My coronacoaster II: underemployed and restless

Back at the end of May, I wrote about coming to the end of a stretch of work and not having anything more lined up as publishers froze projects and pulled work in-house. Since then, things have been kind of mixed.

Ups: On the plus side, I seem to have a number of projects lined up for the autumn. If everything comes off (which admittedly is far from guaranteed!) I should have a fairly steady stream of work from the end of Sept through into next spring. There’s a nice mix of projects; some corpus research and some writing, some vocab-focused materials and some more general English. It’s a relief to know there’s work coming up, although I’ll be happier when I get some more definite confirmations, schedules and contracts in place. As ever with freelancing, a lot of initial offers are tentative and it can seem to take an age before they’re confirmed, leaving you in an awkward planning limbo.

Downs: On the downside, it’s been a very quiet summer. Since the end of May, I had a few odd hours in July and August on one on-going project. Which was good – and a nice project to work on – but only added up to something like 25% of my usual working hours through June-Aug. That project’s had a (planned) pause since the middle of August and was due to start up again last week, but has now been delayed.

Restlessness: Like most freelancers, I’m not good at being underemployed. I can cope with the odd quiet patch if I know I’ve got something coming up, but especially with not much else to do at the moment (because Covid), I soon get restless and grouchy. Thankfully, the UK’s had a surprisingly good summer this year which has made things a bit easier. When the weather’s warm and sunny, it’s easier to potter in and out of the garden, go for nice long walks and as things have eased up, meet friends for socially-distanced, outdoor coffees. Last week was tough though. First, I had the let-down of expecting work to restart then finding out it wasn’t. Plus the weather was rubbish – grey and rainy and positively autumnal. I’m generally pretty good at keeping myself occupied, but after more than 6 months at home, I admit to getting distinctly bored. I’ve done plenty of walking, but as I don’t have a car, I’m tied to only walking from home and having done the same routes a thousand times, I’m really starting to crave a change of scene now.

Time for a break: Thankfully, this week, the sun’s back out and on Friday, we’re heading off for a week away – woo hoo! - our first holiday for a year and my first night away from home since February. We’re not going very far, just a week in a holiday cottage on the Isle of Wight, but it’s right by the sea and I’m sooo looking forward to just being somewhere different.

So I just have a handful of days to get through feeling restless, unsure whether there’ll be any work this week or not, and not 100% confident that the projects I have pencilled in for when I get back will pan out as I’m hoping. It feels a bit odd to be taking a holiday after doing so little work over the past few months, but boy, am I ready for it and the chance to properly switch off.

Coronavirus, cancellations and cashflow

Phew! It's been a stressful couple of weeks and I'm very pleased to have reached the weekend, albeit I'm still at my desk catching up after all the disruptions of the week.

Before I go any further I should say that I know lots of people have been hit much harder by the current situation than I have in all kinds of ways. However, I think we all need to let off steam to keep us sane, so I thought I'd share my perspective as an ELT freelancer trying to deal with the effects of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

You'd think that as a freelance writer who spends most of my time plodding away at my desk at home, I'd be barely affected. And at other times of year, that would be true. I just checked and my last non-desk-based bit of work was last August … OMG, that's a full 6 months without face-to-face contact with a work colleague! I should be really good at this self-isolation thing! However, we're just coming up to the main conference season and I had a whole load of face-to-face gigs planned in … and was really quite excited at the prospect of a bit of human contact.

Prague: The first casualty was a planned trip to Prague last week. I was due to be teaching a two-day intensive EAP course with a large group of students at a Czech university. The day before I was due to fly out, I got an email from my contact saying that a member of staff at the university had tested positive for coronavirus, the university had been shut and my course would have to be cancelled.

The situation was a bit discombobulating … I'd been quite keyed up about the teaching, which was a bit out of my comfort zone, so I'd completely over-prepared and then the sudden come-down left me feeling at a loss. Then as I came down from that, the realization of the lost income kicked in. I'd paid out on non-refundable flights which the university has said they'll refund, but the loss of the fee was something I could have done without, especially after having had no income at all through January (mostly down to a delayed piece of work) – I'd been banking on this income to get me back on track.

Covering the gap: As I was contemplating that loss and looking ahead to whether my next big gig, IATEFL, was also going to bite the dust, I got an email asking if I could fit in some writing work at short notice. They really wanted someone to start immediately on a job to be finished by the end of April.  I'm in the middle of another piece of work which is due to see me busy till the end of next week (at least), so I couldn't start straight away and I still had a week blocked out in my schedule for IATEFL. That would have given me just 4 weeks to do a 6-7 week job. I explained this to the commissioning editor, but said I'd give it a go anyway.

