When the Words “Self-Employed” Get Lost in Translation

Public service announcement: if you tell people you’re going to work for yourself, there’s going to be some confusion. I’ve discovered this over the past few months.

The Backstory

About two and a half years ago, I came roaring out of college with a fierceness. High off the fumes of academia’s self-congratulatory culture, I was going to put on my sensible pumps and get busy climbing the rungs on the corporate ladder at a speed heretofore unseen.

It took only two years in the corporate world for me to realize that wasn’t the life I wanted. What’s more, I would never have the life I wanted if I stood still.

It wasn’t that the job was awful. In fact, many would call me lucky. It paid well, and I felt valued and respected there. But just because I was lucky didn’t mean I was fulfilled. I wasn’t doing the kind of work I felt I was put on the planet to do, and that fact was getting harder to ignore. It ate at me.Continue reading