My Window To The World…

Whether you already are self-employed, about to open your own business, organizing an event with friends, or working freelance: a written job description is a helpful tool.

I have been self-employed for five years now, running one main business and a few other things I am hoping to build on in the future. I only took the time to write my job descriptions (a separate one for each business) last year. I feel it has helped me focus.

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine asked me to recode her website, change the product photographs, and update the text (that she would provide me with). I explained to her that I wanted to do all the tasks in one go, since that would be the most productive way for this project. The instructions from both sides could not have been clearer, so we agreed on a price. Shortly after she found out that she would be featured in a magazine, so she wanted some new pictures up immediately and the text on the index page updated, later some more photographs from her new collection added as soon as it was available. And I still had not received the text updates. I explained to her that the price she was paying was already a bargain, and that I would not do any extra work at no additional cost. Job description was in place, but had not been written down. Her interpretation of things was different to mine. Kind of goes back to my post re “Perceptions”.

Two acquaintances and I organized a few events this year, but they were not interested in sitting down and writing their own job descriptions. I wanted to be involved in those events, even though I did know then that resigning from our collective would be the smart thing to do. Needless to say, all people involved ended up disagreeing on who was in charge of what, who was entitled to which percentage of the profits, etc. (I might go into this matter in another post some time.) You live and learn.

Now working on other events with a new collective. Job descriptions are in place, plus other details of course, so there can be no argument since it is all available in black on white. And not written in the beautiful language (not) of legalese.

© Patrice Schneider. No reproduction without prior written consent.

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