You do what?
December 3, 2007 – 5:31 pm by CathSo there I was meeting some friends I’ve not seen for a while. They know I’m a freelance journalist. It’s not the dirtiest of my secrets, after all. And it wasn’t long before the inevitable spewed from the lips of one of them:
“So, what are you doing these days? Still having a go at the journalist thing?”
Excuse me? Still having a go? Journalist thing?
“Nah,” I should have answered. “I couldn’t be arsed with journalism in the end. I tried it for a week but it just wasn’t enough of a challenge. Anyway, I’m a trapeze artist now. Ok, so the leotard keeps creeping up my bum but at least I get paid in sequins.”
Course, that’s not what I said at all. Instead I swallowed my urge to maim and kill and explained, for the 561st time that, as a professional journalist with a healthy list of clients, I am doing very well, thank you, earning a living, paying the taxman and going on holidays that were mentioned, deliberately, to turn them green.
Whatis it with people who think that because you’re freelance you’re not actually working for a living? That ‘freelance’ is code for ‘can’t be arsed to get a proper job’? God, you’d think that with the endless media spouting about work/ life balance and suicidal managers succesfully starting your own business and doing your dream job would be commended. Somehow, though, that’s just not the case. Instead it’s seen (I like to tell myself by uneducated fools) as how you kill time before Tesco begins it’s Christmas recruitment drive. “Freelance journalism?”, I’d say to my interviewer for the shelf-stacking position. “Oh, that’s nothing. Just a way of paying the bills before I got the chance to realise my ambition of lining up tins of Pedigree Chum.”
Tell me that these people aren’t being serious will you?