Freelancing Is Not For The Fainthearted

In a hushed tone, someone asks, “May raket ka?” One can either dismiss this politely and smile or snap back with a “no!” The second answer will elicit, “May tinatago…” Funny, but it sounds a bit unlawful when a person, especially a woman, has a regular job. So, for all we know, freelancing could have been created for women. 

Women are good at running just about everything, anyway, not just the household. With salaries just passing through an employee’s ATM card due to the rising cost of food and fares, and loans left and right, it is no wonder that women employees go for additional jobs that may or may not align with what they currently do. 

So long as these freelancing jobs pay and bring in added income—these are the most important things.  First things first, though: let us define FREELANCE. The trusted Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines it as one who “pursues a profession without a long-term commitment to any one employer.” A freelancer does not work for a permanent employer and one may take on different jobs. Which is just perfect for a woman! 

So, can a “raket” be a full-time freelance work? Especially for a woman?

Yes, especially when that woman has had her fill of the corporate world. Yes, if she thinks she can be a better worker without a single employer. Yes, if she has all the necessary skills and talent to create her own business. Yes, if the timing is perfectly right for her age, her maturity, and other personal circumstances! 

The corporate world can be a comfortable setup, and one can opt to support a business owner’s mission and vision. One puts in hours, produces something, and gets paid—enough to last for only 12 days. But here’s the worn-out catch: someone gets richer, and it is never the worker! Business owners benefit from the workers’ mental and physical exertions that are invested in their business. Meanwhile, employees can only dream big and maybe hope they win the lotto so their lives could change for the better.

The corporate world can be a future woman freelancers’ training ground though. It can toughen her and teach her the basics of negotiation, management, wheeling and dealing, and how to directly deal with superiors and colleagues, especially with repulsive and horrible ones. Corporate life can quickly educate her on these things in such a way that she soon realizes she’s been honed to the core and is ready to move out there. But “out there” could be a scary world. Should a woman stay put as a corporate worker? 

If that woman has the skills and the network, it should be high time to go freelance and start one’s own business. Let us look at two women and learn from their stories. 

Story one: Necessity. A junior bank officer gives up the comfort of a 9–5 job and opens a travel agency in 1999. She has younger siblings and a young family to support. Fast forward to 2019, she is now a prominent travel agent (she does all the work and ropes her family in for additional manpower) and a manager of a small spa. What keeps this lady going is the resolve to succeed in her business because she has to. She knows from day one that she can never be an employee all her life. She has a dream and she has worked to turn that dream into a reality. 

Story two: Circumstance. An editor has worked for international and local publishers. She has worked with American, European, and Asian colleagues and authors but none has traumatized her as much as the fellow Filipino manager who insulted her competence. However, she has to thank this manager for pushing her out of the corporate world into the liberating freelance territory. One year after, she manages projects under a bigger publishing house and works on the manuscripts of individual clients referred by former colleagues. She admits her journey is never mapped but the people she meets, and opportunities thrown her way encourage her to take this specific path where freedom is the major prize. The only difference between these two women is the age at which they started working alone. One starts at 27 years, the other at 47. 

Realization: It does not matter at what age a woman starts thinking of being on her own. What matters is that she has the necessary “weapon” to work on her own. The junior bank officer and the editor have the confidence and the courage to go solo. GRIT should be the encompassing word to describe what a woman needs to survive in that world out there, outside the corporate world. 

This grit alone was enough to push these two women to succeed in their chosen freelance careers. Yet, be warned: Freelancing is never for the fainthearted. It is never kind to weaklings. In hindsight, the corporate world can also be a factor to encourage women to become independent, to go freelance. As earlier noted, it is a good training ground for freelancing women!

And as we contemplate on the future of being freelancers, a nation of “freelance women,” even if we still lack properstatistics, could be all we need to push this country forward. 

Note: This article was previously published in the printed of The Corporate Magazine, Guide and Style for Professionals Magazine, Issue no. 16.