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The following excerpt is from "FREE AGENT NATION: How America's New Independent Workers AreTransforming the Way We Live" (Warner Books, 2001) by Daniel H. Pink. I suppose I realized that I ought to consider another line of work when I nearly puked on the VicePresident of the United States.
It was a sweltering June day in Washington, D.C. -- the kind of day that drenches your shirt and soursyour mood. I was completing my second year as then Vice President Al Gore's chief speechwriter. And Iwas doing it hunched in front of my computer, banging on the keyboard, hoping that when my fingersstopped I'd have produced another sentence, and that this new sentence would move me closer tocompleting one of two speeches that were due that afternoon.
Seated at nearby desks were two other, only slightly less beleaguered, speechwriters with whom I shareda large and mangy office. Even on this most oppressive of days, we wore the mandatory uniform forWhite House men: suit pants, a starched shirt, and a tie cinched to the Adams Apple. Room267 always smelled vaguely like a junior high locker room, but today wasespecially rank. As aclimatological sauna baked the nation's capital, here in our own mini seat of power, the air conditioninghad gone kaput. But away I typed, skittering ever nearer to finishing each speech, even as I melted intomy cheap, gray chair.
At 5:45 that evening, I pulled both speeches from my printer, and scooted to the Vice President's WestWing office, about 60 paces down the hall from the Oval Office. At 6:00 p.m. the schedule called for"speech prep," a peculiar meeting, wherein the Vice President reads your speech and explains what helikes -- or, more often, what he doesn't -- as you sit there, mostly silent, absorbing the critique. Thisparticular speech prep, however, was better than most. Gore was lighthearted and jokey (his office, lethistory record, had air conditioning that day), and mostly satisfied with the texts.
When the meeting began breaking up after about 45 minutes, I lifted myself out of my chair -- andimmediately felt nauseous and lightheaded.
I walked out of the Vice President's office, shut his imposing mahogany door behind us, and lingered inhis waiting room, where still more aides answered phones, screened visitors, and guarded the innersanctum. Noticing that I was wobbly, one of my colleagues said, "Dan, you look green." "Yeah," I responded. "I don't feel so good." The next thing I remember I was regaining consciousness, seated in a waiting room chair. And I wasvomiting -- steadily, calmly, like a seasoned pro. Not on to the plush Vice Presidential carpet fortunately,but into a ceremonial bowl that was a gift, I think, from the Queen of Denmark. (I've since learned thatunder certain interpretations of international treaties, my regurgitation could be construed as an act of waragainst the Nordic nation.) I looked up and blinked away the haze to reveal the horrified faces of mycolleagues, unaccustomed to such displays in the West Wing. My first thought: "Oh no, this is how they'regoing to remember me. After all the blood I've sweated, the great lines I've written, the indignities I'veendured, I'm going to be known as the guy who upchucked in the Veep's office." Before long, Gore emerged from behind his office door, surveyed the scene, squared his heels to look atme, and drawled, "But Daaaaann. I said I li i iked the speech." Then after being assured by theeverpresent Secret Service agent that I was a threat to neither his safety nor the U.S. Constitution, hereturned to his office. A White House doctor arrived shortly thereafter. He spirited me to a West Wingexamination room, checked my vitals, and issued the following diagnosis: exhaustion.
Three weeks later, on Independence Day, I left that job. Indeed, I left all jobs for good. I became a freeagent.
I forged an office out of the attic of my Washington, D.C. home, and tried to parlay my skills and contactsinto something resembling a living for my young family. I secured a contract with Fast Companymagazine, and jumped on the phones to see if somebody would pay me for prose. Soon, they did --and I began working for myself, writing speeches and articles for just about anybody whose check wouldclear.
Now, truth be told, this move from the White House to the Pink House was something I'd beencontemplating for a long time. My job had its charms at first -- trips aboard Air Force Two, meetings at theVice Presidential mansion, chance encounters with Wolf Blitzer. But before long, the hypoxia of havingreached the heights of my profession gave way to a dull sadness. I missed my wife. I missed ourdaughter. I missed my life. And perhaps strangely for someone nominally in "public service," I missedmaking a difference.
And I wasn't alone. At least that's what I sensed. Several of my friends and neighbors were making similarmoves. They were abandoning traditional jobs to strike out on their own. Some, of course, were keen onbuilding the next great company. But most were thinking smaller. Like me, they were tired anddissatisfied. They just wanted to be in charge of their lives.
Following this hunch, I asked my editors at Fast Company if I could look into this phenomenon -- andwhat I found astonished me. It wasn't simply that legions of people were declaring independence --becoming self-employed, independent contractors, and microprenuers. It was why they were doing it,and how. I wrote a cover story for the magazine about these "free agents," and within a day of publicationmy email inbox was bulging with messages, many of them downright gleeful. Each day, dozens ofelectronic epistles arrived thanking me for writing the article, and for identifying and legitimizing this newway to work.
At the same time, many commentators and pundits took aim at free agency. First, they said it couldn't be:a Washington Post columnist suggested that I ought to start taking Thorazine to curb my obvioushallucinations. Then they said it couldn't be good: The New Yorker called the article the "most eloquentmanifesto" for the end of loyalty in America.
