Few days ago one of my favourite Romanian bloggers decided to quit his job and pursue professional blogging. Full time job. He is already getting a nice revenue from this projects and it was just a smart move (even if a tad courageous as he also mentioned). His only concern was that he might think again to get a “real job” since most of his friends and relatives are shocked to see his new career, even if he does make money.

GET A REAL JOB!

No, really.

What’s a real job anyway? I kinda heard this too for the last 10 years. I finished highschool and instead of starting to work in the class as a kindergarted teacher, I decided the pay is too small and this is not what I want to do with my life. So I got a radio DJ job. Yeah, a “real” job indeed.

While my friends would get up at 7 in the morning to start the work at 8 and come back at 4 (our “nine to five is an hour earlier), I was getting up at 9, started the show at 10 and got back at 2. 4 hour work-day, triple the salary. Wasn’t this a real job? Why? Because I didn’t work for 8 hours? I didn’t work in shifts? In a factory?

Most of the time I would feel like I don’t have a real job since it’s indeed special. I can’t say I work a lot, especially now, since I have done this for many years. I am able to start talking about anything in seconds and get my “cool” no matter what happens on air. I am doing my “mixing” too, so I have my show in my hands so to say.

And still, even if it’s relaxing and I am pretty fast in my work, it’s a job. It requires something the people who tell me to get a real job don’t have: a good voice, excellent English pronounciation, self-esteem, humour, music knowledge etc. Whenever some of my friends would make fun of me, I’d also invite them to do my job. If it’s that simple why don’t they do it? Ah, they can’t .. Just as I thought. The radio DJ business is not for anyone.

And now, we get back to us, “weirdos” who sleep late at night and can’t wake up in the morning if their life depended on this. Yes, we wake up at 12, dizzy and oblivious of anything happening to us, we think in hex, pixels, divs and keywords, we spend hours typing, searching, designing. We earn a decent living and we do enojoy it. And of course, for most “normal” people, we are not having a “real” job.

Some years ago I was a bit ashamed too. For being a “strange” person, for not being able to have a normal life and a job like all my friends and family members. And still, after some thinking, I realized my job is real and there is nothing we should be ashamed of. Because we are specialists and we work a lot each day. Here are some of the things that make my web development job a real one in my eyes:

• 9 to 5? Sometimes I have 9 to 12 (midnight). Even if I don’t go to a regular job 8 hours a day, my working day sometimes is more than 16 hours. Any developer knows that when a deadline approaches, we lose sleep so that we solve it all. And when we should be relaxed, we have so many projects that would require us to have a 25 hours day and work 48 hours of it. Just because I don’t go to a regular office for hours, doesn’t mean I sleep my life.
• salary .. in the end that’s what makes a job. We all earn money. Advertising revenue, hosting, web design and programming, content creation etc. Even if this doesn’t sound like “real money”, it’s a pay for a good service. This money is real and we can live off our firms/projects. In my case I have the other “unreal” job (radio DJ) and believe me the salary is very real there too
• we don’t play on our computers, even if the “regular” people think this. The fact we seem to get lost in god knows what article for hours or caress that mouse as if it was the love of our life doesn’t make this less real. No, we don’t build houses, we don’t cure cancer, we don’t even clean the halls. We use our hands and brains to solve problems, to keep clients happy, to provide advertising ideas and solutions. The fact our services are different, doesn’t make them a joke. Our checks and bank accounts prove that at least our clients don’t think it’s a game.
• no, not anyone can do this. In many times, when I got some looks for being successful in an area others just couldn’t survive and getting judged for “having it so easy”, I’d just reply: OK, ya’ think you can do this? What’s stopping you? You think my radio DJ job is a joke and I am getting paid for nothing? Cool, come and do my show. Open the microphone and SAY ONE DECENT SENTENCE without choking with emotion, without being schocked you are on air. Sure you’re almost wetting your pants. I’ve done this for MONTHS till I was able for the first time to just not think about an entire city listening to me and laughing when I say a stupid thing. Because I do make mistakes and all my audience knows it and laughs about it. Does this seem easy? No, it’s not. I have nightmares about my radio job, even if in 10 years no one made a huge fuss of any of my mistakes.

  I’ve also had a coleague tell me “how easy it’s for you. You get a wage value for a site, you’re so lucky.” What does stop him? Doesn’t he also have a brain? Doesn’t he also have fingers and eyes? Why is he struggling to make the ends meet each month when he could earn so much? Ah, he can’t do my “job”. He can’t learn HTML, Photoshop is just a word to him, even after 20 hours of explanations I’d be forced to let him go without him being able to understand that a code in HTML makes the page look like this and act like this etc.

Everytime someone invites you to get a real job, just let them know what you are doing here online is a JOB. And a good one. You have to study all the time, as if you were a doctor. Sure, you’re not saving lives, but the trends change so fast, you can never be too sure you haven’t missed the “train”. You spend tens of hours in a week looking at code, searching for the best keyword, trying to make that green-blue skin look good for your client’s site, creating yet another interesting article.

The blogger I mentioned has quite a talent when it comes to writing. He’s already secured an audience for his blog and the site grows nicely. He’s got talent, he’s hard working, he lost hundreds of hours refining that blog, changing skins, placing the ads for the best CTR. He does have a very real job and seems pretty good with what he does.

I stopped caring about my neighbours opinion for a long time or any other people who think I am a “loser”. I go to the radio at 4 (when others get back) and stay there till 8 since I have an evening show. I work half a km far from home. Then I get back and work on my sites. The mornings I spend sleeping or meeting with my clients. I have a “pregnant lady schedule” as my BF likes to joke. I do earn as much as he does and this is done withouth spending 14 hours as a civil engineer, building blocks in the cold snow or hot summer days. I stay indoors, I take my laptop with me and work, I can taka a break whenever I want, I can shop and then lose the night finishing a project. If we do the sums I also have 10-14 hours of work daily, even if this doesn’t “show”.

Instead of being “ashamed” we don’t fit in any social pattern, I’d say we should be proud. Proud that we can earn a decent living with a relaxed schedule, proud we are so smart to understand all this web related “mambo-jambo”, that we are successful in our projects, we have pleased clients, people who read our articles and enjoy them, advertising systems paying us for links and banners. It’s not a normal job, but it is REAL. At least that’s how I feel it.