During that period I freelanced for agencies as well as acting as a “creative consultant” for several small budget clients who couldn’t afford proper ad agencies. I also teamed up with some friends writing TV shows, films that never got produced, as well as tried our luck as a small party organizer, which was a hit until two members of our group got married and they started doing their duties as one person but demanded payments for two. So the one-year venture as a party organizer came to a complete halt, after organizing one successful Vegas-themed year end party for the company that my mom works for. We parted ways for good. In fact we never spoke to the couple anymore after we, somewhat begrudgingly, split up our profits.
I came back working full time in 2007 almost by accident. I freelanced for my best friend at this agency I’m working now and we had such a blast working together so it was only natural that I agreed when she asked me to join her team full time. Last year the company underwent a restructuring and now she’s not my supervisor anymore. But I’ve gotten so used at having a regular job again that I’m still doing it. The job is fun anyway, so I figure why not stick it out for the second time around? It’s been fun so far and 4 years of working on my own clearly had toughened me up in dealing with people. I can listen to people more, or at least I’m getting better at pretending to listen. So yeah, I get by okay.
Is working on my own better than working for a company? I really can’t tell. I think I like them both just fine. What I liked about the years of working on my own beside the fact that I could sleep in on Monday morning is that I did not have to listen to people whom I did not think worthy of listening to. The downside is of course, more often than not, the payments were always late. I really hated having to chase people for my money but believe me, in this country, people really had to be phoned up multiple times before they finally paid, and by the time they paid, your phone bills would reach almost the same amount as your invoice.
It was a big mystery to me why they didn’t pay on the date they promised to pay. Every one of them came up with the same administrative screw-up stories, all the time. The reason was beyond me. The worst case was this particular client who didn’t pay for 6 months after the due date. It was quite a big order for me, the one that included large orders of printing materials. I had to pay the printer with my own money first and because the client was 6 months late it really damaged my savings. Not to mention that this client was not Jakarta based, I had to place several expensive calls just to collect my payment, which added insult to the injury. So by the time they finally paid, I lost probably 30% of my profit already (I suck at counting so I don’t know the exact number, but bottom line is I was not that profitable).
Now, a week ago I had coffee with a friend who owns a printing company. He told me that it was a hectic day for him, having to go collect payments from some of his clients. I asked him why did he have to do the collecting himself? Doesn’t he have staff to do that?
He told me that yes he has people to do that, but on special cases, where payments are stuck, he had to do some “personal approach”. I asked what kind of personal approach. He told me that he would ask the person in charge on how to make the whole process faster and then he would transfer some amount to that person’s personal account as a “thank you gift” for that person’s favor to help smoothing the payment process.
I had a hard time processing this information.
“So you mean you have to bribe that person to get your payment?”
“Yes, more or less.”
It suddenly dawned on me that maybe this is the reason my payments were ALWAYS late. I can’t believe how naïve I was, thinking I can be rewarded only by doing my best and working hard. In this corrupt country, we had to bribe people to get what is rightfully ours. Sad but true.
The thing is I wouldn’t know how to approach people like that. I am not smooth at all. I don’t drive, so I’ve never even bribed a policeman like my fellow countrymen and women. I simply don’t have the experience and given the fact that I am terrible at verbal communication, I just know that it’s a skill I will never master. And now I cringe to imagine what happens on a larger scale when even a small fry like me has to take part in this “smoothing” process just to get what is, by law, mine.
So maybe it’s true that not everyone is cut out for business because apparently to make it on your own in this country, talent alone is not enough. What a sad realization, knowing the reward system that you’ve been taught as a child is no longer applicable.
Last night I watched a debate on television about the controversy on the release of corruptors by the president and my heart sank. It’s like a gigantic cobweb of lies, impossible to untangle because well, everyone is involved. And my memory went to two weeks ago, on our independence day, where I watched poor, neglected veterans of our country came to stand proudly before the flag in their uniforms which somehow made it even sadder, and I thought of how much these people have been robbed on what are rightfully theirs and it’s just beyond me on how corrupt people can live with themselves when they fully know that they are taking from other people, especially people who are less fortunate. But I guess they can.
So this morning I woke up feeling grateful because I have lived an honest life, because even though some scumbags had nicked some money off me it was nothing compared to what had been robbed off the veterans, because I can still give even though I don’t own that much, and because I still have this job that I like that pays my salary every month without me having to bribe the finance people first. I do have a lot to be thankful for.
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