5 Things that can make self-employment seriously awful

That whole freelance games critic thing is the best job I ever had in life. I do something I absolutely love doing and, occasionally, I even get paid a little something. Not remotely enough, but it's a job for the kind of person who craves attention more than worldly possessions and I've come to terms with that. For the most part. And when I complain about the sucky side of things, my friends tend to tell me off. "You're your own boss, you can sleep in every day, you work from home and you're still whining. If you really hated it so much, you'd go find yourself a new job!"
Funny thing is, if I really could get employed as a writer, rather than being a crappy freelancer, I wouldn't hesitate to do so. But I suppose my friends are referring to other, less exciting regular office jobs. Fair enough. If I hated being a freelancer so much, I'd probably get one of those jobs. Everything has its ups and downs. So, if you've ever considered self-employment, be sure you can deal with this stuff:

5. Distractions

Resisting the urge to take part in this week's poop throwing contest, Bob did all he could to meet his deadlines.

Working at home has its obvious perks. My cat is here. I'm not wearing pants. Nobody gives me any weird looks when I have the occasional wank break. The cat's kinda used to it by now. And I don't have to worry about my boss magically appearing behind me the moment I check Facebook. Have you ever felt the temptation to check on your Farmville account, play a quick round of Angry Birds or waste your company's valuable time some other way while you're supposed to do your job? Imagine having full access to your Steam account, a bazillion brand new games and nobody to ask you why the fuck you're not working when you spend eight hours grinding levels in Pandaria. Unless you get paid to do exactly that, of course.

Sleeping in can be another problem. Sure, I don't have to actually "get to the office", unless you wanna count the way from the bedroom to the living room. Shower and shave? Meh, no one is gonna look at me all day. But getting up late means you'll miss important emails and phone calls, people get pissed off because you're not reliable and chances are, you'll end up working all night, meaning you'll get up even later the next day. And work piles up all the time, usually when you least expect it. The other week I was supposed to write a class guide on some MMO, but the publisher failed to provide the necessary characters, so I had to level them up from scratch. At the same time, another publisher contacted me and demanded an explanation about why I was so harsh when I rated their game. Then they told me about the "factual mistakes" I've made while they're reading my article in Google Translate, because they don't actually speak the language the article is written in. So I had to spend the next hour explaining to them what I actually said and why their translation is wrong. I don't get paid to do this, but it needs to be done. Also, if the publisher in question happens to read this, I still love you and I don't mean to point fingers.

So I'm explaining my review on one game, leveling some characters on another, then I'm getting a call from the office, asking me how many dungeons there are in a third game, which I've reviewed three weeks ago. Because they need that detail for the article. Fuck if I know. And that's when one of our pets got sick and refused to eat, so in between calls, emails, level-grinding and typing stuff, I'm bathing, creaming and force-feeding a lizard. And when one customer wasn't satisfied with the quality of some gameplay footage I had recorded for them, I had to spend the rest of the night re-recording and re-uploading everything, meaning my business night ended sometime around 6:30am. But I get to sleep in, because I'm such a lucky bastard! And strict deadlines lead us right to the next problem...

4. Deadlines

I got a call one night when it turned out that a publisher was going to re-use some of my magazine reviews from one or two years ago. Which, of course, were grossly outdated by then, but they were gonna sell them off as brand new. "Can you update these reviews and make sure all the facts are still correct? Amount of dungeons, races and classes, pricing and so forth. We need this by tomorrow." While this certainly doesn't happen all the time, these things do happen. It's the kind of stuff you have to be ready for when you're self-employed. Emergencies. And I really, really like that particular magazine, I didn't wanna let them down, so of course I went and spent the rest of the night fixing this mess. At no charge. Because I'm a nice guy, I scratch your back, you scratch mine, that kinda thing.

Unfortunately, you cannot expect the same kind of courtesy when it comes down to getting paid for your work. About a month ago, I've sent an invoice to a customer and when there was no payment after two weeks, I went and contacted them. And I was told that people were on sick leave or on vacation, so there had been a slight delay and the invoice would be paid this week. And there was no money for another week, so I contacted them again. And they responded with the exact same message. Sick leave, vacation, money goes out this week. Bit weird. Do they really mean it this time? Am I gonna get my money this week? I don't fucking know.

"So, how's freelance games journalism working for ya?"
- "Shut the fuck up and put another magazine in the fire!"

You see, I never know that I won't be paid on time until it's too late. The guys who sign my invoices just pass them on to accounting, where they'll sit around until somebody gets in the mood to take care of them. Whole department is on vacation? Somebody called in sick? Computer problem? Cosmic rays? Doesn't fucking matter. If they don't pay up for whatever reason, I won't know until I check my bank account, then I ask the guys who sign my invoices, they ask in accounting and they say that nobody was there to pay, but they'll probably take care of it sometime this week. If I'm lucky.

So what am I supposed to do? Charge them late fees? What am I gonna do if they refuse to pay them, hire a lawyer? Like I could afford that! And they know I can't. I could go on strike, refuse to post any new articles on their websites, put all guides and level ups on halt until the money gets there, but that hurts me more than it'll hurt them. Because eventually, I will have to pick up the slack and any delay in my work means further delay for my pay.

