The life and death of a coffee mug

Publications Professionals is one of the agencies I'm registered with.

After I passed their three-hour test, they got me a temp job in 2002 at K12 Inc. that turned into a permanent job. Shortly after I started that temp assignment, PP's prez stopped by to say hello and give me this coffee mug.

Since I quit the K12 job in 2007, PP has not given me a single assignment, despite my numerous requests.

I am going to figure out a most pleasing way to smash the coffee mug to smithereens.

By the way, could they have done a worse job with the selection of the "PP" fonts!

Worthless

I emailed my contact at one of my temp agencies in DC to ask if she had any work for me. (I've had all of six days of work from her this year, in Jan. and Feb.) She doesn't have anything for me. Here's part of her response:

Haha Hey there! [WTF kind of greeting is that!]

Thanks so much for reaching out [Can she be any more unoriginal.]. . . . What’s the latest with you and your projects? [It's none of her f**kin' business.]

To-do list

Get a haircut and trim my beard for a job interview on Tuesday.


Those are two, among countless reasons why I prefer virtual work.

What is beyond "profound ambivalence"?

Whatever it is, I've got it regarding going back into an office job.

On the one hand, I now have complete control over my schedule/daily routine. On the other, if I were to get one of the FT jobs I applied for, I'd have to commute in rush-hour traffic almost two hours a day to toil in a office among a group of people which no doubt would contain some I don't want anything to do with; not to mention all the other BS that comes with a regular job.

The last time I worked in an office was September '09. It is almost unimaginable to see myself ending my two and half years of freedom.

Notwithstanding the need for income, my Little Man Inside is screaming, "Have I taught you nothing!"

Dreamscape

Last night I had a dream in which the main "character" was a street named "Freedom Road."

Being trapped in the whirl of hustling to get freelance work is a bitch.

WTF did you contact me?

I received the following (with some more details) on Dec. 12 from an Aquent rep:

"I found your resume in our database, and you look like you'd be a great fit for a job opportunity I have available for a part-time Editor/Proofreader.

"I'd like to share more details with you. If you're interested, drop me a note and I'll give you a call."

I emailed her. No response.

I called her. She said she'd send me an email with a number of different times from which I could choose, so she could call me at a convenient time for me. No email.

I've subsequently sent her four emails, expressing my interest. No response.

Clearly, she contacted me solely for the purpose of meeting some kind of quota.

I will continue to send her emails, just to be a pain in the ass.

HR going by another name

An email I got from Aquent yesterday brings back vivid memories of what I experienced countless times over many years and call "the temp agency tease," as in "we've got something perfect for you yadda yadda yadda."

I called the Aquent rep yesterday, and rather than talk with me about the position, she said she'd email a list of times she could call, and that I should pick one. I still haven't received the email.

I have no doubt that temp agency reps have an incentive to make a certain number of contacts a week, month, or whatever. I know of what I speak. I've dealt with many of them. I have an interview this week with The Creative Group in DC that might very well turn out the same way.

People who work for temp agencies are in effect HR folks, and we know about them. I think they're recruiters who couldn't make the cut into the more prestigious and higher-paying agencies. This is not cynicism; this is the reality of temping through agencies.

Editing test, a first

I sent a cold letter of inquiry re freelance work to a publishing company in NoVA, after seeing a craigslist post for a managing editor position (I think that's what it was; in any case it mentioned managing freelancers). I got a response today, with an 8-page editing test. Among the instructions was this: 

"3. Please supply a document-specific style sheet; it should show (1) a list of specific vocabulary terms and word spellings/usage particular to this document; (2) conventions for number usage; (3) acronyms used in the document; (4)  hyphenation usage (specific hyphenated terms) in this chapter; (5) special symbols used, if any; and (5) a query list (referencing the approximate line number where the query occurs within your edited file)."

I don't think so.

FT job vs. freelancing

No contest. Here are my top 10 pros and a couple of cons:
Weight down
Blood pressure down
Sugar level down
Cholesterol down
Stress down
Sleep and work when I want to
No commute
No dry cleaning bill
Work with people I like (me)
Staff meetings I actually enjoy (self-reflection)
Two major drawbacks: Medicare health coverage sucks; can't get a handle on the income tax area

The joy of freelancing

Stayed up until 2 this morning to watch "The Social Network" (highly recommended). Woke up a bit too early, doing some work for a while, then back to bed to catch up on sleep. And so it goes at the office today.

