost night hours of a UK winter morning and walking on a broken toe, to catch two trains for a two-hour journey, to a part-time corporate gig, in a part of town that demands even heavier socks and a now only one possible shoe.
Because nobody is tough enough to wear a shoe with a just broken toe jammed into it, right?
Change my mind.
Writing is harder than working a sixteen-hour shift as a dishwasher, with Smoked Salmon starter plates in the mix of sludge and greywater suds.
In fact, most days I avoid writing like I have avoided the pandemic. Selective attention and all-inclusive non-focus.
There is a thought that grows into an idea or commentary.
I get pensive. Distant. Distracted. Intrigued. Concerned I won’t say it well. Concerned I won’t be able to say it at all. Concerned about the possible judgment. Consequences. Fallout. Rejection.
I get sullen. I get a bit grumpy. I sulk because I don’t want to do it.
How does one say this particular thing, or tell this particular story, so that people will connect with the possibilities? The ideas. The events. The feelings. The life.
I resist.
I ignore the internal gnawing in my brain and pretend to be present.
I begin to overflow. I begin to mutter aloud to myself in the street and to roll my eyes at stupid parents or selfish drivers.
I throw a small tantrum.
And then, seemingly randomly, I finally sit down at my computer and I explode into words on a page.
After which, there is an immense sense of relief, and satisfaction, that the idea is manifested… and that I can both rest and focus properly for a bit and a while again.
Writing is hard, I tell you.
We writers dig deep into our most personal, sometimes fragile, always vulnerable cores.
We slip our fingers right into the thick, slimy mess of our innards and we rip these sentences out and slap our guts right onto the table, for people to sift through and peruse. And judge. Inevitably.
We share ourselves; our experiences; our inner sanctums.
We open ourselves up to humanity’s scrutiny and, arguably, greatest fear…
Rejection.
Yes.
Writing is hard, I tell you.
And we writers deserve to be fucking paid if only to encourage us to continue.
Between you and I though…
I would totally do this all for the passion, alone.
But I’m not a good businessy person.
Thanks for your reading time!
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