There followed a flurry of emails with the editors managing the project (two, because it's for two different levels) trying to work out a schedule for drafts and feedback etc. that would get both levels finished by their deadlines. At the same time, I was watching social media to see what was going to happen about IATEFL and working out different scheduling scenarios with and without a trip to Manchester … and at the same time trying to focus on my current work, aware that I needed to make progress more quickly to get that done.

The physical effects: The result was a physical mess. As some of you will know, I've suffered from chronic pain for many years. Over the past few months, I thought I'd finally cracked it and had been fairly pain-free (a subject for another post!). But with the tension building up in my shoulders from all the emailing to and fro, and uncertainty and worry over finances at the same time as trying to press on with some fairly fiddly corpus work … by Wednesday, the knots in my shoulders reached a critical mass and I was in so much pain I was in tears. And also feeling desperately deflated that all my hard work over the last few months to get myself physically in a good place had been undone.

IATEFL: Then yesterday, IATEFL was finally cancelled along with another conference I was due to be going to in June. Mostly that was a relief, both just to know what was happening, but also to free up a bit more time for the extra work I've taken on. But it also throws up a whole load more financial issues. I've already paid out for non-refundable accommodation for the week and for the registration fee. And as I was due to be speaking for a publisher, there was a fee + expenses attached. I'm yet to find out what I might get back or what might get carried over to next year (not very helpful when I'm struggling now) – that's next week's mess to untangle.

The financial hit: It's difficult to know exactly what the full financial impact will be until everything shakes out and I still have one more event in May which hasn't yet been cancelled, but I suspect will be. But at the moment, it's looking something like this.

That's a lot of income to lose in a short timescale, especially when my total average annual income is only around £25K. The extra work I've managed to pick up through April will cover some of that, but it's still going to be a tight couple of months.

Having reached the weekend, although I'm still working today, at least all the emails and announcements have stopped, so I can relax a bit and take stock. I know that most of the stress and hassle of the past couple of weeks has been short-term and I'm hopeful that the pain will be too and I'll soon be back on track physically. The financial impact will be more long-lasting, but I'll work that out somehow too. Tomorrow will be a full day off and although it's due to rain, I bought my partner a new waterproof coat for his birthday this week, so we'll be going out to splash in the puddles!

Give yourself a break

The final day of February every year is International RSI Awareness Day, so it’s a good time for a reminder to take care of yourself when you’re working at a desk all day. In the past, I’ve written about posture and desk set-up – which are both incredibly important – but this year, the main thing that I’ve been struggling to get right, and which I think a lot of freelancers will recognize, is keeping my working hours under control.

One of the main causes of health problems related to working at a desk is simply overworking. If there’s something a bit awry with your posture or desk set-up, then long hours pushing your body is only going to exacerbate any niggling, underlying issues. And, to be honest, even if your set-up’s spot-on, too many hours in one position and your body’s going to get tired and tense and your posture’s going to slip and that’s when problems start. As someone who suffers from chronic pain, keeping an eye on the number of hours I spend at my desk is one of the most important tools I have in managing my condition.

In an ideal world, I’d work roughly 20 billed-for hours a week (actually working on paid projects) plus around 5-10 hours of ‘admin’ (sorting out emails, book-keeping, social media, reading, writing blog posts, etc.). Those hours would be evenly spread through the week and also spread through the day with plenty of breaks and no more than an hour at my desk at a time (with mini breaks within that hour). And I’d just plod along happily.

At the start of each week, I have in mind a rough ‘shape’ for the week ahead, that generally consists of:

One ‘disrupted’ day, when I might take the whole day out at an event or I might have a half-day away from my desk. That could be meeting a friend for lunch or booking in a one-to-one pilates class.

A swim twice a week. I generally go at the end of the morning and it’s a great way to stretch out and release the morning’s tensions. I also find it’s great thinking time … lots of activities get composed as I’m gliding up and down the pool!

An hour away. On other days, I try to get completely away from my desk for at least an hour at some point during the day. I’ve taken to going for a brisk walk with a favourite route around Bristol harbour (about 3.5 miles/5.5 km) which takes me about 50 minutes. Or I might just take a roundabout route to the Post Office or to do some other chore.

Bristol harbour

In reality, over 18 years of freelancing, I’ve rarely managed to keep a steady flow of work. However, hard you try to plan, schedules shift, briefs expand so you find yourself doing double the hours in half the time and projects overrun, overlapping with the next one and eating up your planned downtime. And even when you push back, deadlines only move minimally and grudgingly.

So, what’s the answer to avoiding overwork and keeping a healthy workflow? I’m afraid I don’t have any magic bullets, but I would say:

Keep pushing back against unrealistic schedules. If a project is taking significantly more hours than you were led to believe at the outset, then ask for more time. Set out how long it’s taken you so far, for example, per page or per unit. Check that you’re doing what’s expected. Explain how much longer the remaining work will take and pace that out according to your normal working hours to suggest a new deadline. Of course, you have sympathy with your in-house contact who’s under pressure to keep to schedule, but this is business and it’s not reasonable to expect you to work silly hours and damage your health. It’s up to the person who decides the schedule to get the timings right at the start rather than being wildly optimistic and hoping you’ll just soak up the pain.

