What no one tells you about getting a “real job.”

Image via Pixabay.

A little over a year ago, I took on a day job for the first time in seven years. When most people are off getting coffee with colleagues and planning how to avoid the weirdest person at their office Christmas party, I was editing transcripts and running livestream events for colleagues I would never ever meet in person.

Remote work only went mainstream in the last five years. It was pretty interesting to come up doing work that most people found weird or sketchy, only to find out that I had been “living the dream.”

I kept waiting to be judged or labeled a sellout for getting a day job. But thankfully, all my entrepreneur friends saw it as just a step I needed to take then and really supported me. What job I had didn’t define my personality or intellectual independence to them. It felt really nice.

But I can’t lie, the transition to freelancer to entrepreneur to working stiff was tough. I faced a lot of challenges that wouldn’t even register for someone who had a more conventional career path. Sometimes, it was hilarious how small my stressors seem compared to the grand picture of Work Stress. But hey, they’re mine.

You realize that jobs take up, like, a lot of time.