I suppose being my ‘own’ person was always in my head, from the time I was small. Other little girls in the ’70s dreamt of getting married. I dreamt of becoming an astronaut, or a scientist, or a writer. I wanted a career – and I wanted a car! Just like my dad’s blue Alfa Romeo or my aunt’s fabulous Beetle. My chic aunt! I admired her lovely clothes, her smart work attire. A career was glamorous!
Life wasn’t easy for us, growing up. My father could not afford university fees and I was compelled to start working after I finished high school. I really wanted to study – I loved the rigour of mental application, even though I was not quite an ‘A’ student by the time I finished school. I was hungry to experience all the world could give me. I wanted to figure out how stuff worked. I wanted to create things. I wanted to help people. I applied to volunteer at a children’s home, but my father put his foot down. Reluctantly, I took an office job.
Being the quirky one (I was raised by an artist father and a musician mother), office life didn’t quite suit me. It was difficult to find people who thought about the world the way I did. I was dutiful in my tasks. I was organised, energetic and disciplined. My superiors were generally pleased with me. I even discovered a ‘gap’ in the service my company provided and help set up a section to deal with that. It brought in more income for my department. After a few years of this, though, I felt I wasn’t providing any value. I felt that my work was pointless. I quit, and joined a six month volunteer programme run by my local church – much to the horror of my parents. However, I got to travel around South Africa, living and moving in poor communities, meeting people from different cultures and backgrounds. My thirst for the ‘world out there’ was certainly met, but sadly, the programme came to an end and I was thrust back into the reality of having to earn a living for myself once more. I ran someone’s office for a while, it was awful.
Then, one day, I saw an ad for a theological college and I applied. The academic drum was still beating in my heart and my desire to find out more of how the world ticks would not leave me. For three years, I studied like a mad woman, I plunged my heart and soul into it. I remember crying my whole first year, unable to understand what my lecturers wanted from me (they wanted me to think for myself, something our school system never encouraged). But when I graduated with my fresh theological degree, my home church offered me a job… in the office. In an office. Again. Sigh. I have a personal motto though, and that is to make the best of what’s in front of me, so that’s what I did. I did my very best to serve the new, incoming youth pastor as efficiently as I could.
And while I served, I waited.
Three years later, finally, a brilliant opportunity came up to help start an English for foreigners programme at a local vocational training college (I had completed a TEFL certificate as part of my studies). I grabbed it with both hands, knowing that certain opportunities in life only come once. We started with 3 foreign students. Within two years it became 100 per semester. Once the classes were thriving, however, I returned to the listless, bored state I had been in before and started looking around. Life had also thrown me a small, but vicious curveball around that time – I got thyroid cancer. I promised myself, if I made it out alive, I would find a way to fulfil my lifelong dream of going to Italy. To make an extremely long story short, I got my chance (that’s really an entire NOVEL on its own) and for one beautiful, but too brief year, I lived in a charming city called Parma and made friends with the most precious people who became like family to me.
But visas run out and sometimes you cannot renew them. I returned to South Africa, broken-hearted. Re-entry to one’s home culture can be brutal – mine was lonely and desolate. It took a long time to ‘return’ to life. I would not have made it without the support of a faithful friend. In the meanwhile, I picked up some English teaching at a private school in Cape Town – which I did for about ten years, interrupted only by a year with a visa company which went bust (won’t I ever learn? NOT IN AN OFFICE!).
Teaching English to foreigners was something I enjoyed tremendously, mainly because of the intercultural dynamic and the very special friendships I developed with my students. I had a few eccentric colleagues, which fed my quirky side. What I hated, however, was the monotony of the subject material, the administrative side of things, and working for difficult-to-please bosses. What if, I thought to myself, what if I started my own thing? Maybe.. my own school? Or just something creative, or…? And so the niggling thought grew.
Another thing I disliked intensely about the industry I was in, was the financial insecurity. The school could only pay for hours when they had students. Winter months were lean. I took on a second job running an office (uh oh) for an NGO. What made the office job slightly more palatable this time round was the complete absence of on-site management. I had work to do, and as long as I did it, everyone was happy. I saw the CEO maybe twice a year. I’m self-driven, I’m motivated, and I got stuff done. I revised antiquated systems, I brought everything online. It was lonely work but it paid… and then one day….
A friend introduced me to an online business mentor. I joined his group and learnt how to set up a WordPress website to sell a downloadable product. At that stage I was very eager to learn anything new. We also learnt other basic things, like how to build an email list. I was so intrigued. In the meanwhile, I quit teaching after (several) spectacular blow ups with the head of teachers at the school. For a few months, I only had the half day office salary to live from, it was a pittance and I suffered. I was determined though, so I soldiered on. I learnt what I could. At one of my worst points, a friend involved in web design offered me work from a client he didn’t want. Not the easiest client, not the easiest work – not even WordPress! I like a challenge though, so I took it on. A few weeks later, another job came my way, and then another trickled in…. and bit by bit, brick by brick, I started building a web design business (while still holding on to the job at the NGO).
I quit the office job two years ago this May in order to give my full time attention to my web design agency. What a tremendously long, twisted and tough road it has been to reach this place! Working for yourself is very, very hard work. I received criticism, even from close friends – which especially wounded when business was quiet. If you thought working for picky pedants for bosses was tough, wait until your entire income rests on your performance alone. And! You may lovingly coddle the misperception that as your own boss you can set your own hours and do whatever you please. Haha! Hilarious! EVERY CLIENT YOU SIGN ON IS YOUR BOSS. You can still afford to goof off a few days here and there when someone else pays your salary. It’s a different matter entirely when you are solo. Added to that, being an entrepreneur is incredibly lonely and support on the ground is thin. Keeping a personal life going, feeding yourself, keeping your house in order, all those are challenging – I think because being entrepreneurial is not just DOING a job. You have to think up the work, plan the process, make the product, market it, do it all from start to finish. It’s not merely a matter of walking in to an office in the morning, doing stuff and then leaving at the end of the day, setting it all behind you. Your craft, your work, is now your baby – needing you, draining you almost all the hours of the day (especially those sleepless nights, searching the ceiling for answers on how to bring in business to pay your bills at the end of the month). It’s tiring, it’s consuming.
And it’s lovely.
I have an ‘office’ now, if you can call it that. I’m surrounded by my late father’s art, my piano is less than a metre away from my desk. I jump up to play it when I’m stuck and a solution won’t appear. I need only to glance to my right to see distant hills and farms through my wide windows. I see the sky, it’s the palest of blues today. When I’m coding, I can play my ridiculous music at top volume. I have four jars of pens in every colour within arm’s reach, to scribble all sorts of multi-colour notes on the writing pad next to me (Ha! Nobody to steal a pen! Bliss!). I can leap up and make coffee or tea when I need to, go to the loo without time away from my desk being recorded. Yet, what truly thrills me most is sitting down with existing and prospective clients – hearing their plans and ideas about their businesses, helping them. I feel, as hard as it can be, I have reached a point where something I do is adding something of value to the world around me.
That’s what gets me up every morning. I wouldn’t change it for the world.