Wherein I Get My First Paycheque

It's not the first time I'm getting paid, but it is the first time I'm getting a cheque for payment. The feeling of being so close to actual earnt money as it leaves tha hands of my client was nerve-wrecking.

I didn't earn much, but then I didn't ask for much. Negotiating money is such an awful thing to have to do, especially for something you've been doing for free for so long (all those bloody ECAs to which I have sold my souls). It's no wonder there are jobs for Account Executives and Managers - those people who manage a stable of technically-inclined personnel - who preferably have little in the way of technical expertise themselves, such that they can put high prices on their slaves' services.

A little bit like handling Pokemon, I suppose. In a reflection of modern society's spurning of actual production-values, no one wants to be a pikachu anymore. Rather, we'd all rather get people to squirt water out of their asses for us. And they'd better love us even though we put them into little balls that can't possibly allow for much leg-room, never seem to feed them and suck up glory for "training" them by apparently flinging aforementioned balls and shouting as loudly as possible. Notice how the human protaganists in this show have absolutely no skills or talents to speak of other than exploitation of cute little creatures. Let's have our kids watch elitist-capitalist Pokemon cartoons in preparation for their careers as pointy-haired managers in the future!

On the other hand, like a Pikachu, I ended up pretty much unable to speak when trying to quote. My client turned to me and asked, since he'd requested I do a lot more than was previously agreed on, how much I would like. I stuttered and beeped some sounds (not quite "pika pika" but close) whilst my brain whirred and clicked with figures about how much I deserved. Yes, I am the kind of person who does work without thinking about payment. In the end I settled for something I thought was pretty decent for two weeks of work, but he informed me that it was probably too little and he'd give me more.

For some strange reason I felt compelled to defend my choice of payment, and muttered something about it being a fair price, considering I was relatively inexperienced and not-that-good blah blah blah. It was one of those moments when you're talking, but you can't really believe you're saying it and you're floating above your own head, thinking to yourself that normally you're not that stupid and that you deserve to be hit with something. I think my client laughed a little bit at me, or was at least trying to stifle something that looked like a bad cough.

Ouch.