After redundancy, what shall I call myself?
Friday, January 21, 2022 at 10:19AM I've been toying with ways to frame my new circumstances. I lost my day job at the end of December 2021 and as a result now have no income at all for the first time in 35 years or so. No need to panic, I ought to add, but a completely blank slate is a quite something to contemplate. Or should that be "blank page?"
It's an old wisdom that the language we use about the world describes ourselves as much as the world so I'm going down the rabbit hole a bit to see what words frame the way I perceive this recent change.
"Unemployed" seems a bit bleak,but also suggests a certain lack of agency that I really don't feel at all. I certainly don't want to be "employed" again any time soon. The strictures of corporate life are too punitive.
"Between assignments" has a certain ring to it, as though I could choose between several as yet non-existent offers and am conducting some kind of personal auction. It also has a whiff of bullshit about it, which I don't mind at all.
"Retired" won't do at all. Not enough money, for one thing.
"Semi-retired" has some promise. Not looking for anything full time, but ready to pivot at short notice if something interesting comes up.
"On sabbatical" seems closest to the truth. I'm really a bit knackered and quite happy to take some time off, while keeping scanners on and shields down. It's going to take me a little longer to relax out of the full-spectrum posture required to maintain a corporate life. I'm certainly not feeling like a dynamic, results-focused team player who thrives in a fast-paced blah blah blah. If I ever was.
"Unemployed poet" is an obvious label, but suffers from my first point above and also from being a tautology, as one wag pointed out.
So I'm going with "on sabbatical" for the moment, though I reserve the right to change it on a whim. And when I do put some kind of harness back on, I've decided that none of the normal designations will fit. The best tag I can find is...."free-range writer."
So that's it - a free-range writer, on sabbatical. I can cope with that for the moment.