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Before I freed myself from a life of slave labor I worked in the landscaping industry. For fifteen years I worked my way up from lowly hired laborer to foreman and manager positions. During ten years of this hardscrabble existence I was brain damaged. I must have been. You see, how else can you explain believing for ten years that hard work and good work ethics will be enough to eventually land you in a good position with a fat salary and benefits? I chalk it up to inhaled carbon monoxide from weedwhackers and tractors and the daily baking of my skull in the hot sun.

 I should have gotten a clue after about the tenth time I was told what a great job I did while being given still more responsibilities and yet no similar increases in salaries. I should have, but my parboiled and oxygen starved brain apparently wasn’t quite up to the task of deductive reasoning.

Luckily though, even the weakest neurons receive a signal now and then and my beleaguered gray matter eventually began forming some rebellious suspicions. A big part of this began to happen when I got my first crew chiefs position.

“Yay! I got a promotion! Oh boy, now I get to start making some money instead of killing myself for nothing”, I naively thought as I left the bosses office. Nope. What I got was a pitiful pay raise that was just enough to bump my tax bracket and result in a net weekly increase of $15.00 in pay. In return I got to be the fall guy for several alcoholics who ran mowers over expensive exotic plants and stoners who were experts in finding secluded shade-trees for afternoon siestas. Now I got the opportunity to not only pick up slack, but take the blame as well when my crew got drunk enough or hid well enough to keep me from getting any work out of them. This was an improvement?  Now I understand the half assed grins on my bosses faces when they gave me the position.

Perhaps being a foreman would be better? Not a chance. The carbon monoxide was still taking its toll on my synapses although a couple of them were trying like mad to send a signal across.

Becoming foreman was no better than being a crew chief, but it was the beginning of real revelations. I was somebody now according to my title although you’d never know it by looking at paychecks. A job title can be heady stuff, especially when you’re operating at 50% of mental capacity, and I stupidly accepted it as though I was actually being given something of value. More responsibilities, more demands, and more blame for others screw-ups yet still being without so much as a cut rate dental plan wasn’t exactly progress, but I still wasn’t getting it.

 When I made foreman however, I began getting glimpses into the reality of how many businesses operate. I was getting to see the numbers on job estimates and employee data sheets now and then. Other foremen were confiding their own decade’s long experiences with me. Property managers were talking with me about budgets and my company’s yearly contract costs. Even MY medium rare brain couldn’t miss the facts.

 I was being exploited. I was damn good at my job, and I did deserve a hell of a lot more for my efforts. But as long as I allowed myself to be used, my situation would never change. When the realization hit me, it was like the clichéd thunderclap. From that moment on, I knew without reservation that I couldn’t continue working as someone’s employee. It took one small annoyance after this realization took hold and I did something I had only done once before in my life; I walked off the job. I haven’t gone back since.

I immediately started my own business, and in my first year almost tripled my income doing the same thing I had been doing for over 10 years. Talk about a duh moment when I did my first round of taxes! I felt like slapping myself for not doing it sooner, but I was enjoying having food on a regular basis too much to worry about self recriminations. Eating regularly can be heady stuff too if you’re not used to it.

Eventually though, earning my living through sweat and labor began to lose its appeal. Although I greatly enjoy working outdoors and with my hands, the enjoyment began to fade as 20 years of labor made itself known to my knees and back. I didn’t like what this way of living meant for the future either. I realized that if I didn’t get away from inhaling small engine exhaust every day, in another ten years I’d be lucky if I could remember my own name. I would spend my golden years connected to an oxygen tank while nurses congratulated me on making it from my bed to the bathroom by myself and remembering how to get there.

 By this time the brain damage had mostly reversed itself and I was actually having some novel and halfway ambitious thoughts. Chief among these new thoughts was the idea that I could do something else besides planting someone’s petunias and azalea bushes.

Over the years I had been producing an endless stream of online gibberish interspersed with occasional flashes of coherency. These occasional flashes brought some very generous reviews now and then from very forgiving readers. It was those folks who led me to believe I could make a living online, and with my first sold article, my freelancing career was born. Now I write for a living and although it’s been less than a year and my income is not what it once was, I’m hooked.  C’mon, carbon monoxide poisoning, 90 degree heat, and a daily dose of physical exhaustion just can’t compete with air conditioning, iced tea and a keyboard. And I don’t even have to deal with unexpected hordes of hornets exploding out of a bush when I cut through their nest with a set of trimmers. I’ll have to tell the story of how I got stung 28 times and looked like a carnival balloon for three days sometime now that I think about it. Imagine a guy in a hard hat streaking past you at 3o mph, gibbering like a lunatic and stripping clothing as he goes by.

 Anyways…

Working online as a freelancer has opened more doors than I imagined possible, and the flexibility and possibilities exceed anything I had considered doing with a traditional career. I’m finally doing something I actually enjoy, that I can really put myself into, and I can even get paid to do it.

It’s no wonder the internet has become such a huge and diverse marketplace. No wonder there are so many entrepreneurs and freelancers. Some of the most coveted types of jobs are those that allow you to set your own hours, work from home, and really use your own talents and abilities how you see fit. And just about every person with a computer and an internet connection has that job just sitting there waiting for them to fill the position. But they never do it, because it just never occurs to them, or they think it’s too hard, or they don’t see how anyone could pay them to use the internet. It’s a shame really. I fell into this opportunity through a combination of dumb luck, basic abilities, and a serious aversion to hornet venom. I’m sure everyone else has their own story to tell, mine’s just a little more ludicrous than most. I’m just happy to be here and still coherent.