Be it a 3D designer or a content writer if you are freelancing you will hear silly things every time.
It’s time to explain your profession and own it with pride.
Freelancing was easier when we were just planning for it. With the right client, it can get smoother and a lot easier when you both start to “get” each other. With the onset of our journey as a freelancer, we might experience Early Onset Freelance Hair Loss! The load of questions that people ask (if they know that you are a freelancer and working remotely) can cause great frustration. This is a high time when we talk about it and shout out that freelancing is a REAL thing where we are paid for it, and that too in a good sum of money. Freelancing can offer you a wide range of experience varying from a no boss situation and coffee dates with friends to a boring day at home with no colleagues around. But it is not all play and no work game here. Let us see what can be asked to a freelancer, and yes, our friends and family, please pay attention and acknowledge our work.
1. Can you actually make money?
Oh Yes, we do. And that is the sole reason that we sit the whole day in the company of our laptop otherwise we would have been kicking soccer right now out in the fields.
It annoys the freelancers to the core when we are asked repeatedly to prove the authenticity of our profession. There has been a surge in Asian Pacific Freelancing culture and the graphs vary to a greater extent if compared to the USA. Where in the USA, the per capita income of a freelancer is USD 45000, Asia and India rank low with a per capita income of USD lower than 11250!
There needs to be a recognition of the genuineness of freelancing and people should promote it instead of bombarding silly questions to freelancers.
2. How do you get a job? Who hires you?
There are a lot of companies that are willingly hiring freelancers simply because the cost of maintaining and providing a traditional workspace is too costly. companies hire you for many services like their social media handler and their marketing handles, everything happens online, why not these? Just like freelancing is working anywhere, you can find freelance jobs anywhere.
You can find a job even if you are at a park or a gathering. You will have to be your agent and sell your qualities smartly.
For example, I would share my experience, I was at a gathering in a rec park nearby and there were people of different age group sharing their compositions. I went there and shared mine, and then bam! A person contacted me for writing content for their new business. See it is easy, you just have to be vigilant and confident in your search and the right kind of job will find you. Follow some Facebook groups if you want, like Digital nomads and others.
3. Freelancing is okay, but you should get a REAL job!
What should I actually do? Laugh at the question? Or ignore? The silliness of this question has the best repo in town. Any job that pays me for my skill and time is a real job, no matter if I work from an office that requires me to leave home an hour before to reach on time or from my bed at my home. I am not sure if your frenemy from college can nod in approval but if it is real enough for you, who cares? They might consider a clerical job more respectable than a freelancing work, so let them be. Because some people can’t understand. Don’t waste your energy over them.
4. You can write anything/ You can do anything?
Well, no we don’t just write on anything. we have to do our research to find relevant topics even if we are blogging for our personal page. It needs a lot of work at the backend, choosing relevant topics and being fun while providing information at the same time could be more taxing than it appears.
while working for our client we need to understand their audience and target to be more relevant while writing, the jargon, the tone of the content needs to be in line with their demands. WE CAN NOT JUST WRITE ANYTHING ON ANYTHING. We never manipulate our freedom in the workspace.
The metrics of working without needs discipline. Creativity isn’t served on a platter to us every morning. Every freelancer brainstorms to meet the client’s requirements.
5. Hey, you are at home all day, can you please babysit/ do groceries/ walk my dog/ feed my cat/ attend guests for me?
Trust me, this is so unnerving when everybody thinks that you are sitting idly at home doing nothing. I work. These are my working hours. Just because you find me at home doesn’t mean that I am sitting idly and doing nothing. It need not be 9 a.m to 5 p.m. but some other slot, maybe from 3 to 11 pm or in breaks if I want. I can choose my slot to work according to my wish. But if it’s not traditional it certainly does not give you the right to take me for an idler. I have responsibilities and deadlines to meet.
6. Do you write for a newspaper/ Why don’t you write for newspapers?
If you are a writer and freelancing then you can never escape this question. If you have never experienced it please try at home in the presence of your elders and adults. The first thing they will ask is, “Ok, so you are a journalist. How do you write; I don’t see you going out in the field?”
Somehow your well-wishers and friendly relatives assume that you don’t have a “real” job and they shower suggestions. even if I can make them understand that writing does not necessarily mean print media, they are adamant at the fact that I should join nonetheless. I have let them be and made my peace with them. Although I had a hard time doing so, I managed it well. some people also have asked me to feature them in my articles or publish their stories.
7. How much do you earn?
While this question remains the favorite of all time, people tend to comment and be jolly over the fact that I can earn money while sitting at home. They make it sound like I have no work pressure as a freelancer and the money I earn is for free. They seem to take the word way too literally, free is not the monetary free in freelancer. Free stands for other elements as in time and flexible schedule and clients.
Some people without an ounce of decorum even comment “Seriously that much money for just a page?” Well yeah! That much for just a page. Writing is not a cakewalk and being creative every time is not as easy as one thinks.
8. Is your employer genuine?
I respect the concern that people have for their loved ones but I request them to be more supportive and not dubious of their choices. If we have chosen something then we must have checked for the organization’s authenticity ourselves in the very first place. When somebody says, “Let’s see if they pay you, I have heard many are fake.” This weakens a person’s courage and faith. I have come across too many things that turn out to be fake but building and sharing trust is very important. It is not that every company out there is trying to harass the freelancers.
While there are a lot many other things that are silly and humorous at times, freelancers don’t question your choices. We all need to build a safe and secure work environment and make it a lot normal in other people’s opinions so they too can take the road to their freelancing career without any fear.
I work at Fuzia, and we are all about remote work and have many freelancers in our team who are satisfied with their mode of the profession and their employer, Fuzia too! Happy freelancing cohorts! Let us meet in the comment section and laugh together to lighten the fears positively.