Even freelancers need a break.

“If a man falls in a forest and doesn’t have a ‘real’ job, does anyone notice that he’s even gone?”

© Kirk Butts 2013

 

When my girlfriend and I booked a cabin outside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park earlier this month, many friends and acquaintances asked if freelance writers can call it a vacation when they go on, well…vacation.

That question failed to lead me to a George Berkeley-esque meditation, but I did reflect on what it means to be an independent contractor who works in a converted third-bedroom office. I’m not a full-time freelancer. By no means do I punch a clock, nor do I really even look at a clock throughout the day. Some mornings I sleep until 11. Some nights I’m up at 4am finishing a project. I can take a three-hour lunch break, go grocery shopping at midnight and have a glass of scotch whenever the hell I want. “NSFW” never apply to me. Besides the occasional pitch meeting or business call, I don’t have to worry about being late to anything. And I rarely ever have to put on a tie (though sometimes my dog will catch me wearing one over an old t-shirt as I sit down at the computer).

So for a guy who has almost all the time in the world to get work things done and do whatever I want in the meantime, why on earth would I consider a vacation, a vacation?

Hmm.

I may not (I don’t) deserve time off when all I have is time, but if there’s one person who does deserve a break from the real world, it’s my girlfriend.

NOT my girlfriend.

 As a new doctor, her time is either spent saving lives or trying not to take her own. Residency is to doctors like boot camp is to soldiers: little sleep, intermittent food and a shitload of stress. She’s done a 40-hour work week in two days. She comes home covered in blood, sweat and tears from dying patients, their loved ones and her own eyes, yet she beats the sun every morning to go do it again. It has been her dream to become a doctor since she was four years old, so you could say she was (almost) born to do this. I wanted to be a garbage man when I was four. I also threw out half a dozen college majors before deciding to become a journalist. So when I say I’m amazed at who she is and what she does, I hope someone throws a hardcover thesaurus at my face. “Amazing” simply doesn’t do her justice. It’s okay…she’ll fix me.

Vacations are meant for workers with the means to take one. I still struggle with the concept of freelancing as traditional work. I’m both boss and employee, contractor and client. But I do work. Vacations, in my own opinion and experience, also aren’t nearly as fun when taken alone. We had an absolute pleasure on our trip, hiking through the park all day and hot tubbing in our cabin all night. On our final night out there, we enjoyed a bottle of western North Carolina’s finest bubbly and made a toast with our plastic cups about where we have been, where we are and where we’re going.

Whether doctor or freelance writer, everyone who works inevitably has the real world to look forward to. For those harder workers with more responsibilities and deadlines, vacations are much more significant. But even for a guy who sleeps in, stays up and shops late, my vacations are so meaningful because they mean so much to my girlfriend. It makes my morning to see her sleep through it, and it makes my night when she can stay up for most of it, too. I may have breaks every day, but it’s never a vacation unless she’s there with me.

Especially…when there’s a hot tub.

© Kirk Butts 2013

I'm not made of money. Or muscles.

Do you find yourself more generous around the holidays? When bell ringers stop you as you leave Target, do you tell the truth and slip a buck or two in their pot instead of lying about only having a credit card? Will hungry families feast on cans of creamed corn as far as the eye can see while you dust out your pantry? Do you become a walking tax haven for vagrants in your community?

If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, you’re like most of us comfortable Americans who find their cups of cheer a bit fuller this time of year. And then there are those folks who really shine in the wintertime. Those who put new meaning towards the notion of hunting season. I’m talking, of course, about crooks.

Their prey? Us.

