Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Sticking with the vintage song theme of the week, I thought I'd deal with something that I've been having trouble with for about two months, now.

When I was unemployed - before I started at my current job - I decided to try my hand at editorial freelancing. I got a few jobs doing copywriting and editing and proofreading, but mostly they were one-off projects. Nothing too big, but enough to buy groceries from time to time.

After I started working full time, again, I stopped searching out clients, and dropped down to just two. Over the past five years, one of those has continued to be a great gig. They're fun to work with, they ask for - and listen to - my opinions, and since I'm not a member of their in-house staff, they understand that my schedule is sometimes wonky and actually check with me before simply saying "WE NEED THIS NOW!" One catch: They really only send me one or two things per month, so I only take in about $20. Not exactly grocery money.

The other remaining client... Well... You know all those things I just said were great about the first one? They basically do none of those things. When I started with them, we were working together, and I felt like an off-site member of the team. But, over time, I've definitely come to feel like a member of "the help" and not a member of "the team." The catch, as you might guess, is that this group actually nets me about $75 per month, on average - which is enough for some groceries.

I can deal with a certain amount of frustration when I'm being paid, but sometimes I question whether it's worth it. And, as of last fall, it started to become not worth it. But I've kept doing work for them. Why? Because breaking up is hard to do.

For one thing, I'm constantly waiting for the next paycheck for the last work I've done. And you don't really want to tick someone off when they haven't paid you, yet. For another thing, it is a paycheck.

But I've decided that, this being a new year and all, I'm going to break it off this month. Honestly, I had planned to break it off when I sent last month's invoice, but since it was the Holidays I kind of chickened out.

But I swear I'm going to do it . . . soon.