Paid Work

Struggling in this space again.

I just came back from a meeting with a client, a pro bono client. During the last year I have had the opportunity to work on a couple of very interesting projects: one more of an organization change and development piece, and the other a strategic planning process, both for free.

Most of the time I am fine with that. The organizations are worthy, the people good to work with, and the work interesting to me. Some of the time I'm not so fine with it. It's a continuation of that conversation after dinner with my friend a couple of weeks back. It's about whether you have to be paid something to feel that you are of value.

It's beginning to feel like you do, or maybe it's feeling this moment like I do. Funny. What that value is is all over the place. If I think of a number that would represent a reasonable consulting per diem for me now--maybe even one a little on the low side--then one gig I am getting paid for is a little less than 2/3rds of that, another is around 1/7th of it, while the organization I am working with on the pro bono I did today is valuing my time at about half of my "low" reasonable rate. Confusing? When you factor in that full time work at my best recent rate of pay would have been 1/3rd of my "low" reasonable rate, yeah.

I think this is called reductio ad absurdum. Take the argument to its ridiculous extreme.

So this is a stupid exercise? Right? Then why does the question of my worthwhileness seem to loom so large for me right now? Because someone is not seeing me as worthwhile enough to pay me? That's a helluva comment on the organizations I have been working with for nothing.

Crap! If I'm not careful I could be like one of those birds that flies in ever decreasing circles until it finally flies right up its own...

Nevermind. Let's just leave that image hanging there for the nonce.