The books won't love you back
An unpublished piece from my own archive and some bookish recommendations
I’ve got something a bit different again for you this week. Seeing as I’ve been on holiday and this is going out on a Friday afternoon, it seems fitting to stray from usual posting for just another week, so I hope you don’t mind. Normal service will resume shortly.
This week’s post is something from my own archive, a piece that was accepted for a magazine but that never got published. It’s short and sweet and was written when I had not long left my full-time job last year. It’s a piece of writing that I’m proud of and that I’ve been wanting to share somewhere for a while.
Reading it again a year on, I am also proud of the person that wrote it. I was trying my best to be optimistic about what was a really scary situation, while learning hard lessons about doing the work and putting myself out there. As you’ll know if you’ve been subscribed to The Hot Desk for a little while, I’m not freelancing full time any more and that I’ve learned a hell of a lot over the past twelve months. I am still so grateful to the authors of the books I write about in the piece and still look to many of them for work-life inspiration. I also still love a work-inspired memoir or guide and you bet I’ve added to my collection since writing this. I just consume them with a bit more rigour and self-knowledge these days. I know that if I want to make things happen, then I have to be the one to do the doing.
The books won’t love you back
The trouble with finding your dream job is that no one tells you how to do it. The careers advice at my school amounted to an online questionnaire which divined that I was best suited to the incredibly specific role of ‘manager of a launderette’, and not much beyond that.
Throughout my twenties, I pinballed my way around a number of unsatisfying jobs, unable to find something that felt like a good fit. While friends were getting promotions, I was feeling stuck. I found the nine-to-five incredibly draining. Office politics were stressful. I hated having to check in with somebody whenever I needed a wee or wanted my lunch. I felt like the world’s worst employee and my self-confidence was shrinking by the minute. There had to be another way to do this work thing, right?
Helpfully, my mid-twenties career crisis coincided with the girlboss boom of the 2010s and the deluge of self-development and careers books that followed. Suddenly my newsfeeds were flooded with stories of women writers, artists and entrepreneurs doing incredible work and writing books about how I could do it too. Reading was one of my favourite ways to relax and escape reality, but what if books could solve my work woes too?
Cracking that first millennial pink spine, I was introduced to a roster of smart, witty and successful women telling me that there was a better way to work. They were the in-the-know older sisters I had always wanted, teaching me phrases like ‘playing big’ and ‘leaning in’, and radical notions like freelancing and a four-day week. Their books told me that that I could break free! Okay, I might lose friends and/or sleep, but they assured me the ‘hustle’ was worth it. Real success, real happiness, was about striking out on your own.
I was intoxicated. I stopped reading fiction, augmenting my tottering TBR pile with anything and everything entrepreneurial and aspirational. I binged any accompanying podcasts and hoovered up the magazine articles these women were penning too. I knew every tip and trick that was being touted as the route to success. And yet, I was still stuck.
Instead of pushing me towards any action, the truth was that these books became my security blanket. I told myself that I had so much to learn and that drinking in as much career Kool-Aid as I could was action in itself. Failure wasn’t an option, not when I’d spent so long being so miserable. I had to be armed with all the advice I could carry. Only then would I be able to make the leap. Then I would be successful. Then I would be happy.
Cut to today and I’m in a position that scared, stuck 25-year-old me could only have dreamed of: I am three months into my freelance career. Sitting in my flat, I’m surrounded by those well-thumbed, scribbled in books that I hoped would make me successful and fulfilled. I so badly wanted those wonderful women to step off the page, take me by the hand and make changes for me. It took me way too long to realise that the only person who could take me closer to what I hoped work could be, was me.
Will I be a freelancer for the rest of my life? I don’t know yet. I still have doubts about leaving the security of my full-time job. I still feel a tiny bit sick any time I tell people what I’ve chosen to do, but that’s just the thing: I’ve chosen to do it. I feel happier about work than I have done for a long time. I’ve even used a lot of the practical advice gleaned from all that reading. Striking out on my own might not be the thing I do forever, but it feels like a good fit for now. At least until an opening at the local launderette comes up anyway.
Coincidentally my last two Day Jobs™️ have been in books, so I seem to have kind of predicted the path my work-life was going to take after writing that piece. Ironically, I’m writing this while I’m stuck in a bit of a reading rut. I have three half-read novels by my bed at the moment, two of which have been leant to me by friends and that I really should make an effort to finish and give back (so sorry if you’re reading this and I owe you a book!). Anyway, I’m pleased to have given this piece a home now. It’s made me want to flip through all those career books again and re-find those nuggets of gold that kept me inspired and hopeful in my twenties. I’d love to know if you have any books that hold a similar place in your heart? They can be non-fiction or otherwise, directly linked to what you do now or something totally different. Let me know in the comments!
Finally, here's this week’s round-up of recommended reads and listens from around the internet:
Having decided to share some previously unpublished writing with you this week, Nina’s latest Substack post on getting stuck in drafts really rang a bell with me.
Lazy girl jobs are the latest work-life trend popping up on TikTok. This article looks at why young women are eschewing ‘passion jobs’ and instead aspiring to work less and earn more.
Stylist magazine looks at the possible reasons for the rise in women taking on shift and freelance work over a traditional 9 to 5.
When I’m on holiday I don’t tend to listen to my usual podcasts, often because they’re work-related or I usually listen when I’m doing a specific activity (e.g. doing my skincare and brushing my teeth to The News Agents every night. Anyone else?). So it was nice to come back from holiday to two new episodes of The Business Proposal podcast - one about updating your website (which I really, really need to do) and the other about the joys of freelancing.
I loved this meditation on food and home from Tomiwa on Dear Lexi, another Substack I would love reading when it lands in my inbox.
Feels like I should include a bookish recommendation here this week, right? I can’t think of many books that have made me physically laugh out loud, but Georgia Pritchett’s My Mess Is A Bit of a Life is one. (Full disclosure: this is another book I’m only half-way through, but I’m confident it’s a banger.)
See you next time!
Rebecca
So much in this, Rebecca. I think it's really powerful to revisit words written when you were in a different space altogether and see the ways your perspective has shifted since then. It's so interesting that even now your work situation isn't entirely freelance you can see the ways in which these different ways of working connect! I often think this about my teaching career, which lasted a decade and ended nearly a decade ago... Turns out that I'm STILL a teacher, but in my current role and in some of my freelance work, it's far more on my terms.
Thanks also for these great recommendations. I've been listening to The News Agents, too, and absolutely love their post-BBC take. Been noticing stuff about the lazy girl work trend as well, so will definitely click on that link to read more.x