Lives of the Self-Employed

“Self-Employed”: that’s another way of saying “underemployed,” which ultimately is another way of saying “unemployed.”

It happened again last night: I worked until 11:30 trying to keep up with a set of jobs that pay poverty wages. This is just flicking INSANE!

Over the weekend it occurred to me, once again, that I need to get a grip on the way I spend my time. Too sick to go to choir, on Sunday I was struggling to get even with the 101 papers so they’d be off my desk, to the extent they ever are, by the time the 235 students’ first real assignment came in. But I realized the house was so filthy it was actually making the dog sick: Cassie’s eyes water all the time because she’s allergic to something, probably all the dust on the floors. Her little nose is only about 10 or 12 inches off the ground, so naturally when she goes tearing around on floors that haven’t been properly cleaned in three months, the dust flies up into her face.

So I finally decided I would have to let the student papers go for a day in favor of basic sanitation.

But not before I tried to sketch out some sort of schedule that might get the massive amounts of work under control. Caring for the house, the dogs, and the yard alone could fill one’s day; add trying to run three exercises in underemployment and you’re doomed.

This, to my astonishment, is the result:

The plan was to try to keep the actual paid work hours down to 40 a week, and also to work in time to walk Cassie and to take Charley to the park for a leash-training session. Also, I wanted to get back into the habit of bathing and painting my face early in the day, instead of having to race through those jobs in the 15 minutes before I have to run out the door to class.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I don’ t have to leave for campus until almost 11:00 a.m. However, if I do the other things I need to do—walk the dogs, make the bed, pick up the pigpen (which while the weather is warm—we’re just coming off another three-digit spell—entails tending the pool and watering plants), fix and eat breakfast, take a shower, paint my face, and get dressed for class—this schedule still leaves me working into the middle of the night.

Every flickin’ night.

Seven days a week.

Out of curiosity, I added up the number of hours for which I actually get paid, which I’ve called “productive hours.” All that teaching and editing and blogging adds up, during a well-organized week with no rush jobs, to sixty hours a week!

Know what I earn for a sixty-hour work week? $29,790.

Yes. Less than half of what I earned when I had a real job, at which I worked about 30 or 35 hours a week.

All it takes is one thing to disrupt this finely juggled schedule. Today, for example, I have to go to the dentist at 10. That cuts short the time for writing this blog post—Charley’s half-hour training session will have to go—and pushes the other work forward until after I get back, sometime around noon.

Gerardo just showed up. The disruption he and his sidekick create distracts from trying to get the present chore (blogging) done. Just spent 20 minutes cleaning up the dog shit I didn’t get to yesterday because it was well after dark before my son picked up his dog, and instructing Gerardo on the plants that need to be pulled out because they died during the summer’s heat.

And I have to be back here by noon so I can sit here for five hours waiting for the pool guy to come back and fix the filter AGAIN.

Twenty-nine thousand seven hundred and ninety dollars. The dentist is going to clean out my checking and savings accounts today. There’s been NO WAY I’ve been able to set aside another $40 a month for routine dental work. Not only have I not been able to self-escrow enough to cover tooth-cleaning (to say nothing of the new interesting thing that’s developed), I’ve been dipping into savings every month to cover ordinary expenses.

Leslie’s said they might forgive the cost of today’s service call, because it’s not been very long since the guy was last here. But if they don’t, that’ll be at least another $160.

Next month I have to drain and refill the pool: $200.

The $185/month water bills this summer happened after I’d turned off the water on the front east side. I’d forgotten that last winter I figured all that xeric landscaping needn’t be watered and had pledged to manually water the roses and hollyhocks three times a week. Well of course while struggling to keep afloat in the tsunami of work that was last summer, I forgot that best-laid plan. So two of the roses in front are dead; the hollyhocks are seared back to the ground, the yellow oleander just barely recovered from last winter’s freezes and has a lot of deadwood that needs to be cut out.

I’ll have to pay Gerardo extra for all the extra work he and his slavey are doing.

The work tsunami hasn’t subsided. I guess I must have washed out to sea.

Speaking of the which, I must hurry to get some food before the kid shows up here with that dog. Bye!

By the way: that 59.6 hours a week? That’s just the paid work. As for the “nonproductive hours”—the hours of work around this place that are NOT paid: 49.65 hours a week.