Ronin

Are you one of the roaming bands of the "Laid Off"?
Ronin: A ronin (?? ,r?nin?) was a samurai with no lord or master during the feudal period (1185-1868) of Japan. A samurai became masterless from the ruin or fall of his master, or after the loss of his master's favor or privilege. The word r?nin literally means "drifting person". The term originated in the Nara and Heian periods, when it referred to a serf who had fled or deserted his master's land. It then came to be used for a samurai who had lost his master. - wikipedia

As the layoffs continue, we become a masterless class of roaming "consultants", untethered to an office desk, we work over the airwaves like drifting ghosts that appear only when beckoned.

For Hire

Is it more cost effective for a company to hire you for one project? Not to pay benefits or to set you up with a desk and computer? Yes it is. The future is here. We are roaming packs of "for hire gunslingers", each with a unique skill. We come to your town, clean it up and then leave for the next opportunity.

Just Here for the Time Being

In Kurosawa's classic film The Seven Samurai, the Ronin Samurai come to the town to rid it of bandits. As the Samurai settle into the village, the villagers come to fear them less and become close comrades at arms. At the end of the film, the surviving Samurai realize that they may have won the battle for the villagers but in actuality they lost their own battle because they have nothing where the villagers have a home.

As we become roaming consultants, we are left with a temporary home but it is nothing more than a place to sit before the next job. As we finish our stint, we leave with a check and an eye to the next job, a cycle that endlessly repeats itself. Is this a life that is beneficial? To some it is, to others it is a stress producing grind that demands optimism and a daily rainbow outside the kitchen window.

Where Next?

For me, I love the chase and the luck to work from my own studio - I have been freelancing since I graduated art school, with a few full time employment jobs scattered in between moments of free range bliss.

A Band of Experts

However you get work, the best way is to band together with people with skills that complement yours, that way not only do you learn from them, you become the whole package that a company needs - just like the villagers and their hired swordsman.

Image: Ophelia Chong/ Workers for Hire