Nine Years of Pain: How I Escaped Banking for Freelancing

This is my story of how I got stuck for 9 years in a system that is almost impossible to get out of for a middle-class man with a family.

The story started in Hyderabad in 2010, when after sitting idle for a long time, something finally went wrong in my head and I decided I should earn. Now, what work would a 12th-pass guy get? My only skill was that I knew the ABC of computers. I could solve every problem, from hardware to software.

I started working at a gaming zone. I was crazy about gaming and about computers too, so it looked like a perfect combination. The work was a lot of fun, and the salary was okay for that time, but because of some disagreements with the owner it didn’t work out, and after 3 months I left the job. 2011 had started. Now this earning bug just wouldn’t leave me. Around this time I went to the village, and while chatting with my brothers, we talked about TV cable.

I hit a four on this chance and took the responsibility: you just start it, I’ll do the work. Both my brothers were busy with their shops, so they also thought, good, our own guy will get some work and a business will also start.

It took 6 months for the work to start. I told my parents I’m off to the village to work with my brothers. Now, my parents had shifted to Hyderabad only because of my studies and my father’s work, and they had no plan to go back to the village. My mother (may Allah grant her Jannah) was very worried about me going far away. Then the cable work started. Going around people’s houses all day in the heat was really tough work, and I was a guy who worked all day in front of a computer, in the shade.

I found out in just one week. Anyway, I didn’t give up. Meanwhile my exams came, and I came back to Hyderabad. During the exams I fell ill, and the whole plan of going back was ruined. My brothers were very angry, but the craze for work was still on my head, and my parents had also realised it.

A friend of my father was an area manager at Bank Al Habib. My father told him, yaar, look for some job for my son. I hadn’t completed my graduation (another story 😁), so he said if he can do a cashier’s job, send him for an interview.

My father asked: So, what’s the mood? I said just tell me the time. It was a Friday. At 11 a.m. my father said they are calling you right now, until 12, then there will be the prayer break. Go wearing a tie, which I didn’t know how to tie. Anyway, in 2011, learning to tie a tie from YouTube, I felt very smart.

So I cleared all the interviews, and on the 27th of Ramadan it was my first day as a cashier at Bank Al Habib, Qasimabad branch. I was very, very happy about the job.

Within one month of this job, I realised that I can’t do this job, and I shouldn’t. Apologies to all my friends who work in banks and other corporate organisations, this is just my own opinion and experience. I wanted to keep new technology and computers in my life, and that was not possible in a cashier’s job. In a bank, only the time to arrive is fixed. To go home, you have to finish a lot of tasks, and without them you can’t leave. I saw days when I had to go to the bank at 3 at night, and on Sundays too, and go in every day on all three days of Eid, and so on. And a cashier’s problems are on top of all this. Getting stuck with two fake prize bonds of 25,000 is one of those incidents I can never forget. There is a lot more, but it’s better if some things stay covered.

Now, once you get a job, the next turn is marriage. Within a year of getting the job I got married, my responsibilities grew, and the bank job went on like this. I already told you about bank timings, so what else can a person do alongside? I was not a good banker. I took more leaves than I should have, and I started getting sick. I’m sure of only one thing: when I was at my job in the bank, I gave my 100 percent.

My banking career started in August 2011 and ended in December 2020. That’s more than 9 years, and in these 9 years I kept looking for a way to get out of this system. During COVID, when people went through a lot of trouble and pain, banking hours got shorter, and because of that I could give better time to freelancing. All through these 9 years, I kept trying freelancing.

It took 9 years to make my first dollar from freelancing

And that’s how I became free from the pain of the corporate sector. Even today, I try not to be an employee, but to work as a partner.

But I’m sure of this: whatever I am today, I am because of these experiences. So even if it’s just for some time in your life, do a job, especially in a corporate organisation. You learn a lot of lessons.

If I’ve broken the leg of the language anywhere, please do correct me.