| The Saga of The OfficeI had decided, finally, that I would rent an office in which to pursue “the business of writing.” It’s a way to buy the opportunity to write. Time has been set aside, but a place I can go to pursue it, without distraction, just wasn’t available in my current environment. I searched Craig’s list for awhile, musing on a few possibilities which were either too far, too expensive, both, or whatever other obstacles stood in my way including my own cowardice to act, and indecision. I was particular, less about price than location, although price is always a consideration. But I’ll tell you why location is so important. I make a decent rate of pay at my “day job.” I have worked out a reduced schedule to afford the time to write. But there is more work for me there if I want it. So the opportunity cost of lost wages due to extra commuting is a very real factor. If I have to commute 15 minutes out of my way to my “writing office”, the 15 minutes lost because I get to my paying job later, costs me more than the office cost. And conversely if I can work an extra 15 minutes a day because good office is right on the way to bad office, I pay for the difference and more. So anyway, I finally found a pretty good deal, cheap, the opposite way of bad office, but only a few minutes away from home. It’s exactly what I need; it is a small private space in a clean building, in which I could even see clients if I ever decided to do accounting work there. I told them I want it. I was excited. Then I got the contract. One of the clauses in the contract required me to buy general liability insurance in order to protect the Landlord from being sued based on something I did (or didn’t) do. "Get your own insurance," I thought. I hate throwing money away at insurance companies (I do it as little as possible and self-insure whenever feasible). This is a tiny space for a low rent, where I will only go a couple of hours a day to sit and write. There will be no employees, no dangerous equipment. I started the ball rolling on getting quotes, because ultimately it comes down to whether the price of the coverage effectively raises the rent too much, but still, if I were to pay higher rent, I’d rather it go to the lessor than an insurance company. That’s just the principal of the thing. A friend of mine in real estate told me this is pretty standard. I brought this up as a concern, however, along with other comments/questions. I’m always surprised when people change contracts. I work under a contract, and when I first saw it, there were many clauses that didn’t apply to me, or I couldn’t agree too. I knew that the legal department imposed this contract on the people that wanted my services, so I thought they would not give in (“this is our standard contract, blah blah blah). But when I made suggestions, they incorporated them all. Here too, I spent the weekend thinking I probably won’t get this office after all. I come in this morning and I have an e-mail saying, “I think we can make these changes, most of them anyway. I’ll send you a revised contract today.” So, I haven’t seen it yet, but that is encouraging. I’m still a little concerned that they don’t keep the room cool enough in the summer, but I have a couple of ideas to alleviate that (also one of my changes was to include under landlord responsibilities the maintenance of the air conditioning system, cause then at least I can complain, or get out of the lease, if it isn’t working). All of this makes me feel manic. First I’m excited and it makes all the difference, I’m focused at work (working seems worth it again), then suddenly all my dreams are dashed and I’ll never find something this cheap so close to me again and working isn’t worth it anymore cause I can’t get what I want. Now all of a sudden things are looking up. Ah life. It takes a great strength. Someone also hit our car on Saturday. But it’s drivable, and they took full responsibility and their insurance company called us the next day (on Sunday no less) and it sounds like they’ll take care of it all. So, like I say, up and down, up and down. Lunch time is over. Thanks for reading. |
Lifetime