Be aware of the hours you’re working and, more importantly, the breaks you’re taking. You might not be a swimmer or a walker, but planning activities into your week that force you to take a proper physical break from your desk, ideally in the middle of the working day, gives your body a chance to relax and release some of the built-up tension. And remember, sometimes the most important time to take breaks is when you think you can least afford to; when you’re racing to meet a deadline and you’ve been hunched over your desk for days getting more and more frustrated. That’s the time when you’re most at risk and most need a break. You might feel like you ought to push on, but you’ll probably be more productive after a pause. If you can make proper breaks a part of your working routine before your body starts to creak under the strain, then you’re more likely to avoid serious health problems along the line.

2017 Part 1: Decisions, decisions ...

This time last year, I was getting stuck into the first assignments of an MA in Forensic Linguistics and, to be honest, I was ready to turn my back on ELT for a new career in language and the law. A few months on though and I realized that maybe the career path towards being a forensic linguist wasn’t the right one for me (for all kinds of reasons) and so, after lots of thought and a very intense week in Porto grilling as many forensic linguists as I could manage to collar, I decided to cut my losses and left the course.

This left me feeling slightly broke and at somewhat of a professional loose end. At around about the same time, my partner was also made redundant from his job of 10 years, so we decided to take the opportunity to have a good long break and do a bit of travelling. We headed off for a month travelling first to Belize where we trekked through unspoilt rainforest, tried to stay cool in 40°C heat and I found myself shooing tarantulas out the bathroom! Then it was onto Mexico to explore ancient Mayan ruins and marvel at the noise and colour of Mexico City. It provided the perfect antidote to worrying about work and career for a few weeks and gave me a chance to properly recharge my batteries.

I came back to a flurry of new (ELT writing) work – projects I’d managed to put off ‘until I get back’, but which then suddenly turned out to be way too much to fit into my schedule! In many ways, it was a good thing, because my bank balance seriously needed topping up and while I was busy working towards one deadline after another, I didn’t have time to dwell on the big “what next?” question.

After 7 months of working flat-out, long hours, weekends, lots of negotiating of new schedules and extended deadlines because there just weren’t enough hours in the day or days in the week, I was absolutely shattered! So last week, I took some time off and went away for a ‘reading retreat’; a week in a country cottage, holed up with a pile of ELT stuff to read. It was also a chance to step back and think about where I want to go next.

So, I guess the first question to deal with is why I wanted to move away from ELT in the first place. I’ve been working in the field for some 25 years now and for the past 17 as a freelance writer.  Being freelance has given me the freedom to explore different areas – lexicography, writing, editing, corpus research, vocab, EAP, teacher training. As a freelancer though, while my career has morphed and changed, and along the way, I’ve achieved several goals (authoring a number of books, travelling to various countries, giving a plenary at a conference, etc.), there’s no formalized career progression. I feel that I’ve moved on enormously over the years, my knowledge, experience and expertise have continued to grow, but the work I often find myself doing – and the rates I get paid for it – don’t necessarily reflect that. 

Recently, I’ve started to feel frustrated and undervalued, not so much by the ELT world in general, but specifically by the people I work for. Of course, there have always been good projects and less good projects, editors who make you feel valued and those who just drive you round the bend. In general though, my sense is that I’m spending more and more of my time haggling over fees, being asked to work to unfeasible schedules, being messed around with delays and uncertainty, having briefs changed halfway through projects and, as I mentioned in a recent post, getting less and less creative control. I’m sure a lot of that is down to me getting older and wiser and having higher expectations, but I don’t think it’s just me. The whole industry seems to be going through a difficult time, readjusting to new realities and not always managing to do so very smoothly. And I’m well aware that it’s not just the freelancers who are feeling the strain. Many of the big publishers have undergone restructuring and job losses in the past few years, so I know that many of the people I’m working with in-house have been having a rough time of it too.

So what’s the answer? Where do I go next? Do I look for another alternative career? Do I just plod on and hope that things improve? Or is there a way that I can stay within ELT, but steer my career down a more satisfying path?

The first option probably isn’t going to happen. After my foray into Forensic Linguistics, I’ve realized that at this stage in my life, I can’t really afford to make a completely fresh start, either financially or in terms of time … although if the right inspiration or opportunity came along, I’m not totally ruling it out!

The second option just isn’t in my nature, at least not in the long term.

Which leaves me looking for new inspiration in ELT … a topic which will have to spill over into another post …