I was in line at McDonald’s the other day (yes, vegetarians can eat there – I “eat” the milkshakes) when a surly man walked right in front of me as I pulled up to the take-out window. He tossed his sandwich back through the window at the waitress and said, “There’s no f-ing tomatoes on…
Time Off
A friend of mine was saying yesterday how she’s trying to use up her vacation time at work. Since leaving the company we were both at to the one she’s at now, she’s gone from burning through vacation days to forgetting to take them. I listened to her, completely baffled how anyone could forget to…
Do You Have the Chops?
There’s an interesting discussion going on over at Peter Bowerman’s blog right now about becoming self-sufficient at your writing career. You can find it here. The trouble I see, the trouble I often see, is that writers are willing to put enough effort into the career to get it going, but don’t realize that it…
The Inevitable Editor
I’m writing this Monday morning, though you won’t see it until Tuesday. I’ve just run into yet another instance of the “editor” coming out in the non-editing person. It never fails; you give someone the opportunity to edit and they’re going to take it and abuse the power. A current project is proof. I asked…
Union or Not?
We’ve all lamented the lower wages, the lack of insurance, and the general invisibility of our freelance existences. However, if there were a union of like-minded souls out there hell-bent on advocacy and group insurance coverage, would you join? The Freelancer’s Union is a 75K+ conglomeration of freelancers from across the country and across industries….
The Dream Meme
Bob Younce over at The Writing Journey has taken on a lot of memes lately. One standout: the Dream Meme. The rules, which I lifted nearly verbatim from Bob’s post, are as follows: Write a short paragraph describing your dream. What is it that you want to accomplish? It doesn’t have to be career-related, though…
Why I Hate Bidding Sites, and Why You Should, Too
There are some pretty crappy job postings out there on the Internet, and a few of them prompted more than one post from me begging you to avoid job posting sites. Yet even with the $4-an-article job posts we’ve all seen and avoided, there are some job postings that are worse. Yes, worse. Kathy Kerhli…
Revisionist History
I have a friend who is a wonderful person, but whose memory of the past is steeped with imagination. Recently, she took a piece of personal history and revised it to sound like one of our mutual friends, who was approaching a business deal very cautiously, was an absent-minded putz. I had to remind her…
Havin’ a Heat Wave…
Who wants to work when it’s sweltering out? Sure, I’m sitting in an air-conditioned house, but the study is on the southern side, so by noon, I’m going to be marinating in my own sweat. That I have to interview someone at 1 makes it tougher to be in this room, but I can escape…
Friday’s Favorite Blog Posts
Forgive the late posting here today. I was tied up with a complex project all morning and just managed to sign off on the first pass. Somehow, I now feel like another vacation is in order… I was tooling around the blogs this week and found some real gems. First, on CatalystBlogger: The Benefits of…