On freelancing, and freedom

If you had told me a year ago that I would be signing on, working freelance 1 or 2 days a week and applying for jobs in any shop that would have me, I would possibly have had a panic attack at the lack of control these elements signify. But this is where I am, and somehow I am not at all anxious about it.

In September I applied for a full-time position at an institution I would love to work at, but in a role that wasn't quite right. At the same time I was talking to someone I know about the possibility of freelance education work - she mentioned that she didn't know how long it would last, or how many hours she could offer, but the project sounded amazing. I had an interview for both jobs, and had that false sense that I had got the full-time position. In the end I didn't, but I had been ready to turn it down to do the freelancing.

I think I have found a way of working that makes me happy:

I've never liked working in an office. I'm not good with sitting at a desk in the same building, all day, every day. It makes me miserable. I was freelancing at a conference in a building I used to work in and, when I went to the toilets I looked in the mirror and couldn't believe how relaxed and happy I felt after a morning of facilitating workshops with teenagers, compared to the times when I used to feel so stressed out and anxious (not because of the job - it was lovely) to the point of feeling ill.

I'm quite easily bored. I used to work in marketing but each job seemed the same after a year because of the yearly cycle of leaflets that needed producing. I know that all jobs are repetitive, but even though over the last couple of months I have helped deliver three near-identical 2-day conferences, each one has been amazingly different in how I've worked, what I've enjoyed and what has challenged me. the reason why? The young people who came were all so energetic and individual that they made each conference a completely different experience.

I like being busy, in a way that the 9-5 doesn't allow. I love projects, I love volunteering and I like variety. Ever since university I have happily overloaded myself with work experiences, societies, events organising, and I hated how that seemed to stop in a 9-5 job. I know I could do these things in the evenings, but when you get home after a day in the office, that never seems to happen. Working flexible (and to be honest, not very much) means I have time to do other things.

I am not a lark. I do not function very well before 11. I am at my peak at about 4 o clock, and can happily work till 1 in the morning. My body clock does not match full-time employment. It does match jobs where I have to spend a lot of time multi-tasking and researching from the sofa.

Alas, it cannot last for now. It is not sustainable to work less than 16 hours and sign on for much longer, especially as, despite what I have said above, not being gainfully employed does make me feel a bit lost. So the plan is to get a part-time real job to combine with what I really want to do, and see how that works out.

'See how that works out' is a new phrase in my vocabulary - one that I have adopted in the confidence that things normally do (work out).

More than one year on

Gosh, those intentions didn't really work out, did they? I did indeed study for an MA in Museum Studies, and will be graduating in a week or so's time.

Deciding to go back to university was one of the best decisions I've made. It reinforced my inkling that I wanted to work with people instead of Word documents, and I have developed a strong interest in community work in museums and cultural institutions , particularly with young people. I was fortunate enough to work in the community engagement department of a national museum and wrote my dissertation on the use of youth panels by museums.

When I finished my MA I started looking for a job, any job, and was considering going back into marketing, because it was what I knew, when amazingly I got a part-time job as a freelance educator, working with young people around ideas of heritage, identity and discrimination. It is exactly what I want to be doing, and I feel very fortunate.

I am also working as a research assistant on a digital heritage project, and volunteering for an oral history/archive project about popular politics in the North East and a cultural project with the regional refugee service. So I am quite a busy girl!

I hope I will be better at writing in here than I was a year ago. It was quite a significant year, not only in terms of professional development, but also personal as I came out of a very long-term relationship and learned a lot about myself. I'm not sure whether the clarity I found regarding my career aspirations would have happened without this personal development or vice versa, but I am in a much better place than I was in the post below.