Is Freelance Really Another 9-to-5 Job?

I am not alone, I’m sure, among freelance writers, designers, artists, and other type of business owners to wonder why I continue to work for myself rather than go back to the 9-to-5 job working for someone else.

The conversation with myself happens when there are too many looming deadlines: a 750-page clinical article due in 2 days, a 20-page clinical editing job due in 3 hours in which I have to “dummy” down the copy so that a healthcare worker who reads at a 6th grade level can understand it (ee gads, that’s a scary thought, right?), a press release due in 1 day, and a final proofreading of a 48-page journal due in 1 day. It happens when I am asked for a 1-day turnaround on a job I promised to complete but that came in 2 days late and is now on a crash course with another deadline.

An editor friend and I have a running joke about a copyeditor we once knew whose “real job” was decorating cakes. Her copyediting skills reflected this fact. But we often say, “Wouldn’t life be easier if we had to lop off a burnt cake crust rather than cut 500 words down to 250? Wouldn’t it be easier to embellish with icing than stretch a scant 100 words into a full-page journal article? Would anyone question our use of the comma or semicolon? Would we have to provide a treatise on why hyphens are used in double-word adjectives that precede the noun but not when they follow the noun?

The desire to freelance is based on the need to be one’s own boss, to call the shots, to nap in the middle of the day, to watch a child’s school play at 11 am, to be flexible. But how flexible can a freelance really be? Of course, we can turn down a job that requires a fast turnaround. But how many times can we turn down a client and expect to hear from the client again when we’re good and ready for more work?

Clients need their work completed when they need it, not when I, as a freelance, feel moved to do it. How does my freelance status really differ from that of full-time employees? Whether I do the work at 6 am or at 8 pm, I still have to do the work. And I find that my hours are far longer as a freelance than they were when I worked full-time. And I realize there’s no such thing as a 9-to-5 job these days. Everyone I know works far more than the 40-hour work week.

But as a freelance, I find my work becoming ME, or ME becoming my WORK, far more than occurred when I worked for someone else. Is the need to work freelance tied to a type-A personality? Are we compelled to say yes to every job offer we get and to perfect that job no matter how many hours of sleep we lose? I think so.