When Time Isn’t Money
Owing to my own promise of “writing more about what I do”, I recently composed a personal essay for the lovely Desk Lunch newsletter about blatantly embracing late-stage capitalism—while female!
The big message of the essay is to respect your own worth and not be afraid to ask for fair compensation, as inspired by my very exciting recent adventures in venting about it on Twitter. What I didn’t have room to include is how this all kind of backfired on me last year. Pull up a chair!
At the beginning of 2019, I was frustrated by the feeling of floundering both romantically and in my career. I decided to institute a personal mandate for myself: NO COMPROMISES. The main reason for this was to avoid slowly backsliding in career path and compensation rate, as I feared was happening. (The secondary reason... well.)
Although it felt unfamiliar to be so black-and-white strict with myself, regularly returning to that credo simplified a lot of gray-area decisions I’d normally agonize over; maybe a lack of rigidity is what had always prevented me from becoming truly great?! I received some amazing interview opportunities that felt like a direct manifestation of this new, confident mindset, and I turned down a small retainer with a little studio that I really loved working with but who was having trouble affording me. I was moving forward!
But none of my interviews from that year amounted to offers. And although I convinced myself it was the right thing to do at the time, I now often question whether leaving the studio (which was definitely the most enjoyable job I’ve had in NY) was actually the correct decision. The problem with “no compromises” was not that I asked for what I wanted, but that I refused to leave room for negotiation.
I’ve since been getting by with some fixed-budget projects that, when broken down hourly, have amounted to roughly half of what I want to be charging. It’s not where I want to be (and I have no idea how I’m going to pay taxes this year), but I’ve accepted that it’s currently where I am. SIGH!
ANYWAYS, as a bonus takeaway from my personal essay (that will not make sense if you didn’t read the personal essay so just read the personal essay already if you haven’t), I made some phone wallpapers to happily remind you to reach for the privileged straight, white male stars every time you reach for your lock screen. Download here!
I’m learning from 2019 and trying not to be discouraged. The flag I’m waving in 2020 says, “Maybe some compromises?” Or maybe I just gotta keep looking at my phone lock screen.