(Based on a few cathartic thoughts presented to the Leeds AGM)
Every occupation has its stress. In our field it can be, “Where is the next job coming from?”, “When is the next job coming?”, “Can I put food on the table?”, “Can I keep the roof over our heads?”. Or it could be, “However can I cope with the volume of work?”. Slaving for 100 hours a week is possible in short bursts, but not week after week, month after month. It cannot be done. It does not allow for contingencies, for family crises, for sickness, for life, and it surely does not allow for holidays. I can remember saying often that I am so busy I have not got time to be ill. Well, there is not always a choice.
As freelance operators we work on our own. Some of us also live on our own. We do not have the colleague at the next desk who shares our problems, the colleague at the next desk to whom we can moan, the colleague at the next desk who will say to us, “My God you look terrible, go home to bed”. What we do have are friends, neighbours and family who know we are at home. Who know we are available to fetch and carry, to collect children from school, to care for elderly relatives or to babysit. Who know that we have the technology and we have the skills to produce the minutes for meetings of every voluntary organisation in the locality.
The Society of Indexers is concerned with your professional development. A more cynical person may say it is also interested in your subscription. It is usual only to collect membership fees from the living.
I believe that the most important role of the Society is as a collection of your colleagues. They are not at the desk next door, they are on your desk, at the end of a telephone or on your email. Talk to these colleagues. They know how you work and the pressures your are under. Talk to them. Yours is not the only black hole, the only brick wall. Others have been there, a surprising number have been there. Talk to them, because stress kills. Talk to them, but not to me. I shall be working 100 hours a week.
Copyright © 1997 Moira Greenhalgh
www.m-greenhalgh.co.uk