I don't know how many of you are freelancers, or free, freefallin', but here is how it always goes. It has been fairly slow ever since I got back from Seattle. A couple hours here, 45 minutes there. But I have not feared. No, I have not. Because I knew this would happen.
The statistics place said they were sending me a book. "I'm getting a book," I told Marvin. "To proofread?" he said.
(...!)
I have been proofreading since 1997. "To proofread?" No. To scribble in. It's a Dick and Jane book. I thought I'd try my hand at this whole illiteracy issue I've been dealing with. To proofread.
So for the past few days I've been getting the weeds out my yard, which suddenly are so plentiful, in anticipation of this book, because once I get one of these books ("to proofread?") I can do little else.
You should see me when I am finished, finally at the FedEx (!!!) drop box. I look like I have just finished the Spanish-American War. I do not know why I look like I completed that particular war, I just wanted to pick a war. But I am exhausted, my clothes are tattered, I have circles under my eyes, and I am sort of giddy that it's over. I can't even imagine what that drop box thinks of me.
As I was weeding, I was thinking how nice it'd be to only concentrate on one book, since things have been slow. I could really find all sorts of weird things, like kerning issues and weird rules around photos and all sorts of crap proofreaders like to find. And maybe I could even beat the deadline like my annoying overachieving friend Tank, who also proofreads for the same company. I got him the job, and the woman we work with told me how grateful she was I found Tank, and how he sometimes beats the deadlines.
It never occurred to me to BEAT the deadline. I have never missed one, but BEAT it?
Stupid people-pleasing accurate Swiss Tank.
Anyway as I was gardening and having that thought, my phone was ringing, and I did not even see the message for several hours. It was my old company, where I worked full time, wondering if I could do some freelance work for them, as I have done in the past.
I called them, and they said, "We have five books for you, and here are the deadlines..." They rattled off some deadlines, all the way through August. "Sure," I said. "Really?" They sounded excited. "Are you sure?" "Yeah," I said. "Cindy is over here jumping up and down," they told me.
Okay, the part where they got so excited started to make me nervous. I started to wonder if I agreed to do something absolutely impossible. Yesterday I went to pick the work up, and I had to set the box down twice on the way to the car, so laden with the words was it.
Then of course you know what happened. YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED.
I got an email from a doctor who I have not talked to since 2005. I proofread a book for her, and now she has written another one. Of course. And she wants it proofread. Now. Of course. I would really like to do it, because the last one was interesting and I cannot wait to get all new diseases. I quoted her a price, though, and I think I hear her screaming all the way in Malibu.
So I guess we'll see if I get that one. It's hard to tell people how much you want to charge for your services. You kind of have to, you know, feel like you're worth something. And then people come back and say, "You aren't worth that much" and it's kind of awful.
At any rate, I guess I will be busy through August, and that's good, right?
I guess I should, you know, start. But before I go, I was busy on Facebook this morning, not starting, and a friend posted an interesting question. He is a fancy person for GM and wondered what we thought of businesses looking at your Facebook page and so forth before they hire you.
My first thought was I hate it. Get out my personal life. But then one of his other (literally) 700 friends got on and said he was a business owner and when he hires someone, it's an investment of his time and money, and nowadays you can't really get an accurate reference anymore, because of lawsuits and such, and putting stuff on Facebook is like taking out a newspaper ad about yourself. He said he goes on and finds out as much as he can about a person before he hires them and spends all his money and his time on this person.
Yes, it's an invasion of privacy, but I can kind of see his point. What say you about this phenomenon of employers searching your info online?
