You Can’t Handle the Freelance
About a year ago, deeply unsatisfied with my cushy ad agency job, I got an unsolicited email titled “Freelance” from a creative staffing agency I’d signed up with the year before:
Wanted to see if you’re still looking for work. We just got a 3 month freelance assignment in. It’s doing search optimization coordination and seems like a good fit. Fun agency, good pay.
Turned out the company was Razorfish and I’d have about a week to interview and put in my notice to my current employment. Leaving the full-time salaried world so hastily was nerve-wracking, but I saw it as my ticket out. I took it.
I’ve been doing freelance work ever since. Mostly on a W-2, but as an hourly contract employee, paid by small agencies rather than the bigger companies I was working for. I always had work, but having to go into an office every day where I’d never be promoted or get benefits was tiresome, and I wasn’t interested in hiring on.
All this changed last month. I’m now only on 1099s, a sole proprietor, and completely freaking out. I’m meeting with an accountant in a few hours.
Last night I went to a meetup group discussing whether incorporating is a good idea (answer: it is. S-Corp here I come). We all introduced ourselves, what we do, and why we were there. When I said I freelanced on a W-2, I was told that was an oxymoron. I tried to explain, but was shot down. “That’s fine, it’s in the past,” I said, trying to move the awkward spotlight off my apparently mis-categorized employment history.
A few other people spoke up at that point, and said they were in the same situation. The lawyer presenting insisted that W-2 is NOT freelance, even if you work for two hours a month, you are an employee. For tax purposes, he’s definitely right- I’m shocked and amazed at how different it is to be off the W-2. But for the purposes of how we classify what we do and how we work, isn’t “freelance” (or contractor) the appropriate term?
