Nothing like having your head stuffed up to convince you that everything you should be doing is more effort than it's worth. It's all Oysters and no Pearls today.
The new account I'm working on is something of a mess. The client, let's call him Sunny Jim, is one of Louie Louie's bunch.
The business has been advertising on a DIY basis until now--and doing everything simultaneously in a way that virtually guarantees spending the maximum amount of money for the minimum return.
Somewhere inside my stuffed-up head is a simple way to start over--I've done this before--but those brain cells don't seem to be functioning today. Every time I try to follow the process through to the logical conclusion I run into the abyss of their completely useless website.
It's like building a house without putting down a foundation--no matter how fancy the windows you design or how many bathrooms you decide to add on paper, every time you put two boards together, it all collapses. Online? Website=foundation.
I'm not really in a position to turn down clients yet--the cost of COBRA each month is decimating my savings--but I am very frustrated by clients who don't get the concept.
So distracted I burned my lunch in the microwave. Apartment stinks.
Posted by AnneZook at 11:01 AM | Comments (1)Lookee! Here I am--back again in less than a month!
Today's schedule includes doing laundry. I do like working from home--the ability to get some of these little chores done "on the side" is a gift. I took time this past weekend (still working 7 days/week, yes, but slowing down a lot on the weekends) to go through the newest Pile (misc mail, mostly junk) and get rid of what was get rid-of-able. What's left just needs to be filed--but that means opening the door to the Storage & Filing half of the closet which means facing the three Piles I shoved in there two months ago, promising myself I'd deal with them "very soon."
Newest account went live today. I'm dubious. Doubtful. Dithering.
I have no objection to a d i e t program, but I'm not a fan of this particular one so far. Although the cost is low, what you get when you opt to pay is (IMO) not worth the price. They need three or four times the amount of information to justify asking people for money to access it.
Louie Louie (it's one of his clients) is taking my objections to them--if they don't decide to provide content worth the cost, I may have to take an ethical stand.
I hate that.
I don't know, though. There's some content behind the paywall, and some of it is of value. I'm going to have to decide just how much to let my own opinion of clients' businesses affect my decision to work with them. (I suspect, knowing me, the answer will have to be "quite a lot.")
Before the holidays, I had a Big Client Nibble but it seems to have been just that--a nibble. Haven't heard a peep from them since.
I got a nibble for a mediumish (is too a word) account yesterday. I'm letting Gidget and Vela take point on that one--I suspect most of the work the client will wind up wanting will be in their areas of specialty. It could produce a modest initiative in my own area, though.
That plus the new account, the newest account, and the second-oldest new account, all of which have and/or will activate this month, will add a nice increment to my income. (At the moment, I'm making so little that these 3-4 new accounts will almost double my income. Still--I tell myself that I never expected to be raking in big bucks a scant 60 days after opening my self-employment doors.)
I've also been dithering about my annual trip to CA. It's time and past time that I made plane and hotel reservations and whatnot, but I haven't been able to make up my mind whether or not to spend the money, what with my current income and all.
The cost of the trip, no matter how economically I try to do it, winds up being about equal to a month's rent & utilities. A fair-sized chunk of dough. And yet, the point of being self-employed was partly to leave me time for more of a life, right? To loosen up my schedule and leave me more time to do a wider variety of things? Still. Enough money to cover R&U for a month?
This morning, with great reluctance, I decided to pass on the trip.
Makes me sad.
Part of me is still dithering and deciding.
It's Friday! This coming weekend I anticipate finally having the time to watch the new DVDs I got for Christmas!
Also, to beat the final boss monster in one of the games I got, so I can let myself open the second game and start on it. (Current game: Final Fantasy III. Next game: Rune Factory 3.)
A day or two ago I knocked off work early and had an amazon.com blowout, spending a gift certificate Santa brought me and then this morning, in my email, lo! another one appeared! Blowout #2, here I come--filling up my Kindle!
New books! I can't tell you how excited I am--buying an armload (even a virtual, electronic one) of new books all at once--that's not something I ever let myself do any more--first from a lack of shelf space and later (after the Frugality Program set in, during my last bout of unemployment) because of the cost.
At the moment, though, I'm re-reading Dickens, though. It's a real advantage to be in love with authors whose works are in the public domain. Not necessarily because I was able to download all their works for free, but because doing so inspired me to re-read the books.
If I ever wondered why I kept giving them shelf room all these years--now I remember.
In the middle of David Copperfield at the moment. The villains are a bit over-drawn, especially for modern sensibilities, and Our Hero is a bit of a doormat, but those faults are offset by the endless battle of the donkeys and by the immortal Micawbers.
I don't know why I thought you'd care about any of that.
Hello, hello.
So much time has passed--so little to report.
I'd like to add a bit of drama--Louie Louie doesn't seem to have liked my last couple of projects for him and is requesting advance access to the next account (a new one, signed up yesterday) before it goes live, so he can check it first.
Although I'm a touch bitter about people who demand a week's worth of work in 48 hours, then carp about the quality of the product--or who provide vague instructions and are subsequently surprised not to get what they pictured--I'm not feeling crabby today, so we'll let it pass. (Also, I just received the check for last month's work for him and am reminded of why I do this.)
I'll also pass on whining about getting yet another client who wants to "help."
It's what I call Edit Syndrome. When faced with a blank page (or empty account), no one is willing to commit to--or even has a clue about--what they want. Once someone else creates a draft, suddenly everyone's an expert in what it should have said or how it should have been done and they're all eager to edit to show off what they know.
Bah.
