#workingtolive

The Caregiver

By: Scarlette Phillips

It was bright. Smoke in the air. Ringing in my ears.

Everyone around me coughing,screaming,asking if I was ok.

Even though they were all there it still felt like someone was gone.

As we were leaving I felt as if I was leaving someone behind.

Months later i still feel empty,lost,forgotten.

Then I cry and i blame myself,then i stop telling myself i’m not aloud to cry.

I can’t cry I have to stay strong for my family,I don’t have the time to be sad.

I tell myself it’s your fault you have to earn the right to be sad..

Then i get up,get dressed, put on a smile and go and work my ass of all day.

I work until they're all happy,until they tell me to stop.

Even when they tell me to stop I continue in secret,slowly.

Making sure everything was perfect for them.

So they didn't have to worry.

So they didn’t have to be sad,so they could live there lives better then I lived mine.

I continue to work hard.

Work for them,work so they don’t have to endure the horrible pain of this insane world.

Work so they can be better than me.

Better than our father.

The man who left then,left us.

The man who doesn't care anymore.

But I do and I will do anything to keep us together.

We’ve been pretty stationary in northern Nevada for a while, but intend to hit the road again in the winter (it dropped below freezing here last night! So... cold...). A lot of what I’ve been focusing on lately is acquiring backup sources of income for when there are lulls with the companies I prefer to work with. I’ve had a lot of questions over the past year and a half about what kind of work I do that allows me to travel and while still maintaining an income, so I figured I’d write up a blog post on some of the dynamics of my work life.

For those who don’t know, I am effectively self-employed. I subcontract/freelance for a few companies doing science editing and writing (and, more recently, tutoring). Therefore, all I really need is a minimum of a 3G Verizon connection (I acquired an unlimited data plan last year and have a 4G signal booster, which have made my life immensely easier!) and a functioning computer with Microsoft Office... the “functioning computer” part is actually typically the trickier part, because my last two computers have been somewhat iffy. For example, one day last year I spent ~10 hours working on two documents. Twenty minutes before they were due, the computer blue screened of death. I was clearly not paid for those jobs and the company I contracted for had to re-do everything and return the document to the client late. It was a disaster.

That said, although I have been pretty lucky and had fairly consistent work because I have several companies that contact me on an as-needed basis, my workload very much depends on the amount of work available, which can vary.  Thankfully I specialize in biology, which is a subject that is always deemed necessary, in part because all* medical professionals have to have a background in biology; thus, I am typically able to find work that I am qualified for if there are any kind of lulls with my primary companies... 

*Not everyone you meet or see (often on the internet) who claims to be a medical professional is, indeed, a medical professional. For example, many people have been buying degrees and the like and pretending to be qualified nutritionists (although some just flat out lie about degrees), and this is very dangerous. One person in particular lied about such qualifications and nearly killed one of my best friends with her unqualified guidance.

Anyway, back to the point of this post. The way my jobs work is that I get offered work when it’s available and I am a good fit for the jobs. For example, with editing, I have a company that assigns me a few jobs a week, but some weeks there’s more work and some there’s less depending on the number of clients who submit documents in my field of expertise. I have also recently been working on an open source AP Biology textbook as well, and although my assessment writing for that wrapped up (which was a couple of months of fairly intensive, consistent work), they needed some last minute modifications to other chapters, so I was asked to take on some last minute tasks to help finish up the book. I also have a few other companies that contact me as needed, so some jobs are temporary but very time consuming, and others are more scattered over time but more consistent.

I have been lucky so far because every time I start to worry about not having upcoming work, I tend to get a series of emails asking me if I want upcoming jobs. This is great, but then there is the added complication that every company pays on different schedules. My main editing company pays approximately 2 to 2.5 months after the job is completed, whereas a new tutoring company I’ve started contracting with pays within a week. This makes juggling finances a bit tricky.

I think I’m (hopefully) getting better about sorting all of this out and maintaining both consistent work, and, importantly, consistent income without several months of delay. There’s also the complicating factor that most of my companies do not take out taxes, which means I have to deal with that on my own. (The taxes part is probably the least convenient part about this kind of work.) Although I love what I do, it certainly has its challenges on the workload/pay schedule/filing taxes juggling end of things!