Endings

Inspired by Rachel, who was in turn inspired by Chris I’m going to try and write some shorter posts that aren’t well-constructed 3,000 word essays.

You’ve got a brain. Lemme hear that thing go. Write some words at a URL.

Chris Coyier

Today I tweeted this:

https://twitter.com/magicroundabout/status/1541483647005589505

I posed it as a question. But it wasn’t really. It was a comment on how hard freelancing can be (for some types of work) hard to get closed down.

I strived for a while to get my business into a place where I could more easily wind it down if I got a job (which I now have). But the nature of my work is that I often helped small organisations work with technology that they really didn’t understand.

Some of that technology is now changing (I’m looking at you Google Workspace!) and I find myself feeling heavily obliged to helping people through the transition. I was the one who set them up and I’m really the only admin left on most of the accounts.

So yes, some freelancers can just complete a job and wrap it all up and be done. But I seem to have dug myself a bit of a hole.

If I was starting again, I wouldn’t offer hosting, and any ongoing services that my clients depend upon would be well and truly owned by them so that they could more easily be handed over.

And lo, another of my values starting with the letter ‘C’ is evident (they all start with ‘C’!): Conscientious!

Related: