[Courses] [Spineful Living, Lesson 4: Saying No!]

[Gloria W]

>
>
> Closely related to this one, is an issue I've had trouble with in the past, 
> and I'll bet some of you have, too. You've taken a great job, married a 
> wonderful spouse, assumed a rewarding volunteer position. And then time 
> passes, or your company is sold, your partner changes in a different 
> direction than you are traveling, or the challenge is gone from the position. 
> In short, you are burnt out.
>   
I'm having trouble with this right now. I didn't exactly quit my 
previous full-time job to go freelance. I kept them on as a client. But 
I have already rewritten all of the infrastructure code, made the entire 
project extensible, threadsafe, object-oriented, scalable, and even gave 
then a brand new web framework, trained the junior people on how to add 
new apps, etc. Now there is only maintenance, and it is boring as hell. 
The CTO convinced me to take a low hourly rate once I switched to 
contracting, because he does not support contracting, but did not want 
to lose me. I did not negotiate because I felt badly about leaving.

Now I feel resentful for taking such a low paying contract, since my 
other, full-time contract is twice the hourly rate of this one. I'm 
having great difficulty encouraging myself to keep them on as a client. 
But I feel badly about completely lobbing them off. The company is not 
doing well, and may fold upon itself soon anyway, so morale sucks. My 
leaving was seen as some weird omen by those who ran out of business 
ideas, and resorted to 'hope' as a business plan. But they keep me 
hanging on. The CEO said he'd let me keep my shares (if they end up 
being worth anything) if I hang around part-time. Plus, for tax reasons, 
it helps tremendously to have more than one client if you freelance. It 
looks more like a credible independent business rather than some dubious 
employment relationship.

Urgh, so, yeah, I do this thing which seems to suck the life blood from 
me right now. But I only do it once a week, so it's no so bad, right? 
Great gods, I hate my overly-optimistic coping mechanism. It really 
hurts me in the end.

>
> Too many of us didn't get a chance to learn to say NO as two year-olds, when 
> we are supposed to learn that. So we never progress to I'M DONE. Better late 
> to learn both, than never!
>   
This seemed profound to me. After reading this, I remembered what saying 
no was like for me as a child. I got beaten, kicked and punched for 
saying no. No wonder I have such a hard time with it now.

This course makes me cringe. That means it's working for me. Thank you 
for doing this.

Gloria