RACHEL PARRY, 37

Previous job: Child-care provider Current jobs: Artist, gallery worker, house cleaner and babysitter Lives in: Parkdale

I’d rather make less and like my work than slog away for a few more bucks

ISPENT my 20s trying to figure myself out. I’d dropped out of art school and was working retail jobs, including at an ice cream shop and an art supply store. I wasn’t a very good employee. My father was a bit of a tyrant when I was growing up, so I’ve always had a hard time tolerating authority figures―especially if they’re paying me minimum wage. I never got fired, but I did quit several times. At one job, the owners’ kids took over the business and implemented a bunch of arbitrary rules, which I rejected. I think I was getting on their nerves, because one of them told me, “I bet the people you’re living with are pretty sick of you by now.” After that comment, I told her I was going to quit, and she asked if I’d already found another job. “No,” I answered, “I just don’t want to be here with you.” When I was 23, I got a gig as a live-in child-care provider, which I ended up doing for several years. That’s when I started to build the kind of creative and self-directed life I wanted. I began painting in my free time, making pop surrealist and absurdist representational art (one of my pieces is of John Oliver playing a viola while riding a centaur with the head of Adam Driver). I also took an improv class at Impatient Theatre Co., where I met people who invited me to become a dancer with Zero Gravity Circus. I started dating a guy I met there, and he was soon diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. I put aside everything to take care of him. When he died, I had no job. I briefly considered pursuing steady work. I figured I could start by temping, then break into an office job and eventually put away money for retirement. But there was no guarantee that I would ever enjoy those savings. My partner didn’t get to. I’d rather make less and like my work than slog away for a few more bucks. These days, in addition to selling my own paintings, I’m a part-time manager at a gallery in Chinatown. To make ends meet, I also clean a friend’s AirBnb units and babysit. Depending on the year, I make up to $20,000 annually. I have the privilege of not having dependents other than my cat. My current partner and I share expenses, live in a rent-controlled building, buy groceries on sale or in bulk and cook a lot of dried beans for protein. I’ve never once regretted living the way I do. I did temp work for a month in 2017, and that gave me insight into office culture. It was socially sterile; I noticed that people weren’t having deep conversations. When I’d ask my workmates about their lives in the break room, people they’d been working with for 10 or 15 years would be learning new things about them. My theory is that, if you’re working in close quarters with people full time, you can’t afford to get to know anyone too well―if you discover that you hate them, you’re still stuck working with them. If that’s what conventional nine-to-five work is like, no thanks!