Thinking about working
Hello everyone,
I don’t have a ton of updates to share this week. My roadtrips were good, I think broadly productive, and this week and next week I’m basically locked in doing substitute teaching work before heading to Tokyo and Los Angeles, and I’m looking forward to sharing a bit about how those trips went!
As I wrote 3-4 weeks ago, May will really be a make or break month for me and my plans. If I sell well, I can come back and keep going as is: doing a mix of selling books, teaching workshops and teaching in schools. If I don’t sell enough, I’ll need to slow down my publications (cutting one from this year) and start segueing back to part or full time work.
And that’s ok. I think far too many people (myself included) are guilty of making big declarative statements about their plans. From this moment on I won’t ever eat sugar again, or I am never working for someone else again. These are easy to say, feel empowering and exciting, but are also very far outside of our ability to control, sometimes at least. Or we change and want different things.
I’ve been diligent about talking about my foray into full time creative work as an experiment, a trial, something that could change, and partially that is to make sure folks that know me, read this newsletter or are peers know what’s up. If I had to go back to work after a big delcaration, I’d feel self-conscious and a bit ashamed. Whereas, if I have to go back to work now it’s ok - I’ve not made any big public promises.
So - what have I been thinking about?
Well I recently applied for a part-time job as a writer of education content. Two days a week, well paid, well within my skillset. I’m a competitive candidate but perhaps not an outstanding one, I have a hard time gauging.
I also looked at some jobs recently, and found a bunch at Universities I’d be happy to do. Admin/student support work in Unis is so chill, well paid and low-stress. It’s often low reward, but that’s ok with me.
I also toyed with the idea of returning to teaching, but I’m ruling that one out. This week and next I’m working with the same groups of students, essentially replacing a teacher who has quit. And between you and me there’s already one group of students I just absolutely do not want to work with 3-4x a week, I just cannot be bothered. I’ll do it, but gosh it’s a grind.
One of my least favourite (and unavoidable things) about Education work is convincing young people to have a go and that education is worth trying. So many teens, probably most teens, have subjects or years where they just are completely apathetic, and trying to prod someone in that zone into learning about WW1, or economics, or reading a book, it’s just frustrating for me. After a while I think ‘fine, sit there and be a blob, what good will that do you?’ and that is an indication I’ve lost my motivation to help, which is poison to rocking up the next day and trying again. After 48 hours with the same groups of students I’m already there!
Ah well. It’s a nice option in so many ways - good conditions, good pay, parent-friendly, lots of workplaces and in-demand, but that’s not enough. Maybe part time it’d be different. Maybe. But I think I’d prefer to work at Unis where everyone is so serious and the work is a piece of cake.
I’m not sure if I’ll get around to writing next week - there’s a ton happening behind the scenes (print testing our next book, doing a few 1-on-1 consultations, taking some photos, working a bunch), but the real next big news will be how was Tokyo and how did I sell there - so we may as well wait 10ish days and have that email sent then.
Though I SHOULD have some great updated branding news to share, so maybe I’ll share that. We’ll see, I’m a tricky fella, hard to pin down.
Matt