Workspace Wuv.

 

Watch this:

http://www.imaginaryforces.com/featured/10/502

It's beautiful, isn't it?

There's a romance about the workspace that seems to have popped up over the last few years, spawning blog entries, entire websites, contests, documentary films, overly deep discussion, and serious self reflection that takes itself FAR too seriously (this little ditty, for example). And I am such a fucking sucker for this stuff, that I have bookmarked it all, clicked through every picture, watched too many movies, and all too often found myself perusing the workspaces of others like some sort of binoculared pervert perched in a tree. And it's always, always while sitting at my own desk avoiding the very work that would go a long way in bringing the fantasy to completion.

What fantasy is that? I think it's the delicious promise of productivity. For me, that would be ideas conjuring up words, words forming sentences, forming paragraphs, sliding onto the page and magically transporting the ideas in my head into someone else's. Easily, effortlessly. And looking cool while doing it, of course.

When you're working well, really well, really into it, there's that feeling of time disappearing and leaving you alone for a while. And when I see the right combination of windows, surfaces, tools, and wall color, I feel that possibility. An open MacBook. A perfectly placed Moleskine. A cappucino with latte art. I know, I know, BARF-O-FUCKING-RAMA, right? I'm right there with you.

And yet I can't help it: every time, I just keep clicking, picture after picture, putting myself in there for a moment and wondering if that 8000€ stainless steel hanging pendant lamp would help me be a better, more inspiring, and more inspired manboy.

I seek the perfect work space, a perfectly solid desk, not too heavy, but never flimsy, the right amount of sunlight, a lamp that says I have taste, but don't take this stuff too seriously (because that would be so embarrassing) and a chair, designed by someone you may have heard of, that holds my ass in a perfect balance between style and comfort.

SIDENOTE: Aeron chairs with that mesh material, insect-like design, and a seemingly cult following have never worked for me. They always feel like a slingshot that's trying to press my ass cheeks into a single unit. Is that just me?

It is the perfect setup, the perfectly set-up space that I crave. A well organized (that's how I roll, YMMV) group of beautiful things that make others say (as I have said so often) wow, your workspace is so inspiring! And then I want to sheepishly grin and pretend that it's just something that sort of happened. When in reality it's been a subject of life long study, made easier by the internets for making it possible to sneak around the offices of famous people, and by a higher income, which make it easier to buy things not made by Ikea. And pursued with the (mostly) genuine belief that designing and executing the perfect workspace will have a positive, measurable effect on my output.

And I know it's all bullshit. Massimo Vignelli can talk all he wants about his deskular situation, and how he loves it and it loves him (oh, hot productive man-on-desk action!). But we all know that it's just a bunch of ginned up romance and that his desk is, relatively speaking, a transient part of a long successful career based on talent, luck, and a lot of hard work. This is not like how 51% of the reason Nigel Mansell won the '92 F1 championship was because he had the best car. This is more like Picasso having basic access to decent paints and a brush that didn't stab him in the eye.

So I'll keep watching and clicking like some kind of fucked up office voyeur. And I'll keep dreaming of my MILK desk and wireless peripherals, VESA-mounted hi-res display and a sleek and silent laptop. And surely over time I'll spend an unwarrantable amount of money on all of them. And they will make me a little bit happier.

But I know that really, I should just write more.

Lancing Free.

 

So, I'm a freelancer now. Funny to write that after approximately eighteen years of being an official member of the official workforce, and always working for someone or some organization. I've always been a full-time or part-time employee somewhere; somewhere that determines my working hours, pay rate, start date, career direction, and daily activities. When is it okay to go to lunch? What format would you like the documents in? Can I have a nicer computer? Can I have a raise? These are all questions I used to nervously ask my employer.  And invariably, they would answer in a fatherly tone Hmm ... we'll have to think about that.

Not anymore.

Well, that's being a bit dramatic, I suppose. I may have worked for corporations, but none of them were very blood sucking or Matrix-like. But it can't be denied that with freelancing comes a certain breezy, romantic freedom. It's a bit cowboy-esque: look at him - a lone gunslinger, a hired hand, a bounty hunter, on the hunt for creative ideas that solve a problem. He can be air dropped anywhere in continental Europe within twenty four hours (though he prefers the train). He brings his own tools. Just give him a network connection and tell him what you need.

None of this is out of the ordinary - each place I've worked has had its share of contractors, freelancers, and consultants. But it's certainly new for me. Freelancers were always other people. The ones who showed up Monday morning with their rolling suitcase and their (always fancier than whatever the company had given me) computers and sat quietly in a makeshift office while they waited for a brief. We all whispered about them - who they were, why they were here, whether they were making double or triple the money we made. We were annoyed that they just trotted in to "help" us and we looked forward to watching them fail. They were, after all, an implicit declaration from our bosses that we weren't good enough.

And now I am one of them (minus the rolling suitcase). I'm a freelancer. Me.

Yep. That's me at that one lonely, forgotten desk, the one that hasn't been occupied since the layoff. It's empty except for a few leftover pens and pencils, and a dirty phone to which no one knows the extension. Mysteriously, the voicemail light is blinking. If it rings, I won't answer it either.

That's me sheepishly asking the regulars how to connect to the printer.  And then asking where the darn thing is.

That's me with the annoyingly specific questions about the project timeline. I'm done on Thursday, you see, and I've got a train to catch.

That's me in the meeting that you didn't get invited to. Sorry. I just go where they tell me.

That's me using whatever software I want on my laptop because it's my laptop and no IT gestapo jerkoff is going to stop me from putting whatever software I want on my laptop. Yeah, sorry, not sure what to tell you about that annoying problem you're having with MS Word ... because I don't use MS Word anymore.

That's me, not coming in to the office on the Friday after Thursday's all-nighter because my booking is over. If you want to torture yourself, go ahead and picture me drinking fresh-squeezed orange juice off the room-service breakfast cart at my hotel. Though we both know that I'm just sleeping.

These are some of the glorious (and exaggerated) benefits of being Founder and CEO of the Oneself corporation. But there are disadvantages too, which I will list out and embellish upon, even though you already know them and the whole thing may sound a bit whiny.

So far I've been to Frankfurt and Hamburg, neither of which are Berlin, where I live. Traveling for work is fun! and exciting! ... for the first twelve seconds of the first trip. After that it's just one frantic jog to the train station or airport after another, with too much luggage in tow, and consequences for being late.

And every move I make costs me money. My money, out of my own pocket. And not only do I have to pay for my own travel, I have to book it too. You know what's more fun than booking travel? Everything, including paper cuts.

And it's easy to look at each bus ticket, train ticket, plane ticket and taxi fare as just a miniscule percentage of my awesomely high freelancing rate. (I'll take a taxi to the taxi stand! I am invincible!) But that shit adds up fast, and that awesomely high freelancing rate is half taxes. So keep your little financial feet on the ground there, fantasy boy.

And it's not just the moving that costs money: the eating does too. And the sleeping, when you think about it. Basically I walk around and hear that cash register KA-CHING! sound all day in my head. Though walking is one of the few things I can do for free. I'm working on solutions to the cash flow problem, and I'll write about them later. Until then, I guess I'll try to take the bus and eat apples from the reception desk.

Still, it's a net positive experience so far. And there's this addictive mentality to freelancing ... this ability to walk away at the end of a project, no strings attached. I limbo right under cheap office politics, and slink right around the office gossip on my way to the candy machine. Don't like my work? That's fine. Go ahead and kill all of it - I'll make more. You cannot hurt me. I am a freelancer. I'm here until one of us decides that I'm done. Now where do I send my invoice?