Part-time Work and Me

When I think about my future, I now see myself working a range of LTE jobs and contract positions. This is a situation many of my peers in the LIS field probably are also seeing, and it has its benefits and drawbacks. When we were in school, our professors often talked about the increasing possibility of a career made up of freelance work, but still they built up the expectation of finding regular work. And I certainly know several people who have found full-time jobs. But the less I worry about finding that full-time job, the more I feel like I can pursue and enjoy where I am now. But I digress. The pros and cons:

I like the prospect of working a range of jobs because I think I prefer some variety and uncertainty in life. The thought of a long-term job does sometimes make me nervous; any time I make a major decision I am prone to worry that I made the wrong choice. Also, I have a broad range of interests, so the idea of being able to work on projects that strike my fancy is appealing. Not that every contract job I get will be something I love, but I feel like I have more flexibility to pursue things I like, whether in archival work or in writing. And, to be fair, I am pretty capricious, so it is hard for me to focus on one project for a length of time. Knowing how easy it is for me to flit from one project to another has even helped me in jobs that have a longer term; I tend to keep several smaller projects running at once, so I can jump between them.

At the same time, uncertainty can be pretty frightening. I am fortunate in that my wife has a full-time job, which gives me the comfort to pursue jobs that offer no benefits, while still enjoying health care through her work. On the other hand, I feel guilty sometimes in that I depend on her for those benefits. What if she wanted to work contract jobs, too? Also, the learning curve for contract work can be a lot higher than for more steady work. I have a contract position right now, and sometimes not having something like an HR department to guide me through writing contracts and interacting with employers can be daunting. I am having to learn those things on my own, with mixed success. And I am not generally an assertive person, so self-advocacy is hard for me.

Having said all that, I am less worried about my job options now than I was at the end of grad school. Maybe I am recognizing that a lot of my friends are also in the world of multiple part-time or contracted positions. Or maybe I've come to find the good in such positions. But these days it seems more exciting than I would have thought before. I wish I lived in a country where I had an affordable health care option, thereby removing one of my biggest anxieties about freelance work. Still, I find myself more able to envision a career future that resembles my present.