Now that everyone has a project-to-project freelance career, everyone is a hustler.
No one I know has a job anymore. They've got Gigs.
Gigs: a bunch of free-floating projects, consultancies, and part-time bits and pieces they try and stitch together to make what they refer to wryly as “the Nut”—the sum that allows them to hang on to the apartment, the health-care policy, the baby sitter, and the school fees.
Gigs: They're all that’s standing between them and…what? The outer-outer boroughs? Eating what’s left of the 401(k)? Moving to Alaska? Out-and-out destitution?
To people I know in the bottom income brackets, living paycheck to paycheck, the Gig Economy has been old news for years. What’s new is the way it’s hit the demographic that used to assume that a college degree from an elite school was the passport to job security.
“With so many part-time people on—and not on—the job, corporate America has started to feel like it’s on a permanent maternity leave.”
My own anecdotal evidence among friends is now borne out by an exclusive poll conducted last week by The Daily Beast and Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates. Five hundred employed U.S. citizens aged 18 and over were interviewed via the Internet on January 8 and 9.
A full one-third of our respondents are now working either freelance or in two jobs. And nearly one in two of them report taking on additional positions during the last six months.
Just as startling, these new alternative workers are not overwhelmingly low-income. They’re college-educated Americans who earn more than $75,000 a year.
Welcome to the age of Gigonomics.
The poll helps explain why it now takes a good ten minutes to get the answer to the once-breezy question, “So, what are you up to these days?”
As often as not, a dolorous monologue pours out. It usually goes something like this:
“Well, I’m doing two days a week, at, uh, this airline magazine, which is not bad because it allows me to still do my three days as, like, a consultant with my old company, where now you get, um, paid by the hour. Which works well, because you can even do that when you’re traveling, which I have to do quite a bit of now because I’m also doing this speaker program for a tech company on the West Coast—well, was doing, because they’re cutting back on their off-site stuff because… ” At which point you tune out. It’s all too familiar. The white noise of the free fall.
For a while last year, the downsized people I know went around pretending they enjoyed the “freedom” and “variety” of doing “a whole lot of interesting things.” Twelve months later, nobody bothers with that cover story anymore. Everyone knows what it actually feels like, this penny-ante slog of working three times as hard for the same amount of money (if you’re lucky) or a lot less (if you’re not). Minus benefits, of course.
Tracy Quan's latest novel is Diary of a Jetsetting Call Girl, set in Provence and praised in The Nation as a "deft account of occupational rigors and anxieties before the crash." Tracy's debut, Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl, and the sequel, Diary of a Married Call Girl, are international bestsellers. A regular columnist for The Guardian, she has written for many publications including Cosmopolitan, The Financial Times, and The New York Times.
Joe Mathews is a journalist, an Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation, and a contributing writer at the Los Angeles Times. He previously served as Justice Department reporter for the Wall Street Journal and as a city desk reporter at the Baltimore Sun. He is the author of The People’s Machine: Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Rise of Blockbuster Democracy.
Gerald Posner is the award-winning author of 10 investigative nonfiction bestsellers, ranging from political assassinations, to Nazi war criminals, to 9/11, to terrorism (www.posner.com). Posner lives in Miami Beach with his wife, the author Trisha Posner.
The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web’s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
Renata Espinosa is the New York editor of Fashion Wire Daily. She is also the co-founder of impressionistic fashion and art blog TheNuNu and a sometimes backup dancer for "The Anna Copa Cabanna Show."
Amanda Fortini has written for The New Yorker, Slate, Elle, and New York, among other publications. She lives in Los Angeles.
Tina Brown is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown.
Tina Brown is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown.
Tina Brown is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown.
Tina Brown is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown.
Tina Brown is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown.
Tina Brown is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown.
by Tina Brown
Tina Brown is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown.
What an incredibly negative assessment. Leave aside the fact that a well-ordered freelance career can be both intellectually and financially more stimulating than a staff job. The fact that one has more free time, fewer pointless meetings, fewer annoying phone-calls, zero internal politics (diplomacy is far more interesting than in-fighting) and more options are surely reasons enough to embrace "gigocracy". Admittedly, it's far easier to enjoy freelancing when there's decent state provision for health, education and retirement - but even in the US, a well-organised freelancer ought to be able to make do, no? And if, in the process, we get closer to family and community - instead of focusing on a commute to some quasi-society of scheming back-stabbers - so much the better.