I was fortunate enough to celebrate Pearl Harbor weekend in Des Moines, Iowa, for the wedding of two dear friends. As a new North Carolinian, I’m getting ready to celebrate my first winter in the Old North State and I’ve been told by countless natives that it doesn’t snow much out here. So when the white stuff came down in Des Moines, I caught a bit of the Christmas bug. I said “Good day” to a beggar. Then apologized for only having a credit card in my wallet. I was saluted with my own bell ringing, after tipping extra at a favorite old bar. I hugged, high-fived and wrote my name in the snow, thanks to several pints of Guinness and a few shots of bourbon. And then this wonderful ceremony, reunion and bar crawl all rolled into one came to a very bittersweet end. After a few flights, I was happy though to be back in my cozy North Carolina home.

Until the following morning, when I checked my bank account online.

“What the hell is bodybuilding.com, and who the hell spent $263.82 on there!?” A thought worthy of an interrobang if there ever was one. Expecting to find a couple dozen less-than-$10 transactions from the weekend, you can imagine my shock at seeing such a surprising figure. It was an open bar at the wedding reception, but was I really that drunk that I forgot about buying a round of human growth hormone for my buddies at the bar? Shock quickly progressed to consternation, as I realized my credit (debit) card number had fallen victim to some wily Iowa meathead.

If only I had given that kindhearted hobo a dollar bill, maybe karma wouldn’t have bench pressed my bank account.

To many of you, $263 dollars doesn’t sound like the end of the world, but if this is the first entry you’ve read on my blog, let me get you up to speed. I don’t make much money. I can be crass. I can be boorish. If you know me personally, I can be a real asshole. But I can’t pretend to be affluent, or even very comfortable. Losing that much money, even though the bank ended up giving it all back, put things into perspective for me. I’m glad I had that much in my account to begin with. But if you took three quarters from a guy who only had a dollar to his name, you’re really shattering his bank. And there are countless many across America who only have about that in their pockets.

I may not have much, but I’m thankful to have a Christmas tree instead of having to sleep under one.

So the next time you walk out of your favorite store, actually, before you even walk into the place, make sure you have some spare change to drop in that red kettle. If you’re giving away creamed corn, at least give away the name brand stuff. And if you encounter a homeless person, run the other way. Because honestly, they’re almost always insane, drunk, stoned or all of the above. Instead, write a check for charity and make sure your money goes to someone who’s stuck in a shitty situation but is trying hard to better himself.

And no matter how much money you have in the bank, for the love of God find something better to spend $263 on than bodybuilding supplements. Everyone laughs at you people in the gym.

A very prosperous, a very appreciative and a very Merry Christmas to all.

An underemployed workaholic.

Let me start by saying I’m well aware that one entry a month is not the recipe for a successful blog. It’s definitely not enough to increase readership or even hold on to my existing readers. Well maybe it is, since my existing readers are mainly family members (love you guys!) and close friends (like you guys!). So for the rest of you unknowns, I offer my apologies and a promise to work harder and write for free more often.

I promise that in part because I designed new business cards for myself, and that fancy square on the back leads potential clients somewhere very important. Scan it for yourself and see. Here’s a sneak peek:

I wish I could blame a busy schedule on my lack of recent activity away from the computer. As some of you know I accepted a municipal job and assumed my freelance work would become supplemental income. As it turns out, my municipal job is supplementing my freelance work. They wouldn’t call it “freelancing” if everyone made a fortune at it. It’s a grind and the hours you spend searching for more work typically outpace the hours you spend actually working. We freelancers can trace our title to Sir Walter Scott, who first coined the expression in his novel Ivanhoe to describe unbound mercenaries who pledged their allegiances to nobility for a fee. How proud Scott, himself a writer for hire, would be to see us modern day word warriors eking out a living. Many days I might prefer to impale myself on a lance. If I could afford one, anyway.

Getting back to this city job, I was and still am excited at its potential, don’t get me wrong. However, it is definitely not what I expected. My city, like communities across our nation, is struggling to stay in the black and balance its checkbook. And like communities across our nation, it has been forced to make cuts to do so. And what, pray tell, do you think gets cut in the winter months? Park resources, park hours and of course, park payrolls. After a month my hours are fewer and farther between. There is always hope my hard work will leave a good impression on those that sign – or at least approve – the checkbooks, but “part-time” has really just become a synonym for underemployed. And what do you get when you have an underemployed workaholic? One hell of a missed opportunity for previous hiring managers who passed up the chance to interview that candidate.

