You may be wondering what an atypical job is. For the sake of this article, I define an atypical job as anything outside of the traditional 9 to 5 or hourly-based positions. More specifically, my focus is on roles where there is not a guaranteed income.
Some examples of this include freelance work, virtual assistants, online coaches, and social networking. As the remote workforce continues to grow, it is important to discuss this pain point that many of us have faced in the gig economy.
I will give you a little inside view into my personal experience with feeling a lack of support. Then I can walk you through the steps I took, and give you tips to get support in an atypical job.
Feeling unsupported
To give you a little background, I have held atypical positions for the last 5 years. I have been a 1099 employee, a freelancer, and am in a social networking business. A negative of this is that payment is not guaranteed. You have to make sales. You have to find freelance work. And you have to build relationships, all of which take work!
The benefit of all of these positions is that they give me flexibility in my schedule, and I am able to work from home. However, in setting my own hours, I was often working at odd hours at first. If my husband and I did not have plans, I would sneak away for an hour or two to work at night or on weekends.
As this continued, I noticed eye rolls when I mentioned going to get work done. If I had an event scheduled, I could sense his frustration. I blew it off for a bit, but as it continued I started to feel resentment and frustration too. Here I was working to bring income to our family, and felt completely unsupported or appreciated!
Playing the long game
We sat down and had a big heart-to-heart. Through that conversation, I realized there were two factors that my dear husband did not quite understand—time and money.
My husband has always worked from 9 to 5, or rather 7:30 to 4:30 in his case. Coming from a traditional work schedule, working nights and weekends was foreign to him. He felt as if I was choosing work over spending time with him, not fully understanding that I was working at peak hours when my clients were available.
When it came to the money aspect, my husband did not understand working without getting paid. He has always worked hourly or salaried positions with set pay. In his head, when you went to work, you would get paid for it. Based on his personal background and experience, he could not comprehend sitting down to work for free. As many of us know, that is not always the case, especially when it comes to sales positions, be it real estate or having an online jewelry boutique. Work is put in to build relationships. Time is spent networking, gaining customers, and getting exposure (whether it is online or in person) before the paychecks come in!
His frustrations were valid in some ways. He had no insight into the type of work I was doing. I had to explain to him my side of things, the process of building a business, and why I was doing what I was doing.
Tips to Get Support in an Atypical Job
As I was venting to one of my mentors one day about the situation, she asked if we had sat down and talked about it all. Of course, we had! To help, she shared a few tips she learned along the way too that helped her gain support and respect from her loved one. This list is a compilation of things both of us found helpful in our paths.
- Communication – I will start with an oldie but a goodie! Communicate, communicate, communicate. In my experience, I had to get to the bottom of what was really bothering my husband about my type of work. That came out through honest and open communication, and asking questions.
- Set Office Hours – Part of what we discovered in sitting down together and talking, was that the unpredictability of my hours was frustrating us both. This tip came from my mentor—set up consistent office hours and availability. In my role, this involved scheduling events too. By setting up a few consistent nights I was available for events, we also knew which dates were available for us to do things as a couple or family. This applies if you have children too. If they know it is mommy’s office hours, maybe, just maybe, there will be fewer interruptions from them. Having consistency in place can help you all manage expectations of each other!
- Use scheduling tools – As a social networker, I was hopping online a lot at night and on weekends. After learning this bugged my husband, I searched for more options to work during traditional work hours while still being present online when I wanted to be. And I discovered there are a lot of great tools out there! Utilizing these tools allows me to schedule things ahead of time and be present when the whole family is home. My favorites to use for scheduling social media posts or pre-recording live presentations without being live (yes that is a thing) are Cinchshare and Streamyard. The great thing about Streamyard is that you can stream in multiple places at once too!
- Create common goals – This tip seems super simple, but I realized my husband and I had not sat down to discuss WHY I was doing what I was doing. What were our goals, both financially and for our desired lifestyle? By sitting down and discussing these together, he became a part of the plan! He got a say in what our goals were and we could discuss the time required to reach them.
- Share progress – Whether it is with your partner or your children, get them involved. How much money did you make this week? How close are you to your goal? Print out a tracker and have your kids help you fill it in. (Create your own or check out Carrie’s Goal Tracker!) I found that sharing my progress as I worked towards these shared goals was extremely helpful! Previously my husband had seen me putting time in but never heard about the results. By seeing progress, even if it was one foot at a time ahead, he had better insight into the process. Plus, by sharing progress they are more apt to encourage you to hit that goal!
- Celebrate achievements together – Add to the fun by celebrating achievements together as a family! Did you hit your monthly sales goal? Celebrate with a special family dinner or movie night. Did you earn that incentive? Gift it to your little helper. You can even set a family reward in place when you hit a big milestone. Do something that fits your family, and make it fun!
Which of these tips resonates with you the most? We all have different lifestyles, goals, and family dynamics. Your husband or partner may be super supportive, but you may feel a lack of support from other loved ones. Hopefully these tips will help you come together to set common goals and get the support you need to achieve them!