Be patient, since this requires some explanation. I'm a food safety and quality auditor. Basically, I go into manufacturers of food and ancillary industries like food packaging and criticize them mercilessly for eight hours a day, and they pay for the privilege. If this sounds like my company uniform should include knee-high leather boots and a matching whip, yeah, I understand.
I'm a contractor, so no bennies, and it's pay-for-play, so there's no steady paycheck, and sometimes there are significant gaps (for instance, I only work Monday next week, then don't work again until the following Tuesday). But I enjoy traveling (there was that trip to Pennsylvania where I got to drive a Fiat 500 through the mountains, and three days in Guam in the dead of winter), I get paid for expenses and mileage (and make a profit off of that due to the cheap-to-run nature of the Mighty Fit), and best of all, I don't go into the same place every day, which I loathe. I actually quit a job that paid more, had a steady paycheck, and had benefits to do this. Midlife crisis? Check.
So, the firm that I'm associated with has had an expansion of their business. Last week, they called me and asked if I wanted to get into their consulting division. This particular ego boost involves lecturing executives on how little they know and how much I know about food safety and quality audit systems. The major boner, though, comes from the circumstances: audits are usually one day. Consultancies are usually three days. At double the hourly rate of an audit. And if I'm not doing a consultancy, I still get to do audits.
So, my paycheck's gone up significantly, I get to travel more, and I get to annoy people in new ways. And tomorrow, I audit a beer plant. Life is good.