But who has honestly ever met an overachiever who works in human resources?

Underemployment is something we’re simply supposed to settle for. Underemployed Americans help lower the unemployment rate, which doesn’t matter now that the election is over. And hey, at least we’re working, right? I drive 25 minutes to get to my job. For the amount of gasoline I’m buying to drive an extra hour a day to and from a very part-time job, I’d probably be just as well off being unemployed and not driving anywhere. The only difference between unemployment and underemployment, it seems, is that little “der.” Which is like “duh.” Or “doy.” Basically, we hard- and hardly-working Americans are supposed to say, “Duh, no shit having a job is better than not having a job.”

 

Driving through my city to work I laugh at that notion when I look around. Why am I stuck in traffic at 10:30 a.m. on a Tuesday? At 1:45 p.m. on a Thursday? These people stuck in front and behind me clearly aren’t full-time employees. I hate traffic, but I’d be content being stuck in it if it were actually rush hour and I had a salary to drive to.

So is underemployment a step in the right direction? Perhaps. Is it better than no employment? In my case, yes it is, because I like where I’m at even if I’m only there a few hours a week. Will I stay here forever?

Ask me again in the springtime.

An opine on November.

There’s a rich tradition we Americans celebrate in this country on November. The anticipation literally grows as we get closer and closer to that special date. For the millions who take part in this time-honored and patriotic duty, there are those who find themselves disappointed, while others rejoice and turn to places like social media to herald the great news.

I’m talking of course, about No Shave November.

Once the 11th month of the Gregorian calendar officially arrives, my Facebook newsfeed fills up with two topics of discussion: beards, and the election. For my blonde friends, No Shave November often produces a time of strife and spitefulness for my darker-haired companions. It’s a general rule that blonde people grow awful beards, and their daily cell phone pics uploaded throughout the month are testament to this scientific fact. For my brunette buddies, thick, lustrous manes can be achieved in a matter of days. With the autumn air quickly cooling this time of year, new beards help insulate the face from the elements, so despite the wordplay in its title, No Shave November doesn’t only make grammatical sense; it’s the perfect barometric month to celebrate this venerated observance.

I don’t know what red-headed beards look like because I make it a point not to befriend gingers.

If there could be a clear champion in No Shave November, it would be the homeless. You may think they cheated by growing their beards year-round, but life has already cheated them so the hoodwinks cancel out. I vote for the homeless to win.

Speaking of being homeless, we had an election yesterday. Did you vote? Unless you’re a child, a living ex-president who served two terms, living in prison or just a dumbass, you better have gone to the polls. Another time-honored November tradition is America’s presidential election. Four years ago, Barack Obama campaigned on the idea of hope and change for this country. Now, four years later, the re-election he hoped to win succeeded by an even narrower margin than in 2008. Way to move us forward, Mr. President.

In the age of mobile internet, social media and shitty beards, we’re more connected to one another than ever before. Even homeless people have access to the world wide web, if only at the public library. The candidates for president launched all kinds of new ways to reach potential voters this time. How many of you had to sit through campaign ads before watching the “Gangnam Style” video on YouTube? On Facebook, your friends, your family and your co-workers you were too cowardly to deny requests from all posted their thoughts and mind-crushing opinions about the candidates. I have my own personal convictions about politics, but with this being my third presidential election, I have become increasingly put off by the process. I’m not bipartisan. I’m not nonpartisan. If anything, I’m unpartisan. I’m starting to detest politics yet I still feel obliged to follow through with my civic duty to vote. In my three elections, I’ve been on the winning side once and the losing end twice, yet the older I get the less I truly care about either outcome. The connectivity we enjoy nowadays has given rise to so much political coverage in my mailbox, my inbox, my television, my radio, my computer and my phone that once it’s all finally over, I just want to crash. Forget the candidates – they chose to take this long and grueling road – the election is tougher on the voter. We never asked for 50 pieces of mail a day for three months, or political attack ads throughout new episodes of “The Walking Dead.”