Tina,
Your columns are always a welcome addition to my mornings.
Thanks
Great article. As a person just trying to finish a degree, I can say that the low paying jobs are no better. Getting a job at McDonald's full time is hard these days. I asked my father, a staunch republican who was responsible for this miserable economy.
He replied it was the democrats, for encouraging people who couldn't afford homes to take out mortgages. I just want you readers to know the republicans won't let go, won't take blame, and won't stop trying to ruin the country.
Er, well there's something in what Pop says, xbainx. Even Barney Frank is telling people he tried in vain to warn about this folly. If you can't lie brazenly, what's the point of being a politician? As for Tina's point, it is the remorseless nature of unbridled capitalism to cut costs. See Marx on this subject. If these under-employed Ivy Leaguers had been smart, they would have gone into government in the first place. Have you seen their pensions? They're living like kings!
Dear Tina:
What you've written is indeed an accurate reflection of the plight of many at this time.
However, what's needed, and needed actually on a global scale, is I believe less dwelling on the severity of the current economic catastrophe and more focus on how each individual can contribute to a significant recovery. At the height of boom periods, I have seen billionaires behaving agitated and stressed to within an inch of their lives.
The route out of quicksand is not negotiated by flailing and hysteria. Zola's novel L'Argent portrays the Paris stock exchange of his day; the essence of things, the ups, the downs, the irrationality, the life force, the joy the sorrow - c'est tout a fait la meme chose actuellement.
I am loaded up with projects, but they are all of great merit. The February issue of Opera News will contain my profile of Metropolitan Opera Conductor Marco Armiliato. For the next issue of the New York Blade, I'll have an op-ed piece on domestic violence. I did an article on M/Y Romance for Caviar Affair magazine.
Negativity begets negativity; a huge portion of what's going on is psychological, and not a physically measurable thing, like the amount of snow that fell on Saturday night. The whole society needs cognitive therapy, to stop thinking itself further into a downward spiral.
I was 8 years full-time with a major media outlet and have been 15 years freelance, basically with the same company. No politics, no dreadful meetings, no blanket control over my week. I give myself yearly raises which no one has ever balked at - I assume because I'm so cheap minus the health and retirement benefits. I've raised 4 children, attended all their games and school plays. I can't imagine ever again working for an unknown corporate exec swinging away at golf balls while i'm stuck in rush hour day after day after day. You can give it a negative spin, but the truth is: autonomy over your life - priceless.
Tina,
Welcome to the dark side of the Free Agent Nation that was trumpeted so loudly during the last bubble. All of this wouldn't be so bad if there were more more of an infrastructure to support it, such as affordable healthcare options for individuals in the U.S.
I have been working on a portfolio of gigs for several months now. It is indeed stimulating and, on most days, fun. However, I can't tell you what I'll make this year with any degree of certainty because so many of the projects are in flux because of the economy.
The most frightening part of your column -- because it is so true -- is, "The managers of all these disintegrating companies tend to be mesmerized by the notion that everyone can now be hired cheap-that everyone is slave labor." Too many business models are based on getting someone to do something for free or negligible compensation. Writers are expected to serve up words for free in order to build a lucrative speaking business. They are also expected to speak for free in order to sell books or attract eyeballs to their blogs. Round and round it goes.
And so we must all become tireless self-promoters in hopes of retaining some degree of pricing power through reputation.
I agree with Mondobeast. (1) There's a difference between professional freelancers and those who try to make money while looking for "a real job," apparently hanging their head and mumbling apologies for doing so, in Tina's world. (2) Companies often pay larger companies too much money for b.s. work when a professional freelancer or freelance team could do it better, faster. (3) Corporate managers probably often hire companies rather than freelancers because it pads their own resumes, strokes their own egos, provides deeper pockets to sue if something goes bad, and covers their own backsides with the boss to have ten people involved with something one or two focused, competent people could do. Not to mention the fawning and freebies an overstaffed and overpaid group can afford to spend on the person who brings them in. Not in all cases, of course, but I'd wager there are many times when what I'm saying here would be true. Why not analyze that bloat instead, and describe the positives of working with competent freelancers?
To compare freelancers to hustlers is condescending. To the degree we hustle during our day (far different from being a "hustler," with its shady connotations), since when is working hard for a living a bad thing? If more people had hustled in that way, on or off a steady payroll, maybe the economy would be in better shape today.
