Seriously, who below executive-level gets to “negotate” anymore? We’ve had the better part of a decade of sluggish economy and a shit labor market. “Negotiating” is dead, the new reality is “take this pittance or please hold the door open for the next applicant on your way out.”

Add: a low tolerance for risk.

I work freelance, primarily as a transcriptionist. This field is really, really, really, really badly underpaid to the point that you get laughed at if you ask for a living wage. I tolerated it for a long time because of the temporal freedom I got from doing that work and because I was gaining experience. Now, I have…