This summer is the 8th anniversary of when I started freelancing and landed my first client. It’s an interesting thing to look back at 8 short years and realize just how long I’ve been doing this. It’s also an interesting thing to realize that I will no longer do freelancing work anymore. At least, no more new clients or projects, and at least for the foreseeable future. At the beginning of this summer, I was hired as an Information Services Technician at a local company here in San Luis Obispo. My freelancing work wasn’t quite bringing in enough funds for me to live on anymore and I needed something a bit more. Plus, I felt like it was time to change things up. Ironically, that’s the feeling most people have when entering the freelancing world, not leaving it.

My job with Abraxas Energy Consulting is technically my first real day job. I’ve done consistent contract work for companies, but I’ve never really been on payroll as an employee before. It is an interesting experience to say the least. I really enjoy my job and the people I work with. To be honest, I was nervous about working in an office with a lot of other people. I’ve never worked in that kind of environment before, and I wasn’t sure how well I would adjust to having a more set working schedule. But as it turns out, I had nothing to worry about. I am surrounded by really intelligent and interesting people all day, and while the days can get long sometimes, it’s nice to actually have my evenings and weekends to myself for once in my life.

At first, I thought that I would be able to have my job and still do some freelancing work on the side for a bit of extra spending money. But these past two months, I’ve had so little time to myself it’s scary (my excuse for the lack of activity here). After working long days and volunteering with the local SARP Center, I just want to eat dinner and relax when I get home, not sit at my computer for another few hours and work on client work. It’s been hard enough to keep up with my existing clients for maintenance work, there is no way that I could handle any new clients. So I’ve decided that I am no longer accepting new work, and most of the rest of my summer will be spent re-evaluating which clients need me to stay working with them, and which clients I can help to better manage on their own so that I can lighten my load just a little more before my classes start-up again in September.

With that said, it is a bitter-sweet transition. On the one hand, I’m really enjoying my job and working with other people every day and I’ve learned a lot already. But on the other, I’m really starting to miss waking up when I felt like it and having the freedoms that come with being your own boss. C’est la vie.