So being self-employed is really fun?

I have said it many, many times in my life and I still believe it.

If you have a permanent job with a company where you are valued, paid adequate recompensation, which allows you to stay out of debt and allows you to save a bit for the future, then life is as good as it is ever likely to get.

Especially given the version of capitalism which they have now foisted upon us whereby all jobs (even white-collar jobs) are meant to be dirt cheap, mostly to be outsourced to China and India, and everyone is supposed to live by speculation and on debt. Keine Zukunft! As I once saw written on a wall in Berlin - and were they right!!!!

I did not become self-employed particularly out of choice. After the fiasco with Procter and Gamble, I did not fancy putting myself on the dole queue again, and finding a suitable permanent job has become seemingly impossible.

I have proved to be pretty good at translating, though lacking some of the tools that I need (an up-to-date version of Microsoft Word for starters) has been a serious problem and has caused unnecessary panic on a couple of occasions.

The volume of work though is simply insufficient. I need €868 a month to break even. We are nowhere close to that at the moment. That excludes future accountancy and tax costs as well. So things need to improve in terms of volume.

20 pieces of work per month at €70 per day would be sufficient, and doable - and well within my capacity to produce quality work.

The question remains though whether we can find the work and how. Chasing people up is very much not my strength.

Then there is the willingness of the various companies to pay. The number of currently unpaid invoices is frightening. There is one character named "Ralph Williams" in the UK (I think - though he also knows Dutch, so he could well be a Dutch or Belgian national) who owes me 658 US$, and is showing every sign of simply being a scam merchant who has no intention of paying.

There are the warning signs - no official address or telephone number, merely an email address. And the usual excuses when you send an invoice. There are anyway warnings about a person of this name on one of the well-known Internet sites for translators, so I cannot be optimistic that he will pay up. The trouble is that when work is scarce, you have to take a risk with potential thieves and villains like this!

Another two months and I will not be able to pay the rent. And then? Back to the dole queue? Yes, well, that was not the intention. But as Burns's appropriate comment about the best laid plans of mice and men usw more than often applies in this world ....