Linda Otterbridge, 58, has been an entrepreneur for years, but she’s also always had a full-time job.
Like millions of Americans, Otterbridge lost her job in 2020 to focus on entrepreneurship.
Now, however, rising costs have sent him back to the office for a new job.
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Linda Otterbridge barely took a break before 2020.
The 58-year-old has been working since the age of 15. Before the pandemic hit, Otterbridge, who lives in Michigan, worked as a site manager for a behavioral-health counseling center. Then March 2020 rolled around, and he was fired.
In a way, the pandemic was a blessing in disguise. Like millions of Americans, she received increased unemployment benefits, meant to offset the pandemic’s collective job and income losses. This opened the door to being able to dive deeper into her true passion: helping other women start and run their own businesses
So with that happening, I was able to just do what I needed to do and just relax, she said. It was nice to rest and take a break.
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For some workers, those benefits meant they were able to transform their lives and pursue passion or dream projects they never had the time or steady income to do. Otterbridge has been building an entrepreneurship community since 2013 called Hook a Sista Up, dedicated to helping women start businesses.
I was already talking to women and we were older, what does it look like when we finally decided to take that leap and go full-time entrepreneurship?” he said. “So when I lost my job, I said, ‘Oh, I feel like I’ve been pushed off the cubicle farm.'”
Before the pandemic, she ran a subscription-based entrepreneurship community and hosted a podcast, but after the shutdown, she was able to spend more time on them. She also started an Etsy and e-book store. In late 2020, she took on a part-time remote contact-tracing role to get some more income — what she said was dipping my toes into 9 to 5 without really going back.
That contact-tracing work ended about three weeks ago. And while Otterbridge is living out the pandemic workforce dream — focusing on entrepreneurship and working on her own terms — she’s going back to “Cubicle Farms.
Otterbridge landed a position while working a job placement that would require an in-person check-in. It’s an on-call position for now, but she’s feeling pulled back into full-time work by the prospect of benefits.
“I’m fine with that because I went to orientation, and it was great to go there and see people working, she said. She still wants the flexibility to maintain her entrepreneurship and spend time with her grandchildren.
“I’m 58. I’m so far off Social Security, not so far away, but tall enough that I know I can’t do it consistently, she said. So I just thought, ‘Okay, I know I’ve been pushing for entrepreneurship full-time, but now I feel like I have to go back in.'
Otterbridge is an example of the economic situation the pandemic created: workers had the ability to have a steady income – for some, more than they were earning at their previous jobs – and rebuild their relationship to work. : Let’s organize. Now, the 2022 economy is throwing cold water at him, as inflation, the end of stimulus, and a lack of lasting, structural labor-market change threaten the benefits of some workers.
Higher prices are changing the labor market
Anyone who has recently bought groceries or loaded up their car knows that things have gotten a lot more expensive. In June, the consumer price index, which measures inflation, rose 9.1% year-on-year — a 41-year high. Rising gas prices are responsible for almost half of the increase in inflation.
The cost of everything has gone up, so with the recession and everything to come, it’s crazy. I know it can’t keep up with the cost of things going up, Otterbridge said. I have a 403B — a type of retirement plan that public schools and charities provide — which I have from my job, and yes, I tapped into that too — didn’t want to, but had to.
While prices look like they may calm down soon, relief is still a way out. The Washington Post’s Lauren Kaori Gurley reported that some Americans are taking on additional jobs, many of them working more than 70 hours a week, to offset rising costs. A tracker from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found that the percentage of people employed in many jobs is on the rise, reaching 4.8% in June – a 4.6% increase in May.
The pandemic was a blessing in disguise — at the time. Now, two years later, it’s okay, it was a blessing, but I don’t know if I can survive and continue to do so, she said.
A lot has changed, she said. Entrepreneurship stuff is cool and fun and dandy, but the changes that have happened now, going to higher prices, gas and the economy and everything else, don’t have that sparkle anymore.
