Unpredictability - Good for your health

Our modern life is based on organising an environment free from the unexpected. The house needs to be as stable and reliable as possible. The job as safe as possible. Nothing should break down. Nothing but what we predict, should occur.
This is the life of the zoo animal. Let's explore the life of the Nomad. Let's live the life of the Nomad.

Sunday 18 March 2012

A year on wheels

It was on a Sunday one year ago that me and the two daughters took a last stroll around the two bedroom flat, located on a Brighton beach front, that had been home for several years.  Or rather, it had been a place to return to on weekends since then I was a business nomad.  Working away during the week and returning to base on the weekend.  The children would stay every second weekend.  The decision to take to wheels was not taken lightly.  Worn out with endless disputes with the lettings company, the energy companies that couldn't even work out what energy meter belonged to my flat, and various other agencies that charged for a service they couldn't provide.  At one point one room was unusable due to a hole in the roof caused by water damage - the building management agency taking way too long to sort it out.  And hemmed in like chickens in a battery farm.  Neighbours living wall to wall - curtain twitching, nosy and fearful: I had had enough.  And for all this I was paying a premium, saving little and working like a horse - it all had to come to an end.

And so it did, as I woke up one Monday with a strange notion of becoming a caravan engineer.  I phoned the company I worked for and gave notice to the termination date.  I wrote to the lettings agency, again giving the termination  date, with some stern repercussions that would result if my deposit was not returned in full.  Three days later I was offered a contract to provide my computer skills as a self employed freelancer.  This was to last three months and the idea was to begin the caravan engineer course after the end of the contract.  But the contract was extended, then extended again, then again, and even now I am doing this contract until the end of April.  And if my previous job could involve seventy hours a week working away from home - this freelancing contract means I complete my fourty hours per week, and can return home by 4.30pm every evening.  Returning to a caravan on a field, where my neighbours are industrious and happy, living an alternative lifestyle.  The caravan engineer idea, alas, will never eventuate.  There would be an investment in various gas fitting and electrical courses and would set me back a fortune - and the work would be seasonal and the remuneration could not match that which I enjoy as a freelance computing engineer.  In retrospect I was burning out.  Now I am re-energised  and happy to continue with the profession I have mostly enjoyed doing for the last fifteen years.  But I will retain the self-employed status for to be a permanent employee is not something I can do gracefully. To work and to earn - free from company politics and managerial work assessments: this is the way for me.

Peace

2 comments:

  1. Time sure flys when your having fun! You sound as happy as we are with living full time in your caravan. Long may it continue!

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  2. Encouraged by your postings over the past year - self-employment is the way to go.. "industrious and happy" as you say..

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