It snowed last night, but didn't amount to much. An inch or less. The roads were a bit icy this morning (or, so those who have to commute on them have told me) but the sun is shining and it's all warm and beautiful out there today.
I've been spending what seems to be a ridiculous amount of money recently--90% of it at the grocery store. Stepping onto the scales reveals that yes, I did put on a holiday half-pound or pound, but not more than that, so it wasn't some kind of junk food binge.
I suspect it's the diet. Eating "healthy" food is much more expensive than eating junk. You often see bags of potato chips on sale BOGO (Buy One, Get One free) but you don't see bunches of celery or bags of oranges on sale that way. Produce only goes on sale when it's at the overripe "eat it today or throw it away" stage.
Fresh fruit--I've been on a watermelon kick but it's out of season now and getting pricey. Have to stop indulging in that.
Partly I've been stocking up on ingredients (if freezable) for new recipes I'm pretending I'm going to try. (My leisure reading, when I'm on a diet, is often cookbooks. I search for appetizers or healthy food combinations that have reasonable nutrition stats per portion.) (Also, I find cooking very entertaining. I'm not good at it, but I find it entertaining.)
I tried a new recipe this weekend--a shrimp-based appetizer, that turned out to be quite delicious. Shrimp, cucumber, avocado, red onion, tomato (the recipe called for red bell peppers, but I loathe those, so I added tomato for color instead), green onion, cilantro, jalapenos. Sounds like it would bite back, but the 'bitey' ingredients were used in very small quantities so it turned out very flavorful instead.
I've been eating that and RAT sandwiches alternately for the last 48 hours. (Leftover ingredients--Red onion, Avocado, Tomato. Put 'em together on a crusty roll with a tiny smidgeon of cilantro paste and some black pepper and chow down.)
I like a nice veggie sandwich although I find them challenging. Because so many veggies have high moisture content, they're slippery. I do hate a sandwich that, when you bite it, half the ingredients slide out the other side. Maybe I should buy some of those "pocket" rolls with no open end for things to escape from?
I didn't really have anything to say today. You know that's true when I'm talking about sandwiches.
Oysters
Remember when I said I didn’t know what was wrong with my head the last time I posted? I know now. My transition from the corporate cubicle world to self-employment, though it seemed to be seamless and simple on the surface, had the back, bottom, and sides of my brain in some turmoil. Had a tiny meltdown there for a few days.
I quit my job!
In a sinking economy where even the corporate-owned nightly newscasters have started mentioning, quite matter-of-factly, that while unemployment and poverty rose in the last quarter, the rich got a lot richer, I left the dull but secure safety net of a stable job for the uncertainty of going it on my own.
At an age when I expected to be anticipating an early, and well-funded, retirement, with my retirement funds stagnant—as they have been for the last 11 years—I decided to give up my paycheck?
Not all my preparation—thinking about it for two years, talking about it incessantly, having enough funds on-hand to keep me going for a few months, etc., seems to have convinced all of my brain that, (a) this was going to happen, and (b) it was okay to make the decision.
I think it was three or four days ago that it all actually fell in on me—the idea that I was going to quit my job with only a tiny and unstable income in sight, I mean. Since that was easily two months too late for me to change my mind, I went ahead and adapted.
I’m better now.
It’s much too later to bore y’all with the work details of the last month. Highlights include one account that I didn’t expect to come on board actually taking the plunge, adding a small amount to the aforementioned tiny income, a new account from Louie Louie materializing yesterday, adding another critical mite of bill-paying funding, another Louie Louie account lurking in the wings, a moderate account from the Sandwich Man (another agency), that could sign on this month, and a solid nibble from a stand-alone account that would, if it develops, double my current income.
There. In a nutshell and drama-free.
Pearls
My holidays were fantabulous, as they tend to be. I got the usual mix of games, books, toiletries, and foodstuffs, all of which delighted me.
I took a chance and asked Santa for the new version of Final Fantasy III they released for the DS. I was a bit concerned—I’ve been doing mostly just farming games for the last 2-3 years and wasn’t sure if I was “up” to anything more challenging any more, but I’m moving right through it, and having a ball.
Santa also brought me Rune Factory 3, but I’m saving that one. I haven’t even finished my birthday game (Harvest Moon: Tale of Two Towns) yet and bouncing between two games at once is as much as my brain can handle.
I made holiday cards again this past fall—store-bought ones are cheaper and nicer but making cards gives me something to do with my hands in the evenings besides eating. Because I didn’t get them actually mailed, family members can expect to see theirs as “new year greetings” showing up in the next week. No one else I know actually sends cards, so I’m going to let them off the hook and stop sending those. The R.C. wrote a holiday letter, which inspired me to write one of my own for inclusion. (I’m a big copier of others’ notions.)
Now, post-meltdown, I’m back to what will become my “regular” work schedule. Today, so far, I’ve showered*, attended a regular idea-sharing chat session by way of “professional education”, finished one load of laundry and started a second one, and run an armload of reports for the new account I need to reorganize and get working by Thursday. All very productive and peaceful.
Also, I made a pot of tea. I’m becoming very fond of sipping a civilized cup of tea throughout the day. A pot of tea—something that would be very difficult to make in an office, is becoming symbolic of my new freedom.
Freedom. Not leisure.
There is more--but I'll blog again soon. Right now, I need to go do some work.
Hope your holidays were the most wonderful ever, and that 2012 brings nothing but peace, prosperity, and joy to you and your loved ones!
_______________________
* Not a thing I can take for granted. I’m finding that the water in this building tends to be off unexpectedly once or twice a week. Not always for long—often less than an hour—but long enough to make the morning pot of coffee and shower a bit unpredictable.