So a new year dawns. It’s been a funny year in many ways. 2015 was probably the year we finally laid the ghost of France to rest. In the five years since the collapse, work has steadily increased. In 2015, it got to the point where I had more work than I could cope with. We are operating in the black all of the time – given where we were five years back, this alone, is an achievement.
I operate in a niche market, which is both good and bad. Five years ago, the industry was suffering from the crash and there was no work. Now, a small group of people operating in the market are in demand. Worryingly, there are no new faces. The regime we go through to qualify tends to put off new people. So we are an ageing population. This will have to change eventually. Meanwhile, I am regularly approached by prospective clients. Sometimes they are reliable, sometimes, they are like the client that booked two weeks a month right through 2015, then decided halfway through that they had over anticipated the level of work and cancelled at short notice. Not a huge problem for me as other clients stepped in and absorbed the slack within days. What was less good, was their refusal to pay the cancellation charges they had agreed to when they took me on.
Every so often, people try to recruit me into permanent full-time work. This I avoid as I no longer want to work exclusively for one organisation. And, besides, the only boss who will put up with me is me. And when they offer me a wonderful opportunity to work in Shoddy Absurdia or the UAE, then it’s a definite no. Nothing would persuade me to live and work in an Islamic theocracy. Ever. Under any circumstances whatsoever.
As we enter 2016, I have to insist that I will not work more than five days in any week. The diary has settled down now to around five or six weeks ahead from three months back in the summer as I am avoiding booking so far ahead where I can. While it was good on the one hand, it meant my motorcycle training clients were getting squeezed out, so a shorter booking time will, hopefully, give me more time for this rather than most exclusively rail.
We will see…
I also took the same route as you. Totally unsuited to being an employee and stifled so that I have to perform to their standards which were usually lower than my own.
This enabled me to retire completely at the age of 52. I have never regretted that decision but I worked bloody hard in order to achieve it!