7 Jan 2004 @ 12:54, by Craig Lang
An interesting series of questions passed through my mind in the last week or two - mostly relating to the ups and downs of the corporate environment - what I lovingly call CubeWorld.
I had a couple of weeks off for the Christmas holiday, so I was able to spend much of my time writing, seeing clients, and spending time with Gwyn enjoying things that we wouldn't normally be able to do. It was a delight spending the day at the Science Museum, seeing alot of movies, etc... It was an enjoyable break, and best of all, I had no thoughts about the current goings-on at the company. Not a thought of corporate politics passed through my brain.
I talk about how I enjoy working in the design engineering of healing technology. Yet with the next breath I grouse about working in CubeWorld. Anyone notice a duality there?... :-)
Like anything else, CubeWorld has both advantages and disadvantages. Many of the disadvantages are obvious - politics, a power and ego orientation, schedule pressure, a hierarchical food chain, and all of the foibles that go along with it. And it was this that I so much enjoyed being away from. For two weeks, I got to live for me - no boss(!!!) It was wonderful to work with clients without any agenda of a company getting in the way. I could concentrate on writing and service.
But the other thing I noticed was that when you get away from the world of the workplace and start to work for yourself, your overall people exposure drops way off. Being a bit of an extrovert, I find that I need alot of people contact on a daily basis. That's probably what I like most about the day-job, and why I'm still there. It's the people I work with.
During the days that I spent working on my book and writing articles, I found myself going from one end of the day to the other, hardly seeing a soul. It was clear to me that if this became a regular thing, depression might not be too far off. The people-outlet problem is described by quite a few work-at-home'ers and telecomuters, and by therapists who are in private practice. While CubeWorld has some very clear disadvantages, it does at least provide you with an automatic people-outlet.
As I contemplate the coming changes, I can imagine myself at some point possibly going into private practice as a healer, hypnotherapist, and maybe a freelance programmer. And last week I concluded that it will be a challenge to restructure life such that there is sufficient regular people contact to prevent the sense of isolation. Clearly, when going it alone, some other creative type of people-outlet will be needed to replace that aspect of CubeWorld.
So, chalk this up as a little lesson that I learned from a tiny little dry run of the freelance life - two weeks of time off from CubeWorld.
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