An Ode to Freelancing and Its Biggest Benefit – The Freedom It Gives You!

My dream is to get back to freelancing one day.

Having done it before, I know how fulfilling it can be. There are many advantages of being your own boss. You decide what projects to take up. You decide whether to say yes or no to a client. You decide how much time you want to spend on your work.

I started doing freelance work around 10 years back. I began my journey by carrying out some research on the best freelancer websites. Finally, I registered on Fiverr and instantly got some clients because of my portfolio. It was easier back then to find customers, unlike today, when the competition is fierce.

I was a freelance content writer. My work on Fiverr involved creating marketing copies for startups. My clients appreciated my work and gave me good reviews. Looking back, I am so proud of myself for getting the freelance writing gigs on my own. When I got my first $100 from freelancing, I felt on top of the moon. Frankly, even if it were just $10, I would have felt elated because this was proof that I could survive independently. It gave me confidence.

Throughout our life, we are on the lookout for confirmation that we are well equipped to face any challenges that come our way. We are skeptical, though, because we were never taught to venture out on our own. There was always someone to help us, guide us at every stage of our life – at school, competitions, college, corporate life. We could depend on someone (a parent or a teacher, or a manager) to help us out.

With freelancing, you are on your own.

You have to figure things out.

You have to decide how to get money.

You have to research and find out what sells.

It’s all you!

To be a successful freelancer, you need to hustle.

Needless to say, every little profit you get out of it feels like a big deal. Plus, the freedom to work from home and the ultimate control you have over your work is unmatched.

Freelancing is special. It gives you that sense of achievement and fulfillment when work starts coming your way. It is the feeling I yearn for now.

I stopped freelancing 2 years after starting it. The reasons being, my sleep cycle got messed up, and the pay did not match my hard work at the time. I would sleep at 5 AM and wake up at noon. There was no discipline in my life. I had a few passive income streams that paid a few bills, but more was needed. That’s when I decided to get back into the corporate world. I thought I would continue with my side hustles. But life had other plans. My work responsibilities at my day job increased. I had no time left for something I enjoyed.

Does freelancing count as work experience? Does it help your career? Let me tell you this. I got my job after the recruiter saw my freelancing work. All the hard work paid off. I know many freelancers (web developers, graphic designers, writers) getting a corporate job after building a solid portfolio of impressive projects. So I would consider it as a work experience. People are afraid of mentioning “freelancer” in their work resume. They are afraid that the recruiters might think it is a fancy way to say you haven’t worked for some time. The best way to prove naysayers wrong is by building a good portfolio of your freelancing work. No recruiter would say no to a freelancer who has done notable work.

Does freelancing pay well? Yes, it does. Freelancing is hard though, and it is not for everyone. Start small and easy. When you start getting overbooked for a month or two, increase your rate by 10-15%. You don’t have to wait till the annual performance review to get a raise!

Freelancing is the future of work. People are quitting big corporate jobs because working for yourself is mentally more peaceful. I would love to get back to it one day to be my own boss again.

There’s a funny quote out there that goes “I can’t wait to earn a lot of money and quit. So I can start doing the work I like.” Truer words have never been spoken.

An Ode to Not Checking Work Emails on Weekends and Holidays

We bring work to home and home to work.

We find it challenging to keep our professional and personal lives separate.

People say you should never talk about your personal problems at work; that your coworkers can use that info to bring you down. You never know who is plotting against you to climb that corporate ladder.

When it comes to bringing work home, though, things are a bit more relaxed. Many workers are guilty of committing this sin of not switching off post work-hours. We take it for granted that our loved ones would understand. No one is going to plot against you. There is no ladder to climb, except when the ceiling fan needs cleaning up, we need to fix a bulb or pull out something from a top storage unit.

The number one red flag that you are a workaholic is that you check your work emails during post-work hours and holidays. There is no urgency at work. There are no production issues. But there you are, checking your email like you are checking your fridge for something new.

I was guilty of this too.

I used to check my email after work hours. I wanted to know if my bosses replied. Sometimes the replies to my emails were neutral, sometimes positive, and sometimes negative. As expected, the negative responses were joy killers. Imagine facing anxiety during your day off. It is more than enough to ruin the rest of your day.

This is why I stopped checking work emails outside work hours.

Armed with the new understanding that checking emails would wreck my breaks, I consciously started staying away from work emails after the scheduled hours, on weekends and holidays. I would pull myself back from checking them. It was never easy, especially when you are anticipating a reply to an important email. But I would tell myself that enjoying the moment is of prime importance. If I were to find out I had tons of work for the next working day, I would spend my breaks coming out with an action plan. Breaks are not for making work plans! It is meant for rejuvenation.

