{"id":667,"date":"2014-11-06T10:00:29","date_gmt":"2014-11-06T14:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/?p=667"},"modified":"2017-11-18T12:08:43","modified_gmt":"2017-11-18T16:08:43","slug":"preferences-and-assumptions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/preferences-and-assumptions\/","title":{"rendered":"Preferences and Assumptions"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post was inspired by a recent discussion on the E-Learning Heroes Community <\/a>and an article I read over at Freelancer Union<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the community, David asked whether individuals preferred being called freelancers or consultants. Most folks seemed to preferred being called consultants, and to be honest – so do I. While I don’t typically have a preference one way or the other, I think that consultant sounds a bit more professional and is full of fewer negative connotations (aka stereotypes) associated with the term ‘freelancer’. However, I do find that I am more often referred to as a Contractor…so I’m going to start my own home renovation business…I KID! It would be a very terrible business avenue for me to pursue; I’m not super handy. While I prefer being called a consultant or independent instructional designer, you can call me pretty much anything if you want to pay the price!<\/p>\n

I tend to associate my time as a ‘freelancer’ with grabbing anything and everything I could to make a bit of extra cash – some of these tasks were certainly not my finest moments, and some of them paid quite well. Whereas I associate my time as a ‘consultant’ as a more profitable and purposeful endeavour.<\/p>\n

What do you prefer to be called?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Riding on the shirttails of that discussion, I happened upon the Freelancer Union article that discussed five common stereotypes about freelancers:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Freelancers live a life of non-office-regulated luxury<\/li>\n
  2. Freelancers live a life of grasping poverty, constantly anxious about their next job.<\/li>\n
  3. Freelancers are flaky.<\/li>\n
  4. ‘Freelancer’ is just a fancy word for ‘unemployed’.<\/li>\n
  5. Full-time freelancers become weird loners.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I’ve heard all of these stereotypes in my experience freelancing and ‘consulting’ (my grown up name for freelancing), and here are my responses to each:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Sure. I get to wear whatever I want to work (when I’m not at my onsite gig), but I still have to motivate myself to do my work, and do all of the other things (e.g. bookkeeping) that would have been done by someone else if I worked in a traditional office.<\/li>\n
    2. I’m split on this. I thought that when I quit my full-time job to consult full-time that I would struggle to pay my mortgage and put food in the mouths of my husband and pets; this did not happen. In fact, I did better, financially, in the first three months of working for myself than I ever would have staying where I was. Now I’m in a position where I can settle on 1-2 contracts at a time and be incredibly busy. The cash doesn’t flow regularly (I’m being paid this month for work I completed in July), but I saved a buffer and have never been late on a bill payment – take that, stereotype!<\/li>\n
    3. You know…I’m kind of a flaky person in general. I’d like to think I’m a pretty intelligent and self-motivated person, but you know what? Sometimes I’m tired. Sometimes I get sick. Sometimes I mistakingly write down the wrong date\/time for a meeting. But I assure you that in the end, the work gets done, and clients are generally pretty happy. Not to make excuses, but I am on an anti-anxiety medication that makes my memory a bit shoddy (but, it helps me not panic when work is slower – see #2).<\/li>\n
    4. UNTRUE. Many of my best ‘freelance’ friends are busier and more successful than some of my 9-5 friends. So to #4, I say SHUT YO MOUTH!<\/li>\n
    5. I’ve always kind of been a weird loner (or floater at best). In junior high I was voted weirdest…which I choose to accept as a term of endearment. I have a lot of friends and associates, but I’ve always preferred time to myself. I like to stay home, make my nest so to speak. Just last week I managed the beginning of a\u00a0 kitchen remodel<\/a>! That being said, I do think it’s important to extend yourself (socially) when you work predominantly from the confines of your home office. Why? Well – conversations with your cats, dogs, or walls can get very one-sided, and we always need a reality check. Luckily, there are tons of communities out there for people just like you, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding someone to connect with!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      What do you think about these stereotypes? Are some of them accurate?<\/strong><\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      This post was inspired by a recent discussion on the E-Learning Heroes Community and an article I read over at Freelancer Union. In the community, David asked whether individuals preferred being called freelancers or consultants. Most folks seemed to preferred being called consultants, and to be honest – so do I. While I don’t typically […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[7],"tags":[11],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4s3cq-aL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2240,"href":"https:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667\/revisions\/2240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}