Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Crofter or Shedworker?

We posted about a competition recently which asked entrants to come up with a better name than homeworker or teleworker or telecommuter. While 'shedworker' is an obvious option, here's another intriguing one, 'crofter', coined by Hugh MacLeod at gapingvoid. Here's how he explains his reasoning:
"My paternal grandfather was a Scottish Highland "crofter". He lived on a "croft" i.e. a very small holding of land, where he raised sheep and grew potatoes. I used to spend my summers there as a boy. We were very close.

Crofting is a good life, but not a very financially rewarding one. It's very self-sufficient, though. The interesting thing for me looking back, is that crofters never did "just one thing". Every day they had something else going on. One day it might be sheep. The next it might be a job working on the roads for the local council. I knew one crofter who drove the mail van. Another who ran the local post office. They would do their jobs, but after work they'd still have their sheep, cows and potatoes to attend to.

As my dad is fond of reminding me, I seem to have inherited the crofting mentality. I DON'T like waking up in the morning and doing the same thing every day. I LIKE having all these different balls in the air- cartooning, painting, consulting, writing, marketing, blogging etc. Sure, part of me would like nothing better than just "retiring to the desert and making paintings", but another part of me likes all the running around in different directions. And all this running around DOES get tiring, I can tell you that. Sometimes I LOVE the feeling of being constantly overwhelmed. Other times I utterly despise it."
Well worth a browse.

Via Katie Ledger's interesting Portfolio Blog

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