Why I List Myself as Self-Employed on Social Media

I guess I’m a typical millennial. Or Gen X’er. Or Xennial. Wherever they’re going to keep juggling my odd generation to, anyway. The longest job I’ve ever held was for 20 months. At 38, almost 39 now, I’ve had over 20 jobs. Pizza cook, bookseller, sandwich artist, retail service, floral manager, jewelry counter gal, and so on. Very social jobs that, for some reason, I was able to do, at least temporarily.

Because the list keeps growing, there’s really never a point in changing my social media accounts to fully reflect my employment wanderlust. I’ve been fired, I’ve quit both immediately and put in notices. Some of them I wouldn’t use as references simply because they cycle out the managers who knew me just as often as I make the rounds myself.

For all intents and purposes, my pride simply comes from completing hobby and design work and possibly selling them, sometimes just giving them as gifts. I’m not technically registered as self-employed and I certainly don’t make enough to call any of them careers. I work small part-time jobs mostly, enough to buy what I need and even save for things I just want. While it’s not technically self-employment in any traditional sense, my real livelihood in working comes from these much less lucrative pursuits.

I crochet and make t-shirts and customize dolls and design many things, all of them bringing me a true sense of productivity and pride. My ‘day jobs’ always pay for bills and things, but the fulfillment is very different from when I’m being challenged to really explore my talents and skills.

Of course, it doesn’t take away from the fact that ANY job I do is one I take pride in. I loved working as both a server and in carry out at Sports Page. In fact, I can say that being a florist and working with animals and animal parents at Petco were favorites of mine too, simply for the work. The management at Kroger and Petco, however, were largely the reason I refused to stick around.

Long story short, Kroger promised a promotion then changed the terms and harassed me when I couldn’t comply and Petco... fucking Tori, the warrior vegan, stiffed me out of vacation pay when I had to miss one day of work because of a flash snowstorm. Never mind that I covered every shift I was called in to do when I wasn’t scheduled... despite that, the work itself was satisfying and I would’ve stayed for that alone, but...

Yeah, I’m the typical millennial, I guess. Can’t keep a job. Absolutely won’t stick around when I’m being treated poorly by management, especially when the pay is mediocre or unreliable. So, for all intents and purposes, I just call myself self-employed. I make my way through life by employing myself in situations that don’t defeat my goals and potential for moments of happiness.

I don’t expect to be perfectly happy. However, I will employ myself according to what I hope to accomplish. Seniority in a job has never been worth the abuse to my soul and aspirations.

I do pretty damn well for myself, and I’m ever grateful to the people who make my lifestyle possible. It’s worthwhile to choose a job or career title that reflects my productivity and pride rather than change it up to reflect where I pay the most taxes.