I am a student of life. I participate in and observe everything around me to incorporate into my personal view of the world.
Why I freelance
I’ve spent a fair amount of my adult life working as a contractor under the custodianship of a number of staffing agencies. Sometimes it was a rewarding experience where I met wonderful people and expanded my skills in ways that I would not have had the opportunity otherwise. Unfortunately, the memory of how the managers of these agencies could be with both the employees and the clients clings to me.
I remember receiving an email that was sent to all the contractors across the nation by our agency manager proclaiming that, while the client controlled the work, but she controlled us. This manager never set foot in the office that several contractors, including me, supported. She was halfway across country. She was unfamiliar with the names of the attorneys I supported and didn’t understand how they liked handling the work. She didn’t know about me working through lunches to get the footwork of a project completed but not claiming the overtime was a common event and then attending a two-hour lunch with the attorneys to celebrate the success of the project. She only knew that her contractors clocked in and out on time.
I do wonder at how easy it is for corporate staffing agencies to disassociate with clients and employees, to be an intermediary that has no vested interest other than making a profit trying to step in and telling us how our arrangement should work.
I no longer wish to have an intermediary calling shots that I need to work through or around. I want to create partnerships with clients that are specifically of our own design. Not only will we set the parameters and schedules, but I will know them as people. Even if it is only though a telephone or video call, I will see what impassions them about a case and embrace that enthusiasm myself.
I want the wonder and challenge of expanding my skills and serving new people without the middleman telling me how to do that. Thus I choose to freelance.
Interviews work both ways.
I’ve been there. I get it.
Whether by misfortune or design, we’re unemployed and need to find a new situation. Sometimes we get lucky and the new position quickly lands at our feet. The rest of the time, we wade through our own personal sea of rejection letters. There was a time between my first and second paralegal positions that I swore I could wallpaper my entire house with the multitude of letters expressing how my qualifications were impressive but I wasn’t what they were looking for. I often wondered if my resume was even read before they sent the rejection.
When fortunate enough to be invited for an interview, I would say anything I thought prospective employers wanted to hear. I only asked the proscribed questions found within job hunting articles. I didn’t want to risk upsetting the interviewers.
Sadly, that technique wasn’t providing job offers. I decided if playing the usual game wasn’t working, I might as well be true to myself. I started asking the questions that would help me decide if I really wanted the position. Sure, the interviewers could speak ad nauseum about the offered health benefits and the corporate culture, but were they really telling me about my coworkers or managers?
The last job I interviewed for, prior to jumping into the freelance pool, is a good example. On paper, the position sounded like a good fit, but corporate representative who conducted the Zoom interview was lackluster. Maybe they were not truly interested in me and had a quota of applicants that needed to be spoken to before they could move on to the next phase. Who knows. All I really saw was someone going robotically through the motions.
Having recently left position for personal reasons, I was still in the mind set I had cultivated during that period. When excited, I speak joyously about former experiences. I make pop culture references and use vernacular that betrays where I grew up or currently live. When I see people smile and match my enthusiasm, I know we’ll work well together. However, this interviewer was stoic throughout and did nothing to show any excitement about her experience working for the company she represented. I did not hear any more from that company after the interview but that’s okay. I want to see passion and excitement for the work being done. We spend so much of our adult lives working. We should see that part of our lives in vivid color not muted with apathy. The first step in finding those robust colors is at the interview, and we owe it to ourselves to bring our personal enthusiasm to the table and expect any potential employer to do the same.