Howdy, folks! What's new with you?

Mmm? Yes? Really! Mmm-hmm. You don't say? Well, gosh. Wotta story!

Me? There's so much going on here I can barely organize my thoughts to complain about it all.

Here at the Argonut Café, a previously unnamed 'Nut is about to close their doors. Yawn.

After hustling for two weeks to get it all ready, I sent out six-month performance reports yesterday. Within an hour I'd heard back from eleven 'Nuts whose combined requests for more detailed data and explanations are going to take me, at a conservative estimate, 16 hours to produce.

(Sigh. When I say, "I think you should do X because of Y" they should just email back and say, "Okay.")

I just had my second call (one of the Bowery Boys) and the guy had zero interest in reviewing the numbers he asked for or discussing the information he made me prepare. His idea was that I was going to walk him through looking at his campaign, so he could decide what keywords he should have. As I tried to explain, three times, the keyword list is not "fixed." Words rotate in and out constantly as we try new words and delete nonperforming words. What I wanted him to concentrate on was markets--which of the markets he currently advertises does he want to keep advertising. He didn't want to talk at that level, which means the two hours I spent working up all that data was time wasted. (Not to mention the 30 minutes for the phone call.) (If he didn't want all of that junk, why did he ask for it? Getting older by the minute, people!)

I've sent follow-up data to four other 'Nuts and am waiting for them to decide when they want to talk on the phone. The remaining five--I'm losing my enthusiasm for this project, so I'm ignoring them at the moment.

Further, in the good news/bad news department?

Another heretofore unmentioned 'Nut has a friend in need of online mktg expertise and is going to share my contact info. (Hey, a small, one-time job is still a dab of income!) Sadly, the project is too small to run through Gidget's company (if it comes to pass) because it's about $50 or $100, but from little acorns....

Gidget is getting 'scoped tomorrow in another effort to identify the source of her ongoing aches and pains. As soon as she finishes, she's on a plane to her mother's bedside as the relevant medical authorities say that this time, it really might be the end.

As we agreed on the phone earlier today, "expected" is not the same as "okay."

I tremble to share the next piece of good?/bad?/good? news.

It's Bernie. He's ba-a-ck! Apparently choking on the sheer volume of new work he's got and in need of my personal expertise in the mktg arena.

Or, not.

Because while he mentioned Webstrainer and whatnot, what he kept providing details about was using open source software for website optimization (SEO) which is a different color of elephant entirely. (And one where, in The Gidget Co, Gidget would handle words and I'd handle interface/tech.*)

Of course, Bernie's not likely to pay enough to hire a "company" when he thinks he can get me, for ten cents and a baloney sandwich, to do the same work. (No, we didn't discuss payment yet. It's tacky, to say the least, to discuss payment before you've actually heard what the work is.)

From what he said, "choking on work" isn't much of an exaggeration. If only half these projects reach the reality zone, that's enough full-time work for three or four people. (Or maybe five or six.) I know he has one employee (although what her actual duties are these days, I do not know) and himself. He mentioned two free-lancers, both of whom I know to be very good but who presumably also have other projects. And then there's me, with a 40-hour (50-hour) a week job and 15 hours a week on top of that for The Gidget Co already.

And. You know.

Bernie.

The man who nearly drove me psychotic when I worked for him--bidding twenty-five dollars for a five-hundred dollar job and then complaining bitterly when he had to cut a fifty-dollar paycheck to cover my hours. The man who hired me with the promise of reinstating (soon!) the 20% salary cut he handed me with my new job, who then laid-off the programmer/network administrator and expected me to magically grow that set of skills, and then moved his office halfway across the state and expected me to commute, all the while not only not delivering on his salary increase promises but hinting that I should be willing to take another pay cut.

Yeah. Him.

Why is my professional life full of people fixed in the belief that if they just ignore reality hard enough, it will change for them?)

And! As I mentioned last week, Gidget may have rounded up our third major client already and if she has, then I don't have the time or the energy to take on another 15-hour a week free-lance project--at least, not until I get out of having a full-time job.

The big question, as it always is with Bernie, is whether or not he's pitching these jobs to the clients for at least as much money as it's going to cost him to do the work. We're lunching tomorrow, and I do intend to ask him, point-blank, if he can afford my services.

But, you know, depending on how much of it actually comes to fruition, I might actually be in a position to wave bye-bye to the 'Nuts, come September 1.

Will we all be glad or sad if I no longer have a cast of coworkers to abuse?

_______________________________

* It's occasionally sort of odd for me to spend so much time with people who think of me as a "tech person." Who think of me as someone "not good with words."

Mostly, it's because they think of me as a "tech person" and it's a little scary to realize how little someone has to understand technology for me to look like an expert.