It was a bit of a tussle for me to decide which prompt to write on this week. Both prompts seem similar yet different at some levels. Well, you'll get to know which prompt by end of this blog.
Individuals are wired differently. This forms the basis for our choice of work whether freelance or outside home.
After our compulsory youth service in my country, I got a teaching job close to my place of residence. While I would say I enjoyed relating with teenagers and impacting them the little way I can, I still had a void inside of me. The satisfaction was not satisfactory 😁😁. I wasn't fulfilled.
I have a dream of running my fashion business right from college days. Infact, I did a lot of sewing during my service year that I didn't have issues with the meagre allowance from the federal government.
The inspiration to start a business of my own started with what I see with my mom. She is a civil servant who solely depended on her salary(that was then anyway)to run the home and cater for our needs. When a need like our school fees come up, she had to rely on loans to meet the need. This wasn't much of a problem as her monthly pay caters for the loans and still have little left for feeding and others.
Years down the line, the government of our state decided to start disbursing half of the monthly salary to it's workers. This development led to serious chaos for the civil servants. The interesting part is the financial institutions kept deducting the full loan for the month from the half salary. So literally, there was no salary for my mom. I got to my final year at this time and I felt the fire. It was then it became glaring that the salary wasn't enough. Then I told myself, I won't be found depending on salary only.
That said, I'm an individual with creative abilities. I find joy in creating stuffs with my hands which is why I don't like to feel caged/imprisoned.
My first job gave a little bit of freedom but after I was done with my classes and other duties for the day. The pay was quite meagre and inconsistent. Worst is the authority would say, we are doing the Lord's work so we shouldn't be found complaining. That sound strange, right?
Two years later, I got tired of doing the Lord's work because it wasn't funding my dreams 😂
I got another teaching job twice my usual pay. It seemed interesting, so I thought, till I started. My closing time should be 3pm but I get home quite late. The school proprietress usually calls for meetings after closing hours and it would eat into your evenings. Meetings has no schedule. It meant that I would leave my home 6am and be back 7pm when I'm early. Literally, I don't have a life outside the school. You'd say holidays will be fine, right? Hehehe,...it was filled with seminars, conferences, symposiums and there's no compensation for all these times except your salary. Infact there was no item 7 during the extra times. I felt imprisoned.
At this point, I had built confidence and found clarity in business so I resigned.
I stayed home and started taking sewing orders. This did not stop me from interacting with people. I go fabric/accessories sourcing. It wasn't paying enough really but the fulfilment hits differently.
Moreover, with my creative sides, my career path and the fact that my business is still a start-up, I found a way to work my business, while still earning a salary. Our present economic situation is also not funny. I for one can wear multiple caps and still not be overwhelmed.
To answer the prompt question now, I love to freelance - be self employed, because it gives me my time. I get to control how I want 5hings to go for mez socialize and still make money as I deem fit. I've worked with employers who see me as nothing other than a tool to make their organization progress. So I will rather be a tool for myself. If I'm going to get a salary job, it'll be with the government. I'm considering the job so I can fund my business with it. I'll only work from 8am to 2:30pm and have the rest of the day and my weekends to fulfil orders.
This is my response the Ladies of Hive weekly prompt.