Conant Correct by Claire Conant

Have you ever wanted a job really badly and then were so heart-broken that you didn’t get it? Did you wind up discouraged for days and start doubting your abilities, undermining your confidence?

Early in my career, I used to go through this anguish when job hunting. However, I no longer experience this, as I learned a few things along the way. I’ll share what has worked for me, and hopefully some of this will work for you too. In the world of freelancing, contracting, or running my own business, I keep these thoughts front and center so a lost client, a lost gig, a lost opportunity doesn’t ruin my day, week, or month.

1. Have faith in the universe. Opportunities come and go, just like trains. There will be another better opportunity along in ten minutes.

2. Don’t take the rejection personally. Often the job you think you really want is one that you weren’t really suited for. Someone other than you had a vision of what they needed, and somehow your skills didn’t match up. You may never know why, exactly, but it’s not you personally. Even if it was you, would you want to work somewhere or with people with whom you clashed?

3. In time, you may get to see how not getting the job (or client) was just the right thing for you. I recently found out that a colleague I once worked for was select for a job I thought I wanted. It was a prestigious opportunity, rubbing elbows with multi-million dollar clients, including those at the Bill Gates level, and would have meant long-term, steady income. However, in chatting with this colleague today, I realized that I wouldn’t have liked what she is doing now anyway. It’s too fast paced, too technical, and half the time she has to be onsite. Sometimes there are hidden criteria to the job that the client or prospective employer doesn’t let on about because it’s not enticing or appealing. It will surface somehow. Be grateful  you dodged the bullet.

4. Don’t cry when a job ends before you are ready. This is somewhat related to #1, but having had several jobs end in my career involuntarily - layoff, merger, reorganization, downsizing - I’ve learned to go with the flow. Change is mandatory and part of life. It’s rare these days that jobs last for a lifetime. Economies ebb and flow, which in turn means businesses ebb and flow, and it’s all like a wonderful coordinated waltz.

5. The worst things that ever happened to me always turned out to be the best things that ever happened to me. Looking back over all the job changes I’ve had - especially when I was a corporate wage slave - when an involuntary change came along (I’ve never been fired), I can now see how the next job that came along was even better. I also can see that everything I learned in each job set me up for success in the next one.

6. It’s all about your attitude. I firmly believe that my attitude helps me adapt to changes, even when they are changes I don’t like, or things turn out differently than how I wanted. Keeping a positive attitude helps me stay focused on the bigger picture and the finer things in life. After all, it’s just a job. See #1. Next!

In a fast-paced world, full of instant gratification, fast information, quick, lightening speed visuals and sounds, it’s important to stop and read - or listen to - what your clients are telling you before you go running off to solve their problems