Approaching Milestone

I wanted to see if I've hit 3,000 articles yet for my freelance online editing gig.

Since starting last May 13, I've edited 2,796 articles. Based on an average of 350 words per article (could be more), I've edited close to one million words.

Prolonged drudgery does not equal accomplishment (but it will pay my income tax bills).

This image allegedly contains one million words:

Bud's Lexicon: An "R" Entry

retirement (n.): the condition of renewed exhaustion resulting from performing six months of full-time freelance editing after leaving full-time employment

ICM

Right after I logged into Facebook around midnight, I stared at the screen and realized that I had reached my Internet Critical Mass.

ICM was brought about by the now overwhelming combination of the Gmail notifier, online editing, my news and music habits, blogging, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and Twitter, and probably more.

I'm pulling back, way back, before the Internet totally consumes me.

Less Net. More Movement.

A Noble Profession

I (and countless other editors) often complain about how our profession is a thankless one.

At best, we're invisible, taken for granted, overworked, underpaid, and unappreciated. At worst, well, the litany is too long and painful to get into here.

But there are days—and today is one of them for me—when my work transcends being just a job and feels like the noble profession that it truly is.

This morning I've been doing my online article editing. And my article queue has been a blessing of a kind, a true gift from above. It has been rife with articles that, through my editing, will, I believe, enrich the lives of the those poor computer-challenged souls, some of whom might be developmentally challenged as well. To wit:

• "How to Read Help Files on Vista"


• "How to End a Software Installation in Progress"


• "How to Delete All Messages in Outlook Express at Once"

My cup runneth over.

Milestone of sorts

As of this morning, I've edited 2,010 articles for my online editing gig, which began last May 13.

I can say without hesitation that, as a result, I now know hardly anything about a great many more subjects.

Where Bad Writing Goes To Die

Here's how my online article editing job works in terms of article selection.

After I log in, I pull up my queue which contains ten titles ready for editing. I can select any one of the ten. Once I pick one, I can do one of three things with it: edit/approve/submit it, edit it and submit it to the writer for a rewrite (this generally seeks clarification), or save it back to the hold area of my queue. If I choose the latter, I have 24 hours to edit it.

If, however, I don't return to that article within 24 hours, it will go back into general circulation for another editor to select.

It is reasonable to conclude that many editors use this option to avoid working on articles that are so badly written, they can't bear the thought of spending an inordinate amount of time to salvage them. After all, we're paid per article, so working on articles of this nature cuts deeply into our hourly pay.

I exercised this option today with an article about online banking. The introduction contained these nuggets:

"Traditional banking and all it alludes is slowly becoming a thing of the past." And: "Online banking gives you access to self serving features."

That was more than enough for me to send the article post haste to the Death Pool. I would imagine that there are some articles out there that don't see the light of day for quite a while, as one editor after another throws them into the dark abyss.

Working at home, cont'd

Seasonal upside: I don't have to deal with that Secret Santa crap and devote precious brain power to decide what to buy for an a'hole co-worker.

MY Three Sirens

I may have left FT employment, but my freelance editing requires at least as much time as I was putting in on my job prior to "retirement."

Today, for example, I spent five hours copy editing on my current book project, then many more hours editing sixteen online articles followed by seven mystery shopper reports (my latest freelance job).

Sometimes I think it would be better to simply crash into the rocks. This is a ridiculous way to spend my "golden years."

Call me Ishmael Odysseus.

Sailing Solo

I received my final paycheck today from my former employer.

The U.S.S. Bud is now officially a rogue ship broken off from the mother fleet.

Coming about. Hard alee!

Former House Ways & Means Committee staffer turned freelance writer?

Sometimes within a sentence or two, I regret having clicked on a particular title in my article queue (for my online editing job). Usually that which starts badly only gets worse.

To wit: The introduction to an article on roundtable conferences includes, "This process is a peaceful one, sometimes heated, yet it's a ways to a means."

That phrase could only work as a response to the following question posed to a hitchhiker by a lost motorist: "Excuse me. Could you tell me how far it is to Ameenz?"