2024 was meant to be the year I finally touched the stars. Having held down a job role since 2020 and now fully ripe for promotion on the job, I marched into the year in a bullish mode. I planned important financial objectives towards the latter part of the year in anticipation of a considerable pay rise. I was finally going to get important things going. "2024 definitely is the year," I thought.
On Monday, April 1, 2024, I was in a joyous mood. I took stock of the happenings in the first quarter of the year and was quite satisfied. Though I was yet to get the promotion I obviously deserved, every important growth metric I considered pointed in the northwards direction. I could smell the impending change. Nothing was going to stop it.
Now, my job back then was as a freelance reviewer for an outsourcing company on the other side of the world. In about three and half years with them, we've only made contact twice: when they sent my initial login details and when I had issues with my payment one time. Easter Monday, 2024 was the third time we communicated.
To cut the story short, I woke up at about 11:45 pm that day to resume work only to be told my account had been deactivated. I contacted Support to demand explanations, all I got was a generic message from the interactive system highlighting possible reasons that lead to account deactivation. In a split second, my whole world came crashing. It was unbelievable.
Few weeks after that fateful day, I already burnt through my savings. And with kids about to resume school, my problems compounded. I needed to start making money again, and that was what led to the hardest decision I've had to make this year.
In a job market that was already supersaturated, getting a decent job with reasonable pay has never been tougher. The few jobs that were readily available offered little. That was when I hit a crossroads and had to make a choice. I either remain idle, waiting for a decent opportunity and watch my family go hungry or accept a lower paying job and rebuild.
On the 22nd of April, I made the very hard decision to accept a job offer that pays about a quarter of what I used to earn before, while I need to work twice as much as I was used to. I felt bad about it. In fact, I pitied myself at some point. However, a bird in hand can be better than two in the bush.
The new gig did plug some holes, but it was never going to be sufficient. We adjusted and improved while I have also gotten myself back into the world of freelancing, working it with the new job.
Probably the biggest mistake I made was relying completely on a freelancing gig without looking for a second reliable alternative. Now, I have two and I'm developing more streams. It's not all doom and gloom, anyway. Something good came out of it.
