The Aerie
Watch out what you wish for
TITLE:you may get it.
After completely lacking any work for the last six weeks of the
summer, the predicted autumnal rush has arrived. I presently am
working on two contracts, and will soon be working on a third. Well,
hopefully.
With a fourth off in the wings somewhere.
Not complaining. Not complaining at all. Let's just put it this way: I
could take all the income from two of the contracts, and just about
erase my credit-card debt. About. It wouldn't address my other debts.
So, no, I'm not complaining, I'm grateful. Appreciative in a way that
I haven't been for a while for the opportunity to do challening,
interesting work at a good rate of pay for good folks.
It's funny how this little brush with poverty brings me back to the
beginnings. From the top of my game in pure technical consulting, I
find myself back in my early-1980's mindset -- except this time in
business rather than in computer technology. There's a lot similar
between the early 80's and today: back then a conservative ideaologue
was escorting us through recession, militarism and deficit spending,
and so it is today. Work was hard to come by and employers were
arrogant and miserly, accustomed to 300 applicants for every job.
Then as now I was trying to run a business, and I didn't know how easy
I had it then: it seemed like a terrible amount of work.
I lived cheap. I lived tight. I balanced my checkbook after every
check to make sure nothing would bounce. I ran up my credit cards. I
clipped coupons. I ate bad cheap food.
Back then I didn't have a house and a family to support, but I did
have college classes that I paid for myself.
Even when I was first married we were living pretty tight,
particularly after I quit one job (a move I only regretted during the
darkest days of unemployment when I thought I might never get another
job, and then only briefly). We had two incomes, but we were also
saving for our own wedding and honeymoon, so we were living tight.
A lot of that's coming back now. We're learning all sorts of things,
like the fact that you can get good movies and DVDs, free, through the
library. You may not be able to get something immediately, but you can
get everything eventually, and free.
And Savers, a store just one notch higher on the scale than Goodwill
(or maybe identical, I don't pretend to be an expert). We outfitted
the entire family for autumn for next to nothing there. Which proved
advantageous since either the iron, or I now suspect the dryer, have
been ruining my shirts with scorch marks. (I think clothes are getting
caught between the front edge of the dryer drum and the dryer body and
pinched round and round, leaving a scorch. Whether its that or the
iron I better figure out before I have no presentable clothes to wear!
We watched the entire Lord of the Rings DVD and extras while I ironed
and used hydrogen peroxide to remove what I could of the marks.)
So we're back to the early, broke days of our marriage, when
innovation replaced cash -- when rather than throwing out a scorched
shirt we figure out how to remove a scorch mark. When we appreciate
good deals on food. When we actually don't waste a cent. When we learn
to appreciate things that should be appreciated rather than taken for
granted: eating dinner out; eating dinner out someplace nice; the
goodwill and support of family and friends; and the difference between
hard work and free time.
One big difference though is the stress... if anyone had asked, I
would have expected this time to be a lot more stressful than when we
were younger. But, oddly enough, it isn't. Mostly that's because back
then, I didn't know what not to worry about. Nowadays, well, there
really isn't much to worry about. If we have no money, we can't pay
bills, period. If our debtors get mad, they get mad, too bad.
Of course, it helps to have work on the horizon. Just as when I was
unemployed long ago, the darkest time had to be about the beginning of
this month, when there was no work, and no sign of work. That really
sucked, and I had some really down days. It was hard to maintain any
energy for the struggle.
But even then I found I was more able to sometimes put aside the
fretting and just say "Well, I may as well enjoy myself if I'm going
to be idle." Which is not to say I was always, or even frequently
successful at it, but it did work sometimes, which is more than such a
notion worked in the 80's.
So we're coming out of it, I think. Slowly. It would help if some of
our own debtors would pay us the money they owe us. But we ought to be
able to get by and start seeing some better days ahead.
Meanwhile, there's lots of work to be done to take my mind off the
emptiness in my wallet, and the deep holes in my budget.
Good work.
[1]Last
Posted by Albatross at September 30, 2002 12:00 AM