Ever wonder what you will do when you suddenly find yourself facing online unemployment?
I have been very quiet recently – that’s because I suddenly lost my full-time job. Well lost is such a drastic term I guess. I was told to take two to three weeks off while they get to work on some things on their site. Apparently, I was writing too fast and they couldn’t keep up with publishing what I was writing. I guess, it’s hardly anyone’s fault that I am suddenly left to look for a job.
Being unemployed online, I had to quickly look at my options. Three things come to mind.
ONLINE UNEMPLOYMENT OPTIONS
The first is to follow your employer’s advice and take a break. Go relax, spend time with your kids and pamper yourself. Indulge in doing nothing. It does get boring after a while so better move on to tip number two on my list.
The second is to go work on something that you have been putting off. In my case, it is an eBook that I have been wanting to finish. I wanted to write about how a Pinay mom like me stumbled into the online world of freelancing. I have this dream of sharing with the world how I juggle taking care of my husband and son while keeping an 8-10 hour online job.
While this seems like a good time to start on it, I didn’t. Which brings us to the option that I followed.
The third option that I acted on was to look for a job. Vacation leaves are a benefit in office jobs. That does not happen online. Unless you have a really generous employer who will pay you even when you go on leave – which is like a needle in a haystack.
So that is what I did. I looked for online employers – which, fortunately, I was able to find immediately. Though it’s a bit of an irony – I procrastinated to start on my eBook, only to end up landing an eBook writing job.
MY REALIZATION
While I got good employers to replace my full-time job, I came to a big realization. Having a backup plan is important in case you are faced with this particular scenario. This is an important piece of advice as the Philippine Statistics Office shared that 7% or almost 2.8 million Filipinos were unemployed in 2012.
One thing is for certain though, online unemployment makes you realize just how much of a test of faith this working arrangement really is. The lack of online job security is a real challenge that freelancers have to face and deal with day in and day out. So let me share more about what I have been going through the past week. Part two will be all about my tips about online unemployment. Stay tuned for that!