Kate Bohdanowicz

I haven’t blogged for a while as I’ve been busy with my portfolio career. Ooh, says ye, that sounds posh. 

Freelancing has its peaks and troughs and every now and again I think I need more stability and apply for a part-time job. I had an interview for one last week. Having got up at 6.30am and spent over an hour on a cramped commute (yes I know most people do this every day: I did it for 17 years) I was grilled about a fairly low paid job that allowed little flexibility with the hours. Once there I realised I didn’t want it. 

It would mean I’d be told what to do. I’d have to ask permission to go on holiday. I’d have to ask permission to take my lunch. I’d have to work to their hours and their rules. 

It makes me sound like a shirker and that’s not the case. Working for myself, I tend to start early and the first thing I do is spend an hour on my novel (I know you’re desperate to know and my second draft will be finished in April).

If I was heading to a workplace, that hour would be spent doing my ablutions. 

Then I work on the thing that is the most difficult in my to-do list. It could be a dyslexia report or an article or an email or research for a piece or even a blog post. If I was at a workplace, I’d have to focus on whatever they deemed to be the most pressing. 

I tend to work through until 1.30pm and go for a run. I couldn’t do that at a workplace. 

I’m sluggish in the afternoons which is why I sometimes treat myself to my guilty pleasure, an hour of the American show Millionaire Matchmaker (I definitely couldn’t do that at a workplace) and then I do some more work and two evenings a week I teach. 

I work some weekends too. It means I can take the odd morning or afternoon off without worry 

And don’t get me started on how brilliant it is to have the time to cook, run, be in for deliveries, have workmen round and see friends for lunch. I might even nip to the cinema* to catch a sneaky film.

Of course there are cons. I don’t earn as much as I used to and the money I do earn isn’t regular or guaranteed. Nor do I get holiday pay, sick pay or a work pension. But you have to take the rough with the smooth.

So I really didn’t want this part-time job and then I heard that I hadn’t got it and thought: ‘What is wrong with me? How could I have not got that job?’ 

Yes my ego was bruised but now I’m back to my portfolio career with all the joys (and the occasional sorrow) it brings.

*As my loyal reader knows, I’ve had my gripe with Empire Cinemas in Walthamstow over their lack of subtitled screenings for deaf and hard of hearing viewers (my other half is deaf). It looks like my badgering worked as they’ve put on an extra weekly screening and after Birdman won the Oscar, a subtitled screening was shown (I was teaching so we didn’t go, but I appreciate it). Thankyou Empire.