My Dream Job
I wrote this blog post in December 2020. Right after I had quit my 9-5 and decided to start freelancing.
Growing up, I always wanted to work in a cubicle.
It might sound strange but coming from a family where both my parents worked from home, being able to leave the house and go to an office where I had a designated space to work seemed amazing. I wanted that classic sit-com work situation.
Then adulthood came, and so did open concept offices.
Open concept office spaces are extremely cost effective for employers. But are they enjoyable to work in? No. I have never had an office space to myself, not even a cubicle, and I’ve had 7 jobs in professional environments. Not only that, but none of my coworkers had an office space to themselves. Managers did, but anyone below them had to share a space.
I remember in one of my open-concept offices, they told us to use headphones if we didn’t want to be bothered, so I did that. I would turn up my music and get working. Unfortunately, that lead to the man next to me constantly tapping me on the shoulder so he could talk to me about absolutely nothing.
There’s no winning in open-concept offices.
Then I thought, since I’ll never work in a cubicle, maybe working from home is what my dream is. Then COVID happened. I adored working from home, but I still needed to follow someone else’s schedule. I couldn’t walk my dog when I wanted, I had to talk to people all day (more than if we were working in office). I didn’t vibe with working from home full-time for an employer.
Now I’ve decided that I need autonomy. I need to work for myself. I love being able to be creative, working one on one with my clients, and all from the comfort of my very purple office.
I want to work WITH people, not FOR people.
A quick note:
What does it mean to work WITH people?
It means creating custom strategies. It means open communication. It means having the time to CARE. Working WITH people allows us to remove ourselves from working for a paycheque. Working WITH people creates a cohesive effort to move forward.
Working FOR people, to me, implies a hierarchy situation. In my experience, when you work FOR someone, you become afraid of saying ‘no’, and you keep your ideas to yourself more often than not.This isn’t everyone’s situation, of course. I find working FOR someone removes the purpose behind what you’re doing. You stop trying to be proud of yourself and look to your management to be proud of you. The worst thing about that is, you can’t control the praise you get. So, at the end of the day, you feel unfulfilled (at least I did).
I’ve had a lot of jobs. I get bored quite quickly. I kept entering environments that I thought would be my ‘dream job’, but I’m quickly learning that my dream job doesn’t exist. I have to make it.
I don’t need a cubicle, I don’t need to force myself into open-concept offices, I don’t want to follow someone else’s work schedule, I only need to be confident in my ability to deliver value to my clients.
After diving into my work, I had 3 leads in the first 2 days that I was self-employed. The only limit we have is ourselves.
