The short answer is no, so feel free to leave.
Writing my last business post got me pondering the idea that busy means you’ve made it.
What can I say, my content well has been a little dry.
You probably have your own thoughts on being busy.
And you might even thrive in that kind of environment. It’s pretty old school to hold on to a workaholic mentality and for some, there’s a certain martyrdom that comes with working really fucking hard.
When you start your business, you usually throw everything at it.
That means giving up sleep, social activities, and having any kind of a life to make the bastard work. I still struggle to switch off my business brain when I’m trying to enjoy some Jesse Stone, for example.
That’s a lie. Jesse Stone is incredibly distracting. Fifty-something Tom Selleck is well fit.
Are you busy?
It’s the one question I’m nearly always asked when a stranger on Linkedin sends me a DM.
It’s a trite little opener that’s part of that awful thing we call small talk.
I brace myself when I read it because the person asking is either about to segue into a sales pitch or they’re going to make some futile attempt to befriend me / scam me / tell me how attractive they think I am.
(And no, the latter doesn’t happen often enough, IMHO, at least, not by the good-looking ones. The old, bald, fat, pasty types certainly have an “I have nothing to lose” approach when sending unsavoury messages.)
PSA: If you are going to attempt to send me a pervy DM, please understand that it has to be witty, clever, and well written. I’ll still take the piss out of you but I’ll appreciate it so much more. Keep in mind the Bruce Lee method: the art of flirting, without flirting.
Where were we? Ah, yes, being busy…
Connections ask me how busy I am because they want to scout out how well I’m doing in business.
They usually follow up with how busy they are, which is, of course, sooooo busy. Too busy actually, not-enough-time-to-wipe-their-own-arsehole busy, if the truth be told. A lot of us like to turn everything into a competition so why should working yourself to death be any different?
Fellow content creators occasionally want to collaborate with me (it happened once).
They send me an ego-stroking message about some great little writing collab, then they disappear. Weeks go by and whaddya know, they pop back into my DMs telling me how sorry they are, and that they have been sooooooooooo goddam busy.
I don’t care about working with them.
And they don’t care about working with me, they’re just foaming at the mouth to let me know how in-demand they are.
I’m not sure how they want me to respond.
I dunno if they’re trying to impress me but I’m not impressed by anyone’s workload. Could it be to make me envious? Possibly and I guess that really depends on the clients they’re bagging as to me feeling well jel.
Freelancers do like to take to the socials and proclaim how busy they are. Some are even booked up months in advance.
Yay.
Look, they feel chuffed. It’s an achievement (to them). And if for a moment, I suspend all thoughts that these people might be telling porkies, I would say, well done, if that’s their goal. And if I try to forget that only last week, certain types were moaning that they didn’t have any work, I’d of course say, good for you.
Whatever the motivations are for telling me (and the rest of the world) that they’re busy, I can’t help thinking they’re perpetuating the idea that working flat out equates to success.
I’m not busy
Since being my own boss, I have never been busy.
I’m totally useless trying to function in that state. Being full to the rafters with client work would give me flashbacks to when I was an employee.
“You weren’t there, man, you weren’t there!”
I like writing for me more than I like writing for clients.
So I spend half my time doing just that, and the other half writing business content to pay bills.
I don’t say this to be ungrateful about client work but I’m never going to get weak at the knees about writing IT webcopy.
I’m sorry if you thought I loved my job.
I get it, we’re supposed to love it. Living our best working life is the new black. And if you genuinely love your work, praise be and godspeed.
I know it doesn’t matter one bit to my clients. They probably haven’t given much thought to my inner desires.
Being the cynic that I am, I often wonder how “passionate” some of those “I love my work” people really are. Don’t misunderstand me, doing what I do now sure beats full-time office work. I’ve paid my dues working in lowly jobs for wankers of bosses.
And give me a tasty project, give me something that I’m going to sink my teeth into, and I will love on that assignment pretty hard.
But it will never come close to the joy I feel when writing my personal blog. Or that novel (that I really should finish).
I don’t believe (for me, at least) that a dream job exists. I think I’m doing what most of us are doing, which is to find something we like mildly better than something else.
So, am I successful?
If you think being booked up, months in advance makes me successful then no, I’m not.
I guess if I became a generalist and reduced my prices, I might be overrun with bookings. But then I’d be working on projects that I really do hate for people who make Scrooge seem like a kindly benefactor.
If I ever do write for you…
The content I create will be bloody brilliant but not because I love working, no, but because I’d go hungry really quick if the services I offered were fucking terrible.
If, as a client, you can accept that you’re never going to be my first love, click here to hire me.