I couldn't pay the rent last month. I would have been able to pay, had my employers paid me on time. They didn't. So the transaction to my landlord didn't get through and my bank has, in its infinite wisdom and glory, charged extra fees for the failed transaction. Because banks care and the customer is always right and if some automated process fails and I don't have enough money to pay the rent, it makes perfect sense to punish me by taking even more of my money away from me. Look at those tv ads where smiling, happy people go to their local bank and everyone is happy and there are smiles and handshakes. It's all liiiiiiiiies!

3. Lack of Safety

We tried it that way, but I'm too big.

Everybody can be replaced. I could piss off a publisher who fails to pay up on time. They'll remember that. Maybe they'll be more careful next time. Maybe they'll just give the next job to somebody less bitchy. Being self-employed means you probably don't have any binding contracts with the people you work for and if they no longer require your services for any reason, well... they don't even have to fire you.

This is especially tricky with games journalism. They give me work, because I'm fast, reliable, relatively well-known and I'm simply good. And not too expensive - great value for money and all that. Problem is, there are countless people willing to do my job for less than what I get. They may not be as reliable, they may not be very talented, but they'll be so happy about the proverbial 15 minutes of fame, they wouldn't dare dream to complain, cause trouble or charge a humane amount of money for their work. So, not only can I be "laid off" at any time without so much as an explanation, they can instantly hire a new guy to do my job for less.

And with the rather modest amount of money I get for the job, which may or may not be paid within a reasonable amount of time, I can't really put anything into a "rainy day fund". Should the magazines I write for - god forbid - cease to exist or no longer require my services for any reason, I'll be fucked harder than your younglings when you ask Josef Fritzl to babysit.

2. Stress

I have this one recurring nightmare: I'm late for work. I get stuck in traffic, I miss the train, I'm out of gas, I oversleep, my brain comes up with all kinds of reasons for me to be late and when I finally make it to the office, everyone's kinda pissed off at me and I worry about losing my job.
I haven't worked in an office for more than a half decade and I have never met any of the people I work with in person.

Tight deadlines stress me out. I had to finish three reviews the other week, two of which were about games I haven't had the chance to play yet. One of the games crashed my computer, because it was an unstable beta. Hour-long server maintenance stopped me from playing. And I ran out of goddamn time. And that causes insomnia. When I finally go to bed between 4 and 6 in the morning, I'm dog-tired, but I can't fucking sleep. My brain is in "work-mode". I go through my recent articles. What did I write again? Did I mention that new class, the pvp issues and the problems with the item shop? Did I remember to upload those screenshots?

The next step is terror shits. Okay, it's really just diarrhea or all kinds of stress-related stomach cramps, but that doesn't sound as awesome. And over the past two or so weeks, which have been unusually stressful, even by my standards, I've developed a whole new symptom: Tinnitus. My left ear is ringing and it won't fucking stop. Never had this for as long as I've lived. Started just recently and went away when all my work was finished. Now I didn't get paid for anything, I can't pay my bills, my fridge is empty and my fucking ear started ringing again.

"Maybe I should call the boss and tell him I'm s... aw fuck!"

Of course this isn't the only problem. When you get sick, you can't just stay at home for a day instead of going to the office. Your office is at home. And you can either grit your teeth and do your job no matter how shit you feel or you can leave it, miss your deadlines and screw up your chances at getting more work in the future. And the fun doesn't stop there in my case - with most of these symptoms being caused by stress, actually asking for an extension of my deadlines will only cause more stress, because it makes me look bad. Hurray!

1. Maintaining a Relationship

"Remember when we still had the time and money to go out?"
"No."
"Me neither. HAHAHA!"

When my partner comes from from her underpaid day job, she wants to talk. She wants to have dinner, talk about work, have some quality time with me. And I gotta record video footage, write previews and grind levels like there's no tomorrow. And I'm stressed out. I can't focus on what she's saying, I don't have time for her, I get aggressive and she feels rightfully neglected.

Sex? I'm way too fucking exhausted and I won't be able to come to bed before 4am. Hit the town this weekend, go to a nice restaurant and make up for the time we're not getting with each other? Fat chance, there's no money on the account! We should go on vacation when this month's magazine issue is finished and there won't be as much to do. Oh wait, the money thing again...

Working at home and sharing your home with a spouse means you won't get your "office" to yourself all the time. You could put up the "do not disturb" sign and avoid all contact, so you can finish your job on time, which will harm your relationship in the long run. You could take a break, listen to your partner, talk about their day, spend two hours having dinner and watching a movie together. Which makes going back to work even more difficult and may potentially hurt your career in the long run. It doesn't matter what you do - you're always screwed.

My partner and I have started to share my job as much as we can, so we can be together while I work. When I'm supposed to write class guides, she'll level one character, I'll level the other. When I'm supposed to review a game, she plays it with me, so I can get a second opinion and she can check out features like crafting or housing and pets while I look into raids and pvp. I'm incredibly lucky that she's so understanding and loves games as much as I do. Problem is, you can't expect your partner to be into your job as much as you are. You can't expect them to understand when you get pissed off at them when they try to talk to you after a long day at work, while you're still in the middle of it. Having a loved one at your work place may sound like a cool idea, but in most cases, you'll end up hating each other.

-Cat