Finding Freedom

It seems that sometimes everything is about money, and, in the case of my friends’ upcoming divorce, part of the issue has to do with money, especially as money relates to what each person expected from life and from marriage. 

I feel freedom to discuss this here as neither of them knows that this site exists.

Part of the story is that the two had decided that one of them should find a well paying job using skills learned in college while the other one went to graduate school to pursue a degree in photography.  They had also decided that the one in school should also work.  However, due to the demands of being in school full-time, any work would have to be of a part-time, and therefore, much less paying nature.
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I’ve got a call back this coming Sunday evening for a local theatre company that pays its non-union actors pretty well.  This is a double bonus because, if I get the part (knock on wood), I will be getting more local exposure from a fairly reputable company who likes to hire actors it has already hired over and over again (which would lead to more work) and, the supplemental income from the show would help me continue to pay down my debt.  In addition, the show would not affect my work schedule at my regular job nearly as much as the show I am currently in is doing (8 shows a week, a one-way driving time of half an hour, three matinees during normal business hours, all of which while trying to get 40 hours in at my desk job is very, very exhausting).

The show is Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and I am up against two other actors for this part.  I got a really good vibe from the director at the original audition, though, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if my good vibration was well founded or not.

I’m at an exciting time in life, where theatres are starting to pay me to do things that I would gladly do for free.  Just don’t tell them that. 

The last couple of months have been really nice, money-wise, because I was getting paid both from my regular 9-5 job and from the acting work.  However, once the show closes on April 1, I will obviously be back down to one paycheck. 

Fortunately, about the same time as the show closes, my raise will start kicking into my normal paycheck, so that will help.

My experience working with this theatre has been wonderful, and I hope that I will be able to work there again, albeit next time without having to put so many hours into my day job. 

I just paid off over four grand’s worth of debt thanks to the bonus.  I’ve got kind of a natural high going on right now; it’s pretty awesome.  It’s almost as much fun paying off the debt as it was to gain it.  Okay, that’s not true, but intellectually, if not subjectively, paying it off appeals to me much, much more.  I can’t wait to be back at zero.

I received some discouraging news yesterday.  In a group meeting , my boss told us that, because our company had had such a good year last year, “associates” could expect to receive as much as 10% of their annual salary as a bonus, and “analysts” could expect to receive anywhere from 25% to 40%.  This distressed me because of the fact that I, while I am doing the work of an analyst, still technically have the title of associate, and, as I am sure you have realized, there is a large disparity between 10% and 40%.  However, I knew that my boss was impressed with my work, and so I crossed my fingers and hoped that it would all work out for the best, even though I slightly grumbled to myself about how foolish it was to not address my issue of doing an analyst’s work without having an analyst’s title sometime prior in the year.  There was also some grumbling to the effect of, “If somebody else wants to do this job, they can help themselves.”

Today, I received a statement that told me how much my bonus would be, and, much to my surprise, it was over twice as much as the figure that I had been bracing myself for!  I computed the percentage the bonus was of my income, and it turned out to be 27%, which is amazingly high considering that the best I had told myself that I could expect was 10%.  In addition, I received an 8% raise, which is also pretty high, considering that my boss said that if management was expecially pleased with you, you could expect as high as a 6% or 7% raise.  This will essentially, after taxes, equal another hundred bucks a pay period that will help to pay down that doggone debt.

In short, I am pleased. 

I receive my bonus from work on the 23rd of this month.

This is something that I’ve been dreaming about for over a year.  My response to even hearing the word bonus is Pavlovian; my mouth salivates.

While it won’t be enough to eradicate my debt, it will certainly be enough to eliminate a double digit percentage of it, and that is certainly going to help me sleep better at night.  I can’t wait until my debt is all gone.

The longer that my show runs, the more I consider the viability and volatility of acting as a career.  After one show ends, one finds oneself essentially unemployed unless you have another show directly lined up, which is potentially difficult, even if you are auditioning all the time.  In addition, just because you get a pretty good contract at one theatre doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll receive another pretty good contract at another theatre, particularly for actors like myself who are currently not a member of the actors union.  Theatres can pay non-equity actors horrible wages, and the actor is generally forced to take it knowing that if they don’t, they just won’t have a job.

I am very happy that my boss at my “regular” job has been pretty flexible with the amount of time that I have missed at work because he knows that I make sure to provide excellent service to my customers.  However, in the long run, a traditional 9 to 5 job in conjunction with working in professional theatre isn’t really going to be an option, I don’t think, because the combination of working two essentially full-time jobs, no matter how fulfilling one of them is, is a huge drain on both my sanity and my relationships.

I am therefore forced to think about supplementary income.  I have a bit of that from this site and a few others that I run in the form of advertising revenue, but a hundred bucks every couple of months, while nice, isn’t exactly going to pay the rent and keep food on the table. 

As a musician, I could also give lessons, but I would need to be careful to ensure both that my lessons didn’t interfere with commitments for rehearsals and auditions, and that my students were getting a fair value for their money.  I know that this is potentially lucrative as I taught voice lessons for two years, and the rate that I charged, which was actually a bit low for the area considering that other teachers charged, in some cases, nearly twice as much, was $80 a month for four or five half-hour lessons, depending on how many times our lesson day fell on any given month.  This would average out to around $40 an hour, which is a pretty sweet gig.  However, the issue with this is that you need to have at least 15 or 20 students to be able to make a living wage out of this.

I sometimes wish that I would have been given a love for business, so that I would be fulfilled by working for a large company like I work for now and have the potential to live comfortably up until retirement.  Dreams are a funny thing.

I was browsing around today, and I came across this article over on Yahoo! that shows a definite link betwen people who have a healthy lifestyle and people who are fortunate enough to be financially well off.  While the article speaks mostly in macroeconomic terms about how third world countries that have a rising health standards are the ones to show the highest economic growth, there is certainly the implication that personal health contributes to a person’s own individual capacity to work better and, sometimes, more than the unhealthy person, and that is the kind of work that is more apt to receive promotions and raises.

 The idea of the article is intuitive enough; it’s just good to see studies backing up what makes sense.

I spoke with my employer at my regular job, and he said that it was all right to adjust my schedule in such a way as to make doing the show work.  He further said that he trusted me, and just as long as my customers weren’t complaining, he really didn’t have any problem with it.

I sort of figured that he would be all right with it, but it is certainly very soothing and gratifying to hear it right from his mouth.

Some of you may remember that I auditioned for a show in a professional theatre a few months ago.  I didn’t get the part, but, because I at first did not succeed, I tried, tried again, this time with a different but just as prestigious theatre in the area.

And I got a part.

Obviously I’m as pleased as punch, but one of the greatest things about this is that they will be paying me pretty well for my time and efforts.  While it would be quite difficult to live on just that income, I’m pretty sure that I’m going to be able to keep my day job as well, which means that my income will go up by about a third.  When you consider that the most I have received for acting in the past was a stipend of $200 for the whole rehearsal process and run of the show, getting paid nearly twice that weekly is not only awesome, but also a tremendous verification that I’m getting closer to doing the right things with my life.

What the extra money means to me is that I’ll be able to pay down my debts that much more quickly while thoroughly improving my acting resume.  Plus, because I will essentially be working two jobs, I’ll have less time to spend any extra money, which will only add to savings.

Sometimes you just have to keep trying, you know?  There’s something to be said about perseverance.