On maternity leave? I have no idea what you're talking about. Working freelance can be just as full-time as any other job. In fact freelancers often work longer hours, since paid employees may be less willing to work nights or weekends for the same paycheck. (In that way, it's like motherhood...but it's not like a maternity leave, stepping momentarily away from the workforce.)
To portray freelancers as a problem for some "frantically convened" meeting dodges the company's issues with managing people and planning ahead. Most fire-drill meetings don't need to be that way. It's a minor point, but the scenario is presented as if the inability to round up a bunch of people in a panic is a problem with freelancers. I'd suggest the problem is with the person who's frantic.
And I'd suggest while you're coining terms like Gigocracy and Gigwork, you come up with a name for the people you're really talking about-("GigWigs," people who think their better than the work situation they're currently in?) because it ain't professional freelancers you're talking about, here, Tina.
A spot-on reflection of what I see, every day.
It turns out that the illusory emotional benefits of having no single boss are just that. With even a bad boss there's a negotiation process that leaves you some shred of dignity. As a member of the Gig Economy -- no matter what your previous stature -- you are no different than a laborer in a Chinese factory making those designer shoes you used to be able to afford.
And try getting paid. You're stuck in the accounts payable queue, with generally no recognition that you need that check for The Nut.
A sure way to tell when someone is a member: their business address is a residential building, but instead of
Apt 4E they say Suite 4E. Yeah, like we don't get it.
This is the unintended consequence of all the blathering we heard in the 90s about the digital economy creating a wondrous new world where companies could operate without boring old hierarchies, and we'd all be empowered free agents, able to strike an amazing work-life balance while finding appreciative economic audiences for our talents.
A sidebar on this is the growth of FreeLancers Union --http://www.freelancersunion.org/index.html_
Handy hint for any Giglets and Giglettes reading this.
Your describing the transformation I went through with my old industry three recessions ago, in the early 90s.
I had just graduated from college into a field with a flood of applicants, few jobs, little pay, usually no benefits. We graduated from the very best schools, were top in our class. But the industry had changed rapidly and even very senior people were being displaced. My friends and co-workers were depressed, angry, and forged on as if working harder was going to save them by getting to the top of the heap, where hopefully it would be better. It wasn't, really.
I took stock, realized the college education was not enough and relearned a whole skill that took advantage of my knowledge but lifted me above the fray. Most of the others I knew from college never did that and as very talented people, struggle to this day.
I managed to completely reinvent myself and never forgot the lesson that it pays to acknowledge an unfair (it always feels that way) but inevitable change ahead of the pack and *move*.
Barbara Erlichman has been chronicaling these kinds of jolts to the American upper/middle-classes for quite a while. You might want to get her to write something for DB.
Scott,
You forgot to mention your recent commentary for a prestigious newsblog. I'm quite pleased with mine. BTW, when does the Daily Beast mail the checks out, so I can start watching the mail box for mine?
Banjo1,
Clearly you've never worked for the government, or seen the GS scale. Government employees do NOT live like kings or even close to it, and Ronald Reagan did away with the decent pension plan.
I really want to thank you for this piece. I am hoping that a lot of people start to understand what it's like to do freelance and piecework, understand what being an independent contractor (basically my status) is often like, that's it not the pleasant, lucrative gig that everyone thinks it is, and that working at home is not bliss (work is work).
I've worked as a legal transcriptionist for longer than I care to admit. The pay is fixed according to the agency that you "freelance" for, and they get the work according to being the low bidder on a government contract, in many cases. The page rate is paltry and your skills have to be top notch (over 100 wpm dead-accurate typing abilities, excellent grammar, spelling skills and a brain that hopefully works on all cylinders, excellent hearing and voice discernment).I've been over the years, depending on the work I've done, subject to government freezes during bad times via the trickle-down method, where suddenly the edict goes out that, hey, we don't really need all those transcripts of state assembly hearings or NLRB hearings or SEC hearings. It is paycheck to paycheck and less.
This was not my heart's desire in life and at this point, thanks to the economy, I feel there are no other choices but keep plugging away at what I'm doing. At this point, though, I have been doing more recession-proof work (I hope, and the agency I work is pretty sure of this) as in criminal and civil court cases. However, we have not seen a page-rate increase, once again, in eight years (and even eight years the legislature admitted they were just bringing barely up to speed) and so I feel no matter how hard I've worked there is no way to get ahead.
