One of the things I’ve noticed as someone who has spent more than his fair share of time looking for suitably gainful employment is the number of employers out there who undervalue their workers, expecting them to work long hours at demanding jobs for pitiful pay — and in some extreme cases, expecting them to work on a voluntary basis.

The growth in the number of jobs where the people who do all the heavy lifting (literal or metaphorical) have to act as self-employed is disheartening. It’s clearly a transparent, cost-cutting measure that means employers don’t have to provide workers with any kind of benefits — whether it’s basic things like holiday and cover for days you can’t work, or more structured benefits such as pension plans, healthcare and the like — under the pretense of being more convenient and flexible for the worker.

The above would be more acceptable if the payouts for workers were commensurate with the amount of effort (and/or physical exertion) they have to put in, but sadly more often than not they simply aren’t. What you end up with are a bunch of companies who are effectively paying their workers less than minimum wage while offering them no benefits, no National Insurance contributions, no Pay As You Earn tax deductions and little to no job satisfaction.

At the time of writing, I’m working two assignments on a self-employed basis. One of them pays a fair wage for some honest, specialised work, so I don’t mind working for them in this way at all — though I do, at times, wish they’d pay me a bit sooner and provide me with enough assignments to make it a legitimate full-time job, as that would go a long way to assuaging my presently perpetual state of anxiety. The other, I’m feeling, does not feel like it has enough benefits to outweigh the drawbacks, even though it presents the prospect of more regular income. (That said, taking into account the expenses I incur while working this latter position makes said income look even more woeful than it already is.)

I don’t know. I’m just currently feeling physically exhausted and incredibly disheartened at how things have been going for me, and I don’t know the best thing to do about it. The vaguely rational part of my brain tells me that sucking it up and paying my dues is the sensible thing to do, regardless of how exhausting it is and how awful a work-life balance it affords me. But the part of me that wants to not collapse and actually have time to enjoy life — even if it’s with tight purse strings — suggests that the healthy thing to do, mentally and physically, might be to nip things in the bud before I get too stressed out by the whole thing.

Goddammit, GamePro. Why’d you have to close down? I was happy working for you. Genuinely. More happy than I’ve ever been working any job since. All I want is to be happy and satisfied with what I do, and to be paid a fair wage for it. With every passing day, I worry more and more that I’m never going to achieve that.