And I’m a professional writer yet I can’t express in words how much I loathe the political commentary from people on Facebook. For Christ’s sake post baby photos, wedding pictures…anything else for me to hate you a little less. There’s a reason you work in a warehouse. You’re not a pundit. You’re an idiot.

For better or worse, I’m glad it’s all over.

The election doesn’t matter. What the winner does with the next four years is what’s important. In the last four years, every new job I have accepted has come with a smaller salary than my previous job. If this trend continues, by the time 2016 arrives I may be homeless with little more than my beard to keep my comfy. This country needs a lot of work and the president has a lot of empty boxes in his checklist. It’s a daunting road ahead, one he chose to take. Time will tell how the problems of our country are resolved. Whether you voted for him or not, now’s the time to support our president, look forward and hope for the best.

God bless America and God help us all.

Using storm clichés to describe financial uncertainty.

nasa.gov

If the blanket news coverage of Hurricane Sandy has taught us anything, it’s that the media loves a good disaster. Those intrepid young local reporters and daring network correspondents race to the scene, braving winds, rain and embarrassment to stand in ankle-high water and bark into their mics about Mother Nature’s indiscriminate fury. In short, the perfect storm that is Sandy is the perfect storm for a great story. At least that’s what the media thinks.

When they’re not focusing on Sandy or her big brother, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in 16:9 aspect ratio, you can often catch news anchors discussing another disaster. Before this tempest arrived just in time for November sweeps, America’s ambiguous economic times have for years been the perfect storm for pundits on every channel. Now with our presidential election just days away, the fate of our economy is bearing down fast. Both candidates want you to believe that if you vote for the other guy, you’ll doom us all.

But at the personal level, looking back over the past few years, how have you weathered this financial storm?

As a wide-eyed undergrad, I chose to follow my dreams and turn my passions and curiosities into a rewarding career. Unfortunately, none of my professors or guidance counselors informed me that getting a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism was a terrible decision if one was actually looking for a career after college. Now, five years and two local television stations later, I’ve switched paths and gone from writing for a living to writing for a living for less. As a freelancer, new work is never guaranteed and like my first blog post, even when I’m not working on a story, I’m working to find another story I can get paid to write about. To some of my readers, what appears to be constant griping may seem like a bunch of hot air, but I’m honestly always concerned about my financial future. I live on the coast now…how am I ever going to be able to buy a sailboat on a freelancing wage?

Millions of Americans along the East Coast are staring Sandy in the face as I write these words. Millions more are bracing for another long work week or another long week that they wish they were working. The recession hit this country harder than almost anyone expected, and for countless bachelors, bachelorettes and entire families, a bachelor’s degree just wasn’t enough to keep them out of the unemployment line. It was a perfect storm, a worst-case scenario that millions of people are still trying to recover from.

Now they’ve come to grips with the fact that this shitty economy can’t bounce back overnight.

For me, I know who I’m voting for next week. But no matter who wins, I doubt I’ll see much of a difference in my economic outlook over the next four years. As a former member of the media, I understand how and why most of the current members are so annoying. Hurricane Sandy may be a disaster, but it’s a blessing for newscasts everywhere. The economy though, was a disaster long before this storm and it’ll remain a mess long after the eye closes for good. So forget the pundits, forget the presidential candidates and just get used to riding this one out on your own.

Yes, I could be doing much, much better. But I know that I could also be doing much, much, much worse. The same can be said for lots of us. I just hope whoever wins will fix the economy enough so that I can make more money and finally buy my boat. What’s a better name? The "Barark?" Or "Romseas?"