Beat the Clock: Part Two

One day I expect to look back on this past Tuesday night as one of my life's bigger moments. I'd worked two jobs for years while battling for time as a writer. And I'd finally given notice at my second job. Tuesday was to have been my last night.

But I wasn't making the move in a decisive enough spirit. I was worrying about the lost income.  Now, I didn't want to work that last night. My main job's a night position: 7 nights on, 7 days off. And I'd have lost my full first day off, sleeping for four or five hours after a ten hour night sift, then working six hours at job #2. Plus, my part-time boss had been treating me worse by the week.. But hang on, the good part's at hand. Here it is:

I sat down with a pencil and paper, then examined the finances with a cold eye:  I figured out what I was actually making on the part-time job if I factored in cab fare from there to job #1. Then I began to strategize: How could I make more money by working just the one job? E.G.: Scrap the cab fare: $48/month. Eliminate the first morning coffee at Starbucks. Switch from $2.00 single servings of oatmeal to a box containing eight servings at $.40 apiece. Switch from 20-oz bottled waters at $1.00-$1.25 apiece to 24-bottle cases, on sale: approx.  $.10 a bottle. 

I also asked for, and received, an extra hour a day at the main job.

You get the idea. Without suffering in any way financially, I could scrap the part-time job I hated and by following my game plan, I could make about $300 more a month. I could continue to work for about 3 hours a day on my work nights and as many hours as I please on my off days. I could put on more serious speed in building an online body of work.

Back to Tuesday night: I called out and said, "That's it. I can't come back, I'm busy."  And I wrote with, at long last, a true warrior's heart. I'd escaped a dependent position. I'd flipped the bird at bad treatment. And I'd taken better ownership of my time and money.