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This PwC Senior Associate Slash Makeup Artist Has a Way More Flexible Job Than You

Note to the uninitiated: don't think you're going to get away with what this lady gets away with, that just isn't how the world works.

In Great Expectations: Millennials, Motherhood and Money on U.S. News, we meet Kristin Selvaggio​, a senior associate at PwC with an interesting side business that doesn't involve doing tax returns at home. We can infer from the article that she is blissfully child-free, so her flexibility has nothing to do with diaper duty or soccer practice. Let's see what this is all about:

Kristin Selvaggio​ works from December to April each year as a senior associate in the Flexible Talent Network​ at the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.​ Then, she switches to a full-time job as a freelance makeup artist. “They’re two completely different career paths, and I love them both,” she says. Selvaggio, a 29-year-old based in New York, calls the arrangement the perfect combination for her.

Selvaggio's desire for such workplace flexibility might be more closely associated with working moms than child-free 20-somethings, but her preferences reflect a wider trend among her generation. Perhaps because they watched their parents struggle to work full-time while raising a family, millennials often express the desire for work-life balance early on in their careers, long before they even become parents. PwC launched the Flexible Talent Network in response to that demand, and other companies are following suit.

Sooooo… you're a seasonal tax worker, then? Good for you.

The article continues:

“There’s a desire to have a sense of fulfillment on both the work and the personal side. … It’s a desire to say, ‘I want to experience the work environment, but I also want to experience life’,” says Terri McClements,​ U.S. Human Capital Leader for PwC. “In today’s environment of connectivity, everyone is desiring more flexibility.”

McClements says that while employees of all generations embrace and benefit from flexible schedules, it was millennials who really pushed the company to create the Flexible Talent Network, which allows employees to work just a few months each year. “Millennials maybe pushed us there a little faster,” she says. Regular full-time employees also take advantage of flexibility, she says, and teams are encouraged to figure out how to meet the various needs of different team members. A father might want to leave early for school pickup one day, and a young single person might want to attend a midday exercise class, for example.

This Flexibility² Talent Network (FTN) is a real thing, and if you only need half a year's salary, sounds like a pretty sweet deal:

An FTN member is an individual who works for a definitive period at a specific level in a particular client role. This individual works for us for a portion of the year, as part of an engagement team, and serves public and/or private clients in a variety of industries. Candidates may recur as an FTN member if there are business needs and his/her performance warrants it. This allows for seamless client service and a better people experience for the FTN member and engagement team.

Back to Kristin — does makeup artistry really pay well enough for someone to live in NYC doing it for half a year? If so, perhaps we are all in the wrong profession. I know I definitely am.