Economy Woes

Some people, some people who have a family to support, have lost their jobs. By those standards, I'm doing fine. I'm doing great! But it still sucks to see business opportunities, especially fairly stable ones, in the middle of the fiscal crossfire.

For the last two years or so, I've been providing copy to my uncle's one-man marketing firm. It started out as a gig writing some article summaries, and I made $50 a month. Over time, we upped it to more writing assignments and a $400 retainer. That was when times were good. Now, some companies are cutting back on their e-marketing budgets, which means they're cutting back on him. And he has to cut back on me.

The good news is that I still have my day job. Well, it's a day job on a contract that expires Jan 22. And my company is also, howdoyousay, skimming the fat from the company. Contractors are the first to go. We still have a good runway of VC bucks behind us, but they're now concerned that even with that, we won't make the revenue we need through advertising and other means because the economy is vacationing in the gutter. I've only been working there a year and a month, but in that year the world has changed. I may not have a job come Jan 22, and that's freaking me out.

Chances are, if I do my job well - and i need to do my job well - they'll keep me on as a contractor. I've been pushing for a full-time gig (which basically means I'll get some employee-pays-a-little health benefits and won't have to pay self-employement tax) but they're pushing back, saying that they need to be really careful about new hires. Of course, I'm supposed to work from the office 4 days a week and 40 hours a week, which seems legally to be an "employee." But what do I know?

I recently took advantage of my contractor status by traveling and working remotely for about 2.5 weeks. It's a double-edged sword, because they could very easily use that against me when deciding whether or not to hire me full time. I probably should be in 5 days a week if I really want to get hired on. I guess when it comes down to it, I'm not sure I'm thrilled with the idea of trading in my one-day-a-week work-from-home gig for health benefits. Sounds stupid, but with my anxiety disorder I need a day to just be away from people and focus on my work.

So... my uncle hasn't gotten back to me on how much I'll be making a month now that one company cut their monthly newsletter to quarterly. But it won't be $400. That $400 really put me in a comfortable salary point given my cost of living. Plus, if I ever want to actually save up for year one of grad school before I go, then I need the money. That doesn't seem possible either, though.