Regular people were cheering me on. Elites were shouting me down. I knew I was on to something.
The trouble was, that's about all I knew. The more I investigated free agency, the more I realized that ourknowledge of this emerging workforce was at best scant -- at worst, pathetic. Even with corporatedownsizing an established practice, and computers and the Internet becoming more powerful every day,nobody could tell me much about people who work on their own or who have formed very smallenterprises. The most likely sources of such information, the government's statistical agencies, didn'thave the answers.
Not the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- which generates the influential monthly unemployment figures. Notthe Commerce Department, even though one of its bureaus proclaims itself America's "nationalfactfinder." And not the Treasury Department, which printed money but didn't much know how peopleearned it.
Then I hit upon an idea. How does any nation endeavor to understand itself? It takes a census. It talks topeople, asks them a series of questions, and tries to paint a portrait of the country at that moment. Sincewe don't know much about free agents, why not conduct a census of Free Agent Nation? On the day before my 34th birthday, the authorities chose to celebrate by issuing an urban heat advisory.
The temperature had cracked three figures, the humidity had turned thermonuclear. I don't do well in heat(see above), but I had work to do. I was heading to Suitland, Maryland, a dreary little town three milesoutside of Washington, D.C. There, across the street from a strip mall whose tenants include "The A-1Pawn Shop" and the "Christ Did it All Beauty Salon," is a four-acre plot of government land rimmed by abarbed wire fence -- headquarters of the United States Census Bureau. And on the second floor of one ofthe complex's five buildings - a three-story box of beige bricks that resembles a Brezhnev era elementaryschool - sat the man I was after, James F. Holmes.
Holmes was acting director of the U.S. Census Bureau, a talented 30-year Bureau veteran thrust into thetop job when the previous Director abruptly resigned. In the space of a week, he'd gone from a post asdirector of the Census Bureau's Atlanta office to temporarily running the entire 2000Census. Relying on some contacts I'd made at the White House, I'd arranged a meeting with Holmes,though I kept my exact purpose murky.
Holmes proved to be an exceptionally nice man from the moment he opened his door and welcomed meinto his office. He wore an ecru shirt, a brown tie with a dizzying pattern, and a constant but sincere smile.
Wisps of white hair crawled through his black mustache. His alert eyes gleamed behind square glasses.
Holmes chatted amiably about the census as I summoned the courage to ask him the question that hadbrought me to his office.
I told him how impressed I was that the Census Bureau could manage a task as awesome asenumerating some 280 million people -- and how useful the resulting data would be to the country. But,introducing the subject as gently as I could, I added that the government hadn't done a great job ofcounting free agents, describing their lives, or charting their future.
What he needed -- jeez, what America needed -- was a census of Free Agent Nation. Then I offered tohelp. "If you'll deputize me," I said, "I'll go out and do the job myself." His cheery disposition evaporated. He looked at his conference table, then up at me, then back down,and then up at me again.
I explained to Holmes that my census would be much like the 1790 census, the first census of the UnitedStates. Back then, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson handled the job with the aid of only seventeenfederal marshals. It wasn't perfect, but it was revealing. Jefferson admitted as much when he deliveredhis results to President George Washington. He sent Washington a letter in which the known returns werewritten in black and the conjectures in red. But those general impressions, Jefferson assured thePresident, were results "very near the truth." That would be my standard, too. If he deputized me to take acensus of Free Agent Nation, I promised Holmes, I'd deliver results "very near the truth." "I see you've done your homework," the acting census director sighed. "But it's not the sort of thing weordinarily do. I'm afraid the answer is 'no.'" He agreed the country needed to learn more aboutmicrobusinesses, solo workers, and independent professionals -- and he seemed somewhat interestedin the project. Then when I turned my head, he excused himself, sprang from the table, and left his office.
He said he wanted to ask his secretary Carol for something, though I suspect he also directed her to keepone finger on the button that speed-dialed security.
When Holmes returned, he handed me a slip of paper with the name of the Census Bureau staffer whospecialized in the self-employed.
"I'm sure she'll be helpful," I told him. "But I'd like to do this myself. And I'll do it for free." "Well, that's very nice of you," he said, remaining standing and subtly edging me out of his office.
"OK," I said as I left the office. "I'll let you know how it goes." He smiled, shook his head again, and returned to his conference table, where he would greet the nextspecial pleaders who had already massed outside his office.
I called my wife from the Suitland parking lot. "He wouldn't deputize me," I told her. "I guess we'll have todo it ourselves." "Cool," Jessica said. "Let's go." And we did. For the next year, she and I, our young daughter -- and before long, a second daughter --traveled America in search of Free Agent Nation. In countless cities in a few dozen states -- in coffeeshops, libraries, lobbies, and bookstores, in living rooms, kitchens, basements, and backyards -- I talkedwith free agents of all varieties about their work, their lives, their dreams, their troubles, and their future.
Like Jefferson, I was seeking results "very near the truth."

Source: http://www.elannet.net/archief/free_agent_nation.pdf