I see lowering wages all around, though, and feel this may be the only way we move ahead. If enough people get down to the level I, and others like me, are at, things will change.
And, yes, I am appalled at the numerous grammatical, spelling and other egregious mistakes that I read in newspapers, books and, yes, on blogs daily. It's painful, but even more painful that print media is satisfied with this status quo -- i.e., they also have no need for someone like me with what I used to be assured that, even lacking a college degree, skills like mine were invaluable and would always be in demand. No, they're not, not in this brave new world that is satisfied with mediocrity.
Wow--that article makes freelancing seem quite risky and undignified, which is the opposite of what I've experienced. My freelance work allows me to be very useful and productive to clients for the project they need, and then to be 'out of there' when it's over. They like what I do and the way I do it, so they treat me well. I'm not hanging my hat on a single job that is either there or gone, depending on my employers' whims. If need be, I can market to new clients to get more work or I can slack off a bit during the summer when my son's out of school. It's perfect for me, and I suspect, for a lot of other people. The idea that a full-time job offers more security in an illusion. Once you understand that, you're a lot more prepared to seize the day.
Tina,
Great column. It's always nice to know I'm not alone. I'm out there hustling many different jobs, both industry and non-industry to make ends meet.
Mike
xbainx, you can NOT absolve Democrats such as Barney Frank
for pressuring banks and regulators to give mortgages to people with no ability to pay them. Whether the Democrats get 40%, or 50%, or 60% of the blame - it is impossible to calculate - they are certainly profoundly guilty, along with the Bush administrations, the bankers, the mortgage brokers, and the stupid/greedy borrowers.
You have nailed it, Tina. I have been living this life for 30 years. That is why I am so resentful of the financial industry that has drained so much off of the economy.
tomfarr, there were no greedy borrowers, although perhaps stupid ones. Arithmetic is barely taught in schools, and percentages is barely understood. People just want a home and security. If you want to lay blame, lay it at the feet of the greedy bankers who bought a sold derivatives on home mortgages. Blame the Administration that did not fund oversight that is mandated by law and regulation. Blame the silly idea that Greenspan expounded that what was good for him and his people was good for the rest of us.
I'd like a steady gig writing for The Daily Beast. How do I go about that? I could start out with a spiffy art on the 'e con oh me,' by definition, a foursome of lobbyists and congressman trying to fig out a way to loosen me from my long gone take home pay.
Or a memoir about Alan Ginsburg - going to Cherry Valley with my story of Adman and Even in the Gar Den ov Edum and how Leslie Aaron Fiedler the literary priest and A.Ginsburg together decided they would do all in their powers to insure I was kept off every stage . . . follow that with funny stories about my friend, Gregory Corso . .
Or some funny 750 word stories about H. Marshall Mcluhan. He was my friend, too. He watched me write my Television Scripture, my spoke en poem for all man kind written down to perform on whirled wide television for all the world's peoples to 'sea' listen to and be a part of all at once.
ahhh the good old days cooking opium in a Saigon suburb for Viet kong regulars down from the north to celebrate the Tet. Those were the good old pre-McLuhan days - black pajamas, red bandanna, beautiful family heirloom ornamental opium pipe, laden with silver. Ought to be able to cough up 750 smokey words on cooking opium.
Or running for president in New Hampshire in 1988 meeting Bar Donna Bush Corleone on the campaign trail and the old switch making it clear she despised me -her husband four years later calling me a "jacklegs jumping up" and every body asking Bush the Elder, the next day, "Whose the jacklegs?"
Type in "jacklegs Jumping Up" in The New York Slimes archive and see what comes up. WHen people of the Bush's ilk despise you, and you call a company on the telephone to see about getting a gig ef be eye gets there first so you don't get hired.
How about 750 sharp words about J. Edgarina the fascist pervert of dirt - if knot the pervert of dirt himself then his descendants - they aren't tapping millions of telephones looking for 9/11 tear-it-up dudes - they are storing terabytes every day so when you apply for a govt. gig they can access your seek writ spoken comments to a trusted friend and based on that telephone conversation, based on when you applied for the gig, a conversation that took place 18 months ago, or years earlier . . you don't get the gig.
