Last Thursday was the best workday I had in three months

I landed two small editing gigs out of nowhere, both from old clients I hadn’t heard from since January. Made $450 in six hours, which usually takes me a week in the slow season. Anyone else get random good days when everything feels dead?

4 comments

4 Comments

abby_fisher6d ago

Wait, are you sure that was actually a good thing? If you made $450 in six hours, doesn't that just mean you were way overworked and probably underpaid for the last three months?

rowanr886d ago

$450 for six hours works out to $75 an hour, which sounds great on paper... but only if you compare it to what you were making before. If your normal gig pays $20 an hour, then yeah, six hours of OT or a special project can feel like a win. But if that $450 is really just covering for months where you were working 50-hour weeks at a lower base rate, then it’s like getting paid back for being taken advantage of. I knew a guy who bragged about a $600 Saturday shift, but when I ran the numbers, his yearly pay was still below market because his regular hours were so cheap. It’s easy to get tricked by the big number.

nathan_kim6d agoMost Upvoted

Abby's right actually that $450 doesn't cancel out three months of being underpaid.

hernandez.gavin6d ago

Figured I'd jump in here since I'm usually the guy bragging about a good day then realizing later it was just a consolation prize from the universe. @nathan_kim you're probably right that I'm just fooling myself. Makes me think of that time I celebrated finding a twenty dollar bill in the parking lot, then remembered I lost a hundred dollar bill the week before. It's like my brain has a selective memory for wins and conveniently forgets the losses.