Just another working stiff...

When we moved to Hawaii and B turned into Super Professor, I was convinced that doing freelance work was the way to go. Then I could work when he did and do other things (i.e., play) when he wasn't working. (It is quite common for professors' spouses who work office jobs to become resentful of their partner's flexible schedule and long vacations.)

So for a few months, freelancing is what I did. When I wasn't working on a paying job, I was learning new skills, refining other skills, learning about running my own business, doing laundry and grocery shopping in off-peak hours, etc. I was plenty busy, although it wasn't particularly lucrative.

Then along came this serendipitous opportunity to fill in for the senior editor on a short-term, part-time basis while she was on leave. Someone who knew I did editing got an email sent to her from someone else who'd been sent an email by her friend, the senior editor. No one with editing experience who was also available (availability being the key consideration, I believe) had appeared, so there I was. I started my part-time, short-term position at the end of March 2006. By the second week, it was full time. Once the editor I was filling in for came back, they decided to keep me on for a couple of more months, and then that editor resigned and moved back to the Mainland. At first, I felt under-employed -- when I took a step back and looked at it objectively, my job grade and pay seemed inflated. I truly was only barely qualified -- and only if you held my resume sideways, closed one eye, and squinted with the other.

It's now April 2007, over a year since I started. I'm now contracted through December 5. My boss has gone on extended medical leave, so I am now, ostensibly, in charge of my area. This job has compressed many years of experience into one year. I've gone from a copyeditor to a senior editor, and now am even doing some of the manager's usual duties. I almost exclusively manage projects now and do almost no editing at all. I have to farm editing work out to freelancers. I make decisions about procedures, style, projects, reviewers, you name it. I make editorial assessments of submissions for our shorter publications and assist the editors of our book series. I am even attending management-level staff meetings, as I'm the most senior person in my area until my boss returns. (Where I feel like a total imposter, by the way.) Because of my design experience, I've also become the manager of publications-related design projects -- although I can no longer do any of the designs or webpages myself. The pay is good, the work is generally interesting, my colleagues are by and large wonderful, and it's an almost non-existent commute from our apartment (I can ride my bike, walk, take the scooter, or take a shuttle -- depending on my outfit and the weather). The job now is always challenging and if anything, I'm over-stimulated -- which is how work should be!

I miss freelancing, for the schedule and the relative lack of politics. But it is really easy to get used to a regular paycheck, too. (What with how expensive it is to get off this rock, it's been extremely helpful to have the second significant income.) Plus, I never would have met some wonderful new friends and I have learned a lot about local life (and food!) through my co-workers that I never would have learned otherwise. I still do a little freelance editing and design -- just to keep my hand in, as much as anything. (Since I never know when I may need to pick that back up.) But I can't take on much. Even if B didn't complain when I have to skip social stuff and can't go to the beach with him, it's just too much time in front of the computer.

And get this: by the time my temporary contract is up in December, I'll ALMOST have enough experience to be considered a viable applicant for my own job.