Given that I have a lull in my three week mad dash to meet grant deadlines, I thought I'd catch up with some blogging. Because I love nothing more than talking incessantly about myself.
Most of my job is foundation grant writing. Contrary to what some may believe, this is really a group process. Not that everyone is doing the work, but rarely can a proposal be submitted with out read-throughs, revisions and approvals. I don't mind this, as I think that an executive director should have the ultimate say in how i ask for $50,000 or $2 million. However lately, with impending deadlines I start to wonder where all the time went.
For the second time this week, I've done all of my work but my day is put on hold as I wait for th final input that preps the proposal for final submission. This inevitably happens after hours, when people are really feeling the push; people need a sense of urgency to make decisions.
But I start to think about what my time is really worth. As a freelancer, I've had to many times ask myself realistically, how much is my writing worth? Quoting rates, underselling and overselling is all in a day's work (as you can see from this spirited thread over at Freelance Writing Jobs). But since grant writing is my salaried job, I don't have the luxury of billing for hours spent waiting. And truly, in this world of flex-time, working until 10:00pm one night just means I have a blissful sleep-in or morning of errand-running in my future.
That's hardly the point. It's Friday night and I'm trying to make some after-work plans, trying to have a life that I can't seem to have during the working week. But I'm still waiting for that phone call. Lucky for me, I have the opportunity to work remotely on certain days, and as I write this I'm sitting in my favorite wi-fi equipped Irish pub sipping on a Stella. A little unprofessional, but not a bad life.
I'm sure I could work out what my hourly wage is, and how much it is in turn costing my organization to pay me to essentially sit here. Under normal circumstances, I'd be catching up on other work related tasks, it is just difficult to have to idea hanging over you that at anytime the phone will ring and I'll have to drop it all to go back to my proposal. There are few tasks that I could assign myself that allow for such flakiness. Blogging, obviously, lends itself nicely to this lifestyle. If only they new they were paying me to post this!
But I ask everyone, as people, what is our time really worth? How long should we have to wait?
Most of my job is foundation grant writing. Contrary to what some may believe, this is really a group process. Not that everyone is doing the work, but rarely can a proposal be submitted with out read-throughs, revisions and approvals. I don't mind this, as I think that an executive director should have the ultimate say in how i ask for $50,000 or $2 million. However lately, with impending deadlines I start to wonder where all the time went.
For the second time this week, I've done all of my work but my day is put on hold as I wait for th final input that preps the proposal for final submission. This inevitably happens after hours, when people are really feeling the push; people need a sense of urgency to make decisions.
But I start to think about what my time is really worth. As a freelancer, I've had to many times ask myself realistically, how much is my writing worth? Quoting rates, underselling and overselling is all in a day's work (as you can see from this spirited thread over at Freelance Writing Jobs). But since grant writing is my salaried job, I don't have the luxury of billing for hours spent waiting. And truly, in this world of flex-time, working until 10:00pm one night just means I have a blissful sleep-in or morning of errand-running in my future.
That's hardly the point. It's Friday night and I'm trying to make some after-work plans, trying to have a life that I can't seem to have during the working week. But I'm still waiting for that phone call. Lucky for me, I have the opportunity to work remotely on certain days, and as I write this I'm sitting in my favorite wi-fi equipped Irish pub sipping on a Stella. A little unprofessional, but not a bad life.
I'm sure I could work out what my hourly wage is, and how much it is in turn costing my organization to pay me to essentially sit here. Under normal circumstances, I'd be catching up on other work related tasks, it is just difficult to have to idea hanging over you that at anytime the phone will ring and I'll have to drop it all to go back to my proposal. There are few tasks that I could assign myself that allow for such flakiness. Blogging, obviously, lends itself nicely to this lifestyle. If only they new they were paying me to post this!
But I ask everyone, as people, what is our time really worth? How long should we have to wait?
2 comentarios:
I've always found that attempting to ascertain my time's worth based on pay is akin to judging my entire worth based on a life insurance policy... Both figures are ultimately meaningless, they're just the best I could wrangle or the offer that comes free of charge... What I decide to invest my time in outside of the job is obviously what my time is worth to me, be it reading or writing or playing music or laying on the couch watching a movie... What I decide to do for money always depends on what the job is and who I have to deal with and when I have to show up... Not a good way to get ahead in terms of industry or finances but I never really consider the money as a factor so long as it can cover my bases... For you, working in the non-profit sector (and not something as easy and emotionally detached as saving the trees, but something very personal and in your face as providing support to exploited women), I would imagine that you weigh what the job is at least as much as what it pays... Wouldn't you take a hit in the pocket to support something you believe is important over padding your wallet in some hack job for some useless fluf industry?
After a few years in the non-profit industry, I know that I'm not in it for the money. Not that I don't think about it. What makes me wonder is, if I'm waiting for a supervisor to make a decision, and she's at a dinner date or simply decided that something else is more important, they have essentially decided that my time is not as valuable than theirs. It is much harder to be motivated, even in a somewhat inspiring industry, when someone tells you that your time can be wasted. That said, I also get that at some point, as you move up, this changes.
Publicar un comentario