Boss's Annual Review

There's something worth celebrating this month: my business, 'Straight Out Of Crompton', is a year old!

Officially I've been self-employed as a freelance journalist for a whole year. How exciting, especially because I can count myself as one of the 200,000 that registered as self-employed in 2011/2012 and said a big "Fuck You" to the system and recession. That's as far as I can relate to the stats though, as I definitely don't fall into the age bracket they're talking about...nor do I look it! (Yeah, I know you were thinking it.)

To celebrate the 1 year anniversary I had an extra glass of red wine at the end of the day. Unfortunately the boss said I couldn't bring cake into the (home) office for fear of getting sticky fingers and making a mess of my laptop keyboard. She tells me that even though 2013 so far has been a productive year, company funds are still not able to support the costs of technical repair work should anything go wrong with the laptop due to cake damage.

Really though, I set this blog up as a place to document how easy or hard it would be to go it alone in business, or more specifically journalism, because to be honest the other job options and lack there of that were presenting themselves left me feeling little more than despair.

So, a year on and am I better off? Yes, mentally I think I am. Panic attacks and the dread of getting out of bed to go to a job that seriously sucked arse are signs of days long gone. I actually enjoy getting up at 7:30am, putting on the coffee and sitting down to my desk. I feel, dare I say, "professional".

Oh, wait, you meant better off in a monetary way? Well, all I'll say is it's probably best to wait another year before you talk to my accountant about how profitable it is to be a freelance journalist.

I do seem to be getting better with this whole getting work = more money thing though. All I'm saying is bollocks to any superstition about 2013 being the year of bad luck, because so far I've managed to score two new monthly commissions - one of which sees me getting my own column, so I can properly call myself a columnist which is mega exciting and professional - and I have on my plate the chance of four regular days work that will pay me an annual salary and progress my skill set in journalistic techniques I've so far not touched!

This is good, stuff is coming together, so I suppose what I'm trying to say to any HMV workers out there that may be reading this, is that perhaps taking the jump, going self-employed and picking to do something you love isn't so scary after all.

A year on and I'm not living off just beans on toast. Result.
-x-