Hunting The Muse

Here's my latest dilemma.

Here's my latest dilemma.

My unemployment benefits ran out in January. Sometime after that I found a client that is working with a technology that I *really* enjoy, who needed help for about 100 hours of programming. He was willing to pay a rate way below by normal programming rates. But I figured, I'd have a good contact, I might have a good reference, and at least some money would be coming in.

Since then, I've requalified for unemployment benefits. Thank you, government. This project is still around twenty hours a week plus a bit of stress built on top. I'm feeling financially tense and feeling the need to spend time drumming up more work. This project is still a good contact, but the project is complicated and not close to done.

So here's what I'm running into. If I work for this guy as I have been, I make the same amount of money from him as I would from the government if I worked zero hours. The government would give me a tiny bit extra, but I worked out that in effect, with the government benefits I'm losing by putting in hours for this client, I'm basically working for four bucks an hour. Yes, four bucks an hour.

Now, I know that technically you're not supposed to look at unemployment benefits that way. But the whole point is to have a bit of cash while you use the time to find work that is worth your earning power. If my earning power were really this low, there's no way I'd qualify for the benefits I'm getting.

So the cold non-professional view is to dump the client and use the time to find better-paying work. But the see-it-through, keep the reference, don't burn bridges approach says to keep going. I'm choosing to see it through.

Still puts me in a bad mood, though, at least while it's my only client. Posted by Curt at April 23, 2002 12:55 PM