End Game

I was working on one of my drawings this morning at a Starbucks I like to hang out in. While I was adding some color to my project, two women in business sat down at a table next to me.

One of them was talking about a problem she was having with a company who hired her as a contractor. People were only giving her part of the information she needed to do her job and acting too busy to answer her questions. She went on for it seemed like 10 minutes.

I turned to her and said, “I know what your problem is.” They both looked at me for a few seconds, then turned and kept talking. I was being ignored. It didn’t bother me. I had seen them in the coffee shop a few times and they really don’t know me. So I just minded my own business and kept drawing.

They looked at what I was doing from time to time, but it didn’t seem like they wanted to hear what I had to say so I acted like I couldn’t see them out of the corner of my eye watching me color in my drawing with pens.

If they would have bothered to ask me anything I would have told them I had been in business for myself a couple of times and also used to be a contractor for the military. When you’re self-employed and someone hires you for a job sometimes the people you work with are afraid you have more experience and/or education than them and the boss will give you their job.

It also seems like the people who hire you as a private contractor don’t know if you’re going to take what you learned working for them and use it to help their competition when you go on your next job.

Because nobody really trusts you, there’s really no retirement plan if you’re a private contractor, you need to have an end-game. The military like to call it an “exit strategy”.

It’s a rainy day here in Seattle. No one’s at the park playing chess so I just went to eat lunch at my son’s food truck. Hope people who read my blog actually get something out of it. When I play chess I win a few and lose a few. Not really sure if I’m good at the game, I just play.

Don’t know if I’m good at blogging either, I just write

Written by Mark Blevins

Thank You For Reading

About Me:

I was a Construction Worker and Commercial Fisherman. An injury on a fishing boat in Alaska forced me into early retirement. Now I’m a Writer and Blogger. Having to start over forced me to realize people are more than their job title.

Contact me at mark_blevins1@morethanatitle.net and follow me on Twitter  https://twitter.com/Bllevins