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

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Wednesday 25 April 2007 18:54, Gloria W wrote:
> > 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.

Since you seem to have some positives to keeping that account, perhaps 
renegotiating the pay is worth considering? It sounds like they need you more 
than you need them. The worst they can say is NO, right? To which you can 
always reply, "See ya later."

> > 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.

::snip::

Hearing about child abuse makes me profoundly sad. I think I'll go hug my 
teddy bear right now. I say, NO! NO beating, NO kicking, and NO punching! NO, 
NO, NO. What happened to you was wrong, and I hope you yell NO about it, 
quite a bit!

Valorie