Switching off from work made my holidays more enjoyable and relaxing. I was able to pursue my hobbies and also spend quality time with family.

I find many people around me committing this sin of checking emails post-work hours now.

A friend, during his vacation, worked almost every single day. He couldn’t stop checking his emails. Many like him tend to forget to create boundaries at work. It sends a message to your organization. That you, as a worker, are ready to work anytime, even if it is your vacation.

It is not the company’s responsibility to look after your well-being. They will never beg you to look after your own mental or physical health. They will never stop you from working after the scheduled hours or on holidays. That onus is on you!

I know many in their late 20s and early 30s who complain of backache. Each one of them works 10+ hours every day, and they have wrecked their health in the process. We overwork ourselves because we are brimming with energy, and we want to do impressive work. It is only over the years that the side effects start to show. People in their 30s and 40s are increasingly facing heart attacks. Stress is a significant contributor. There is no time to sit back and enjoy the pleasures of life. A fast-paced life only contributes to more stress.

The easiest way to kickstart your journey towards physical and mental well-being is by separating your personal and professional lives. Learn to switch off from work after the scheduled hours. If you cannot complete your work on time, learn proper time management, or better yet, ask for more time. Extra time for a project submission means improved deliverables.

The first step to post-work wellness is to sign out from your work emails.

Please do it for yourself. You highly deserve it!

An Ode to Saying Please and Thank You at Work

Say Thank You at Work — Photo by Polina Zimmerman

How often have we dealt with authoritative emails at work?

The ones that sound unnecessarily aggressive and bossy, instead of courteous yet firm.

After my previous rant on surviving performance reviews, I looked into a couple of emails of supervisors generally well-liked at the office, and those who weren’t.

The ones who were liked (Batch A), were polite and empathetic in their emails:

“Could you please finish this task by Saturday?“
“Thank you for completing this!“

In contrast, the ones who weren’t liked (Batch B), wrote their emails like this:

“Do this by Saturday!“
Dead silence after completing any task

See the difference? Would you like to get emails from Batch B? No one is fond of unnecessary aggression.

It is such a refresher nowadays to hear supervisors being polite. A “Thank you” or a “Please,” even if formal makes you look humane and not cold and distant. It motivates employees to do better. Politeness does not mean being weak. You can be firm and polite!

Something Batch A does often (to show the emergency of the situation):

“Please send this across by Saturday! This is very important.“

No unwanted aggression here. A simple message that conveys the seriousness of the task. Most people are smart enough to get the gist of such a message.

Employees perform their best when their supervisors are empathetic and kind. The attrition rate (the rate at which people leave) is always high in companies with bad managers. A 2016 survey in India showed that employees are willing to stay longer and work harder if they were well appreciated in their companies. About 59% felt they were unappreciated by their bosses. That’s more than half of the survey sample! No small number there. Sometimes, all it takes is a “thank you” or a “please,” to make things better.

So why are we so stingy with appreciating others or using cordial language at work?

Each supervisor is shaped by their own experiences in the corporate world. Some might have faced similar situations, a boss being too self-centered or supercilious or manipulative, and they end up thinking this is the only way to climb up the career ladder.

Sadly, this is partially true.

A recent study disturbingly stated that narcissistic, manipulative people tend to beco me CEOs faster (29% more) than their less self-entitled peers. We look at people at the top for inspiration, and we see a lot of them acting entitled and impolite, and we think “That’s how we become successful.”

But is it really? Is this the downside of being successful? Should we dump our emotions, empathy, kindness in the garbage in the quest for power?

I have been in the corporate world for so long, and I have seen and experienced so much, that the first thought when I see a CEO or a leader on LinkedIn is not “Wow! I want to be this person,” but “How many people did you demotivate and destroy to reach where you are? How many fake stories have you cooked up to save yourself, by shifting the blame onto your juniors? How good are you at playing politics in office?” This seems very dark and harsh I know. But it is mostly the truth. There are exceptions but the many leaders I have seen have sold their souls to the corporate devil. They will do anything to get on the super boss’ good books and won’t hesitate to drag anyone else down in the process.

Sometimes, from what I have seen, I feel it’s best to stay away from the rat race.

So you don’t end up becoming a rat.

An Ode to Surviving Performance Reviews by Demotivating Managers

It is that demotivating season again.

I say demotivating because my last two performance reviews were negative. I might keep repeating “demotivating” throughout the article because that is how I feel right now.

So demotivated, dazed, confused, furious.

All because of one manager.

