Money on the table

Yes it's been ages. The life of a freelancer, as you know, is nothing but feast or famine, and since the start of the new year, it's been a continuous feast. While this may sound fantastic ( and to be sure, I aint complaining ) the downside of all this feasting is that when the jobs start to pile up, you have to pull alot of hours just to keep up.

Now when you pull extra hours, your efficiency starts to go down due to fatigue, requiring you to work even more hours to compensate. 2 months later you're a broken shell of the artist you once were.

Now the brighter ones of you out there may ask "But Jim, why don't you simply turn down new work once you've reached your capacity?" Well you've got alot of nerve. But it's a good question nonetheless, and the answer is: because a freelancer should almost never turn down work.

This is so ingrained into me that by now if I even consider it, I hear a voice in my head telling me what a jerk I am. I don't know whose voice it is, but it sounds like an old fat guy, the type of guy who's always lounging around in old fashioned delis in the afternoon, usually named Sal or Connie or something. " Hey Mr. Big Shot" Sal will say, " in my day we didn't leave money on the table. We worked until there was no more work"

"No, Sal, it's not like that..I only got two hands..." I think to myself, but Sal, he don't listen to nobody, so he keeps going on and on about the price of stuff and how all sports stink these days and how blessed I should feel to have work " Money on the table, big shot!"Around this time I give up and just accept the next job. 

So the point of all this is not to highlight my mental illness, but rather that I'm finally freed up enough to post something, and I'm choosing something from a job I really should never have taken, looking back on it all. But then again, the piece itself actually turned out alright so maybe Sal was right after all.

 And, now that I think of it, sports these days really do stink.