How about 750 on a fail safe way to sliminate bureaucracy? Visit youtube/poetprophet I'm in a sour mood today - caught the flu or something
I won't hold my breath waiting for The Daily Beast to offer me a gig I'll hold my breath scrubbing toilets in a hotel for a day's pay through a temp agency
In the country of Mens' souls there is a Ganges
(I didn't write that line, an unknown Korean war poet did. I'd like to write some words about him)
michaelslevinson.com
So true. I'm a recent grad of a highly rated liberal arts university. I am a runner at a law firm by day and freelance writer by night. Is the Daily Beast hiring?
Being a freelancer means you're in business for yourself. You are not precluded from establishing a regular clientelle, being on contract or on retainer to different firms.
So, a smart freelancer is no more just "gig to gig" than is any company that depends on customers with whom it has no contractual relationship to come back.
Lawyers and doctors often work "project to project". So do Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford, for that matter.
A freelancer who is talented and has the business acumen to charge sufficiently for his work is quite capable of having money in the bank and living far less paycheck to paycheck than someone with a "secure" job.
First off, I'm an independent contractor, not a freelance. Freelance implies "free," which I'm surely not. Also, you imply that the freedoms of the Independent Contractor life are illusory, when in fact they are so real that I wake up every morning with a shit-eating grin on my face. I've never had a job where I can pick the work I do, where I can determine the limits of my work day, and where I can pet my cat anytime I want. Lastly, I can learn and apply just about any skills in my field without someone trying to stop me with "not in your job description" nonsense. Oh want a glorious life, if only it lasts.
As many note, freelancers or as in the business world - independent contractors have always been a mainstay of employment but I think for the most interesting segment of the population. Professionals who work in this manner for a serious length of time are the best multitaskers, most adaptable and typically learn their skill better because they must modify the application for each new customer. Also they are the best barometers of the economy and would never make foolish mistakes like purchasing more of a mortgage and taxes than can be afforded.
I and my family earn our living the independent way and we tend to socialize with similars. It also affords flexibility for family issues, ample time for my community service and for lipping off on sites like this. Our organization is successful but we've found the economic environment to be not favorable since probably 2001 when the dot.bomb bubble burst - forcasting the future has been impossible and many assets and investments have not been valued truthfully -especially real estate. Question is how long will it take to unravel and for truth to be revealed.
Good news, I don't need to be paid for my comments. I'm just thankful for the forum.
One more thing; maybe I could afford maternity leave now but when we started, maternity leave was a weekend.
Sorry, this is just tone deaf, and I never thought I'd ever say that about Ms. Tina Brown. Her old haunts publishing and magazine publishing in particular weren't exactly the pillar of labor-friendly fairness now were they? Mondobeast, ChanRobt, you get it 100%...If you are feeling powerlesss, take control. Self employ and stop whining.
The new big time waster is not new. That meeting has been happening since people have tried to build web businesses. It may have stopped for a little while when companies were flush, but every company presents itself as the one with the brand, content, features, etc. that make it be the one that deserves to get paid. Welcome to the Web.
Mondobeast, the answer to your question "Admittedly, it's far easier to enjoy freelancing when there's decent state provision for health, education and retirement -but even in the US, a well-organised freelancer ought to be able to make do, no?"
is... No.
that's why Tina is writing this article.
It's just too expensive to buy health insurance, pay rent and other expenses on an income that may be there one week and not the next. the expenses are steady. the income is not. people don't pay freelancers on time. sometimes it takes several months to get paid.
I've been freelancing for 15 years now. I am surprised how much time I spent soliciting work. Sometimes far more than actually working. And I really dislike sales, which is what I was doing before I went freelance- and now I'm still selling, only I'm selling myself, all day every day. And strings of rejections are demoralizing, on top of the stress from not having enough money to cover the "nut," even when you live very cheaply. If I had been able to stay in one place, rather than moving several times over the last 15 years, i'd probably have a nice comfortable steady freelancing income. But illness and getting married uprooted me and I've started over 4 times. This year, because of the uprooting and the illness (mostly the illness), I'm forced into declaring bankruptcy.
I'm afraid if you haven't lived it for a while, you can't possibly understand how hard it is to make ends meet as a freelancer in a country with no public health insurance and no real hope of retirement (unless you have a corporate full time job). It's just crazy.
And to those defending freelancing as a job, if you're one of the fortunate freelancers with a steady clientele (such as a magazine column), that's a whole different ball of wax than someone who never wanted to be a freelancer being forced into it and having to grab each new piece of work from a new client.
Thank you.
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