Somehow he has made up his mind to never encourage anyone. The only positive word I have ever seen come out of his mouth is “Good.” But he is ever ready to nullify that with 100 negatives.

The worrying part is many in my company feel that way.

2020 was the year I was most proud of myself. I learned things on my own. I built things from scratch. Got everything up and going with minimal errors after several hours of overtime. The least I expected was an “I appreciate your hard work.” An acknowledgement of what I have done.

But nothing came.

Don’t be that manager.

I am at my productive best when I am reporting to a good manager. I am at my worst when the manager is negative. This is true for many. We want to do our best, help the company reach the top when our work is valued.

Don’t get me wrong. I love constructive feedback. But not feedback that is laced only with negatives.

If you are a performance reviewer, here are some “How not to be a demotivating boss” tips:

Start the conversation in a light tone. A “Hi, how are you?” at the start never killed anyone. It gives the employee some time to breathe and relax. Remember, most employees get into a performance review with extreme anxiety. Help them out by being courteous and kind.
Start with the positives. And by positives, I do not mean just saying a single “Good.” Be descriptive. Tell them what you liked about their work. Use the same number of sentences that you would use while giving constructive criticism. 3 full sentences describing the negatives? Follow it up with 3 honest sentences about their positives. Balance it out.
Do not make the employee feel like they have done nothing for the company.
Ease into the negatives. Give some time for the employee to respond or tell you what’s on their mind. Don’t ramble non-stop. The moment you start the negatives is when you need to be the kindest. Frame negatives in a nice way, then stop and take a step back, wait for them to respond, ask if they have to anything to say. Be open-minded to listening to them.

You look around and you see many employees dissatisfied with their managers. Why is that? Because there is a huge communication gap. Any thoughts and reviews are left for the last moment i.e. during the performance review. Some companies like Microsoft, Accenture, Adobe and Deloitte have done away with annual performance reviews because of this reason alone.

The best way to give feedback is right after a task is completed. This helps them change their course if need be. Don’t wait till annual performance reviews – to throw unpleasant surprises.

I got a raise and a bonus. So it was not all bad. But all it takes is one person’s words to ruin the high you feel, right? Is that the price you pay for a salary?

By the end of it all, I told him “That was very demotivating.” Probably it was the first time he heard it from someone. Most employees prefer to ignore such bosses. My retort was followed by a one-minute silence. Of all the things I said this year, I am most proud of this one dialogue.

My manager then went on to give several excuses on how the intention was not to demotivate but to give feedback.

But feedback should be a mix of good and bad. Backed up with encouraging words on how you believe the employee can do what’s been suggested. If it is not, it is not feedback, it is being demotivational. As simple as that.

So I would like to say kudos to me for surviving yet another performance review with a demotivating manager. I expect more to come. And I plan to survive them all. By ranting here, and to my friends, and family, and anyone who would listen.

The day my boss says something nice, I will let you know. Stay tuned?

Leaving the company doesn’t make sense because as far as I know most of the people around have terrible bosses. I rather stick to one familiar demotivating one that becomes overbearing during performance review time rather than explore new ones.

If you are feeling demotivated too, rant! To someone.

That is what my colleagues and I do anyway.

One day, hopefully, all managers will learn how to give feedback constructively. Till then, the corporate servants will have to time and again, feel the extreme disappointment of not feeling valued by that one manager, who simply doesn’t know how to give a good performance review.

And I also hope one day we start earning enough passive income from our websites, investments and, other sources. So that we can run far away from everything that is, you guessed it, demotivational! Every corporate slave’s secret dream.

An Ode to the Most Underrated Career Skill

Googling.

Before you laugh, hear me out.

How is Googling a skill? Anyone can search on Google, right?

Yes, but not everyone does. Why? Because most people do not like to research or read.

In the tech industry, many of the answers are easily available online. Just a search away. It is very rare that you are the first one to face an issue. For a lot of coders, Stack Overflow is like a second home.

Whichever industry you are in currently, Googling is a good skill to have. It is right there, all the details, 24×7, for free. If you are able to research and find out an answer on Google for most of your problems, then in my opinion, that IS a skill. To learn more, to be self-reliant, without being overly dependent on others, is a skill.

Even if you get help from someone, you should STILL Google about it to learn more. Most people are too busy to get into in-depth teaching. They will just touch the topic at a high-level. I always make it a point to do some Googling when someone offers me a solution. It has helped me a lot in building on my base knowledge.

Why Do So Many People Dislike Googling?

People are hesitant to Google for an answer even if it is much easier than waiting for an answer from someone.

