Life changes (by alaric)
My life has been changing a bit recently...
Firstly, I've resigned from the last company I don't own that I was an employee of. I used to be a full time employee, but nearly a year after the company decided to "downsize" drastically to save expense and stay afloat (ditching all of the staff apart from myself, the MD, an admin person, and the production guy and abandoning the office in favour of us all working from our homes, and cutting our pay by 10%), I went part time to start pursuing a freelancing career. Well, I've now resigned entirely, although I may take on freelancing contracts from them.
The difference will be that such contracts will have a beginning and an end; the reason I've resigned is that the work had become a constant stream of quite menial work, most of which came in with very little notice and tight deadlines, meaning it was an endless distraction. Also, if I spent all of my time on it I'd earn enough to feed the family at the end of the month, while freelance contracts would take months to pay back, which combined with the depleted state of my savings after the move, birth of Jean, and Sarah's illness meant I had to spend most of my time working as an employee to pay the bills. The proper lucrative interesting work had to be squeezed into the evenings.
So I'm hopeful about this change. The finances will be a bit tight for the next couple of months, but my pipeline is filling already.
The other change is that I've become a cub scout leader. This is because our village is restarting a scout group, with all three ages - beavers, cubs, and scouts. Sarah got involved, but the person who was going to be doing cubs backed out. Now, I'd always planned to do something voluntary for the community; either rejoin St John Ambulance or see if the Air Cadets take civilian volunteers (I was in the Combined Cadet Force at school, in the RAF section). Being a scout leader hadn't occurred to me, but the village needed one, so I decided to give it a go.
I was very nervous up until our first meeting with the children; but now I've met them and know a bit about them, I can start to actually have some idea of what they'll enjoy, so the fear of the unknown is ebbing fast. We have to go through a lot of training before we can run the group alone; we're being heavily supported by other groups in the area and central district resources, and while I'm sure the training will be useful, what I'm planning on doing is asking if there's a nearby cub pack that meets on a Tuesday and could do with me as a helper for a couple of weeks, so I can learn from others directly. I learn fast that way.
All of this means that I'm moving rather fast along my Life Plan.
- Married - check
- Father - check
- Self employed - check
- Doing some volunteer community activity - check
- Have employees - WORKING ON IT
- Become a magistrate - SCHEDULED FOR 2009
- Implement ARGON - WORKING ON IT
- Rule the world from an orbital battlestation - STALLED DUE TO POOR AVAILABILITY OF ANTIMATTER
Wed 18th Oct 2006 12:52 am 
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By Charlee, Wed 18th Oct 2006 @ 7:28 am
Sounds like you're doing well 🙂 /me is very proud
By ella, Wed 18th Oct 2006 @ 3:17 pm
Wow, you want to be a magistrate?
Glad to hear that you've decided to work for yourself! Far better than working for someone else!
Finally, Air Cadets rocks (And does take civilian volunteers, a friend of mine did stuff) and tho you were CCF at least you were air section and not navel section like Oli!
By Mike Mussard, Wed 18th Oct 2006 @ 8:19 pm
When you're ready for employees can I apply 😉
By sarah, Thu 19th Oct 2006 @ 9:56 am
I hope u is still thinking of rejoining St. Johns - once life has settled a bit of course!
By Lionel, Mon 23rd Oct 2006 @ 7:21 pm
Good luck with your brave stepping out of part-time employment! Glad to hear that the pipeline is filling - and I hope you are also collecting associates to help smooth the workflow. Freelance work can be like the buses that all arrive at once.