In the wee small hours on the morning before I start a full-time job again
I'm wringing all of the awesome out of these days and keeping their lessons for my new gig
Picking up my reporter’s pad again but remembering everything I learned from being indie.
A couple of minutes ago I had a brief but rewarding conversation with the dude who was handing me my salmon croissant with capers (but no cream cheese because the 50-year-old tummy can’t hack it). Making pleasant sandwich maker/customer conversation, he asked if I was on the way to the office. I told him I was taking a staycation at the fancy hotel next door, enjoying the last gasps of freelancing before starting a new full-time job next week. He congratulated me on the gig and asked if it felt good.
Honestly, the idea of full-time work, as a columnist at the brand spanking-new Baltimore Banner, feels great to me, largely because I had a year to hone my writing skills without such a gig, doing it on my own. And in that time, I learned some invaluable lessons that are going to serve me well next week and beyond.
It’s funny that I literally just wrote a post, less than a month ago, about the one year anniversary of entrepreneurship. In February 2021, after 27 years in newsrooms and 6 months in corporate communications via Zoom from my home office, I buckled under the stress that comes from allowing others to dictate your money, time and priorities, and trusting them to tell you when you deserve more. So I quit to become my own boss, and for the next year I hustled, learning how to find writing clients that would pay me what I was worth, how to budget my time and negotiate, and how to turn down gigs that weren’t going to serve me financially, creatively or spiritually. It was pretty awesome.
The hustle was hard, but it was my hustle, and I declared that until I found a great offer that covered all of my criteria, I didn’t want a full-time job. Weeks later, the Banner, an independent non-profit news organization led by professionals and people who love Baltimore, came calling. And, shockingly, I answered. I write this from my fancy hotel bunker that I’m about to check out of, before being unleashed back into full-time employment. But I’m not looking at it like I’m handcuffing myself back to a desk. I’m looking at it as the next adventure in which I can implement the following lessons I’ve learned:
Negotiation: In my freelance life, I had to unlearn the corporate mentality that my bosses, even if they really liked me, were going to magically give me raises or look out for me, because their loyalty was to the bottom line. For the rest of my life, I know that my financial life is my responsibility and I’m better equipped now to handle it.
Collaboration: Being a freelancer means creating your own team of editors, clients and sources that you work with well. I haven’t even started my new gig yet but I come to it with solid story ideas and even an interview with a celebrity tentatively set up next week, that I found on my own. I know what I’m bringing to the table, and having a new set of co-workers to collaborate with feels better being solid in my own strengths. I’m going to be a better asset to them.
Flexibility: I enter this new place two years after the last time I had to report to an office, because the Palm Beach Post newsroom closed at the start of the pandemic and was still closed when I left, and my short-lived corporate gig was all Zoom. I’d gotten to the level at the Post where I was largely making my own schedule, because I’d earned the right to with my experience and competency. People trusted me, and I had the benefit of a paycheck and benefits. Returning to full-time column writing gives me that benefit, but in this pandemic-recovering world (WE ARE STILL IN A PANDEMIC BUT IT’S GETTING BETTER) we’ve all learned the need for flexibility, to create a hybrid schedule, to be timely and roll with it. We can get work done and get what we need. I’m all about it.
As I go back into the full-time world, which won’t be 9-5, not that journalism ever was, I’m not mourning the loss of free time, because I was already busting my butt this year to make things work. And I get to continue some of the things that I loved about being independent, like finishing the novel I’m writing, getting to do speaking gigs and also to walk my kid home from school. I don’t know where this is going to lead, but it’s going to be exciting. And I know I’ll be better at it for the time that I was doing my own thing.
I think what you went through is a true microcosm of what people experienced during Covid and lay-offs. They had that fine line of demanding what they were worth, yet knowing that they were competing with 100's of others for the same job. It's a journey of the unknown every step of the way, and yet one of 'staying in the game', persistence and belief. I can't wait for your new column, wardrobe and chapter! You rock, Leslie!
Praying for you as you start your newest adventure. You’re a gem Leslie!