Fabulous wealth- large investment portfolios, huge bank deposits, nice car, job security- none of these will likely be yours if you want to be a full-time free-lance researcher.
You may, however, find yourself devoting more time to creative pursuits: practice Bach on the piano, join a dragon boat team, flesh out a short story, bake a flour-less chocolate cake, learn a foreign language, or write this blog (?), and you need not starve, beg for alms and be a burden to your parents and society, either. Not to mention the obvious benefits: no traffic, no Monday morning blues, no bosses. It’s not entirely a bad deal, really- just be sure that your love for, say, the arts and sports runs deeper than your pockets.
I never planned to strike out on my own. It fell on my lap. I was not particularly happy with the non-profit group I was working with, engaging ex-communists who remained hard-core adherents to Marx and Mao to debates on economic issues. It became a fruit-less and thankless exercise. An opportunity to work for a bank in the Middle East came and I promptly left (anything is better than dealing with narrow-minded “intellectuals” of a bankrupt ideology), only to find that my undergraduate status then made me ineligible for the overseas position.
After the customary what-am-I-gonna-do introspection and studying my options which included becoming a rice-and-coconut farmer in Bohol, I sent e-mail proposals to a hundred or so companies locally and abroad, to as far away as Spain and Germany. Yeah, I’m guilty of spamming! (Attention: Yahoo!) In fact, only around 10 replied, 2 were really interested and only 1 proceeded to give me a project, which remains a client to this day. My first employer also got on-board, and other jobs like feasibility studies and market searches followed as well.
Free-lancing, as I have come to embrace it, is a dicey business. It can be very frustrating. Many clients make impossible demands. Others expect you to be like a detective or a private investigator. And you never know when you’re going to get paid. In the meantime, you have to come up with something to pay the bills and the rent.
It could get pretty lonely at times, too. When all your friends are busy at work, the TV and the Internet become your best friends. Just be sure you don’t start talking to the wall.
I have learned to adapt to this lifestyle but I also realize I might step out of this “comfort zone” maybe sooner than I originally expected (but that’s another blog). Whatever turns out, free lancing has been good to me: although it won’t ever make me rich, I’m not stressed out, I live like a retiree, I do not sell my soul to the devil and compromise my principles, and I ponder the fate of the universe, like Superman (kidding!). No, seriously.
You may, however, find yourself devoting more time to creative pursuits: practice Bach on the piano, join a dragon boat team, flesh out a short story, bake a flour-less chocolate cake, learn a foreign language, or write this blog (?), and you need not starve, beg for alms and be a burden to your parents and society, either. Not to mention the obvious benefits: no traffic, no Monday morning blues, no bosses. It’s not entirely a bad deal, really- just be sure that your love for, say, the arts and sports runs deeper than your pockets.
I never planned to strike out on my own. It fell on my lap. I was not particularly happy with the non-profit group I was working with, engaging ex-communists who remained hard-core adherents to Marx and Mao to debates on economic issues. It became a fruit-less and thankless exercise. An opportunity to work for a bank in the Middle East came and I promptly left (anything is better than dealing with narrow-minded “intellectuals” of a bankrupt ideology), only to find that my undergraduate status then made me ineligible for the overseas position.
After the customary what-am-I-gonna-do introspection and studying my options which included becoming a rice-and-coconut farmer in Bohol, I sent e-mail proposals to a hundred or so companies locally and abroad, to as far away as Spain and Germany. Yeah, I’m guilty of spamming! (Attention: Yahoo!) In fact, only around 10 replied, 2 were really interested and only 1 proceeded to give me a project, which remains a client to this day. My first employer also got on-board, and other jobs like feasibility studies and market searches followed as well.
Free-lancing, as I have come to embrace it, is a dicey business. It can be very frustrating. Many clients make impossible demands. Others expect you to be like a detective or a private investigator. And you never know when you’re going to get paid. In the meantime, you have to come up with something to pay the bills and the rent.
It could get pretty lonely at times, too. When all your friends are busy at work, the TV and the Internet become your best friends. Just be sure you don’t start talking to the wall.
I have learned to adapt to this lifestyle but I also realize I might step out of this “comfort zone” maybe sooner than I originally expected (but that’s another blog). Whatever turns out, free lancing has been good to me: although it won’t ever make me rich, I’m not stressed out, I live like a retiree, I do not sell my soul to the devil and compromise my principles, and I ponder the fate of the universe, like Superman (kidding!). No, seriously.
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