We are all naturally lazy (including yours truly). We just want all the answers to come to us without effort. We like to be spoon-fed without lifting a finger (even if it is for a search engine that automatically does the rest of the work for you). But growth happens (as cliché as the next line might sound) – “outside our comfort zone.”

I realized many people are bad at Googling when I posted snippets of some random articles on my Instagram story (with the title, website name et all), and my friends still asked me for the link instead of searching on Google using the article name. Mind you, to provide them the article link, I had to go through the exact same steps – search using the article name on Google, copy the URL and paste it on our chat. I did not have the link stored anywhere for easy access.

It continues even today.

Even after explaining to them how to search on Google.

I am not a passive aggressive type, so I find it difficult to use the infamous “sure, let me Google that for you” when someone asks me something that can be easily Googled.

Some Neat Googling Tips & Tricks

Most of the time, we can get what we want by just entering the search query on Google.

But what if we want something extra?

Well, for the curious cats, here are some cool Google search tips and tricks you can use to get a desired result.

Double Quotes

My most favourite.

Use double quotes if you want the exact phrase in the same order to appear in your search results.

For example, “I want to live in New York” will give results where the phrase appears in the exact same order.

Remove the quotes, and you will have the keywords scattered all over the article, and not exactly in the same order.

Using double quotes is also a great way to search for articles using just their titles.

In the example below, I want to search for posts that have mentioned “I want to live in new york” in the exact same order.

Using Double Quotes to Search for the Exact Phrase on Google

Define

Defines a word and also includes an audio clipping on how to pronounce it correctly.

Use Define: followed by the word.

Use Define: to Find Out How a Word is Defined and Pronounced

Search

Searches for results on a specific site.

Use Search: followed by the website URL and search query.

In the example below, I want to search all recipes for apple pie on YouTube.

Use Search: to View Search Results from a Specific Site

Asterisk *

Use the * asterisk symbol to let Google do the guessing work. This allows you to see the most popular search phrases that match a part of your query.

Insert * wherever you want Google to add in the most popular search words/phrases. In the example below, I have used how to * money, so it will consider popular search phrases like how to make money, how to earn money etc.

Use Asterisk (*) to Search for Missing Words

Related

If you find a website you really like, and wish to see similar ones, use Related: followed by the URL of the website you liked.

In the example below, I want websites similar to Udemy that offers courses online.

Tilde ~

This is a great way to include synonyms.

Use ~ before the word that requires synonyms.

Location-specific

If you wish to see search results only related to a specific location use location: after the search phrase.

Use Location: to Find Specific Location Results

File Type

In case you are looking for content in a particular format, use filetype: followed by the type of file (example: pdf).

Use Filetype: to Search for Specific Formats

Exclude

Exclude something from search results by using dash –.

For example, let us consider the example below, when you type -money, this means you want Google to exclude the word “money” from the search results. I have additionally added another exclusion, that is the website YouTube.com.

Exclude Certain Words & Sites from Results (Potato Milk?! You learn something new everyday :))

An Ode to Working for the Right Company (MNC or Startup)

Take a look at Twitter, and you will see never-ending debates on whether startups or MNCs are the best.

Having worked in both, here are my 2 cents.

MNCs or established, large companies might be the better option for you if you want:

Higher pay: Big companies are willing to pay the best of the best for talent
Better job security: They have been in the business for a longer time and are more stable
Well equipped work space: They have the money to invest in the best tools and resources needed for upgrading your work
Better perks: Health benefits, freebies

Cons:

Office politics: This was the worst part for me.
Feeling undervalued: There are a lot of employees, and it is practically impossible for the higher order to listen to everyone. Your opinions or inputs tend to be given less importance.
Not flexible: Most of the companies want you to stick to their rules. Employees are rarely consulted on what *they* want.

Startups or smaller companies might be the better option if you want:

More job satisfaction: The pride you feel when your company is growing is unmatched. You played a role in it, and that is a huge achievement.
Less office politics
A tightly-knit workspace where everyone is easily reachable including the CEO
A job where you are valued

Cons:

Lesser pay: Small companies can hardly compete with MNCs when it comes to offering the best pay package
High pressure: Lots of work, less work-life balance
Cash-strapped: Hardly any freebies; access only to those tools that are absolutely essential for your work

Of course, this does not apply to all the MNCs and Startups out there. Each one is different. But from my experience, this is what I have encountered.

Honestly, I feel everyone should try both at least once to see what it is like.

Then go the Marie Kondo way perhaps – choose the one that sparks joy.

To finish this off, posting a snippet I saw on Quora. It made me smile.