Living on this side of the hard-work/soft-work divide

Some days, I think I'd like to get a regular job, you know, be an employee where you work maybe 40%-60% of the work day. And then get paid for taking vacations, paid double for not taking stat holidays, paid for being sick, paid while traveling, paid for parking the car at the airport...

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Henry Blodget does a nice job laughing at New York Time's "investigation"  into how blogging kills people. He writes:

Imagine being forced to care -- as online media folks do -- whether people actually want to read what you write.

In the NYT article, "In a World of Online News, Burnout Starts Younger" (link), NYT writer Jeremy Peters reports on a something called "competition":

It is not uncommon for [blogger] reporters to awaken to find e-mail messages ... asking why the competition had a story Politico did not. 

And...

Politico editors talk about losing their audience as if it could happen at any moment.

From the context, it seems that NYT writers and editors are unfamiliar with the subject, despite their newspaper suffering from a something named "de-clin-ing read-er-ship."

Some speak of the digital divide; others of the rich/poor divide. My fellow CAD bloggers and I live on one side of the hard-work/soft-work divide.

Anyhow, Blodget's piece is here:

http://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-times-still-horrified-by-how-hard-online-media-people-work-2010-7

PS: Yes, I choose to be self-employed and do without all the extras -- in exchange for the freedom of not being warehoused all day long.

Comments

[DF]

Some days, I think I'd like to get a regular job, you know, be an employee where you work maybe 40%-60% of the work day. And then get paid for taking vacations, paid double for not taking stat holidays, paid for being sick, paid while traveling, paid for parking the car at the airport...

On the other hand, you're not tied up in red tape, having to please people above you who have no real knowledge (or interest) in what your work is, subject to stupid policies and 'plans', get only your wage (and rarely anything above that for working harder), or have to live with others claiming your honest work as 'theirs'.