Saying I’m unemployed sounds dramatic but I guess it’s true. You go through periods of being unemployed when you work contracts and for me it’s not much of a thing. Since the pandemic, I’ve worked a string of jobs (maybe a dozen) that each last a couple months or more. I’ve been able to take long periods of time off and work when I want.

The past few years in tech have felt like a gravy train compared to other industries. But recent concerns over the economy have caused marketing spend to soften. And now I’ve had to decide, do I wait it out or try something else?

Maybe two days after I settled into unemployment I got a call asking if I wanted more work. I mapped out what I’d charge to write eight, thousand-word blogs. I ran it by a friend who got me the work and he said that’s totally reasonable — which made me wonder, did I go too low?

Everything sounded like we were on but then they went quiet. And sure enough, they asked me to lower my price. I might have budged a little but they wanted me to budge a lot, so I politely declined. And then I wondered if I’d been foolish, but I told myself no.

And now, a full week later, as I’m hanging the laundry out to dry and thinking about what I’ll fix for dinner, what they offered me doesn’t seem so bad. Twelve thousand dollars! Still I’m glad to be a house husband and work for free. There, just say it: I’m glad to be a house husband and work for free. Repeat.

It is a good time of year to be unemployed. Any time is. For a while it felt like summer had a tinge of fall to it and now it’s the other way around. There is still a light smoke about and each day I check the weather to see when it will change. I’ve had so much time to catch up on things I’m now getting to the granular. Changing out the summer-themed tablecloth (yellow) to the autumn-themed one (brown). Cleaning out drawers and closets. Calling in contractors to vacuum the vents, to sweep out the chimney. I might even call about that colonoscopy. Clean all the pipes!

More than anything I just love having time. Time to deep clean the oven, to get the dog’s nails trimmed. To read. The other day I made ratatouille (it took three hours). In a sense we trade our time for money and our hourly rate governs our quality of life. These are the things I think about when I’m not working.

Yesterday my old firm wrote me to say, can I hang on another month? There’s signs things might be changing. And I wrote back right away, yes I can.

Categories: microblogging, writing

Tags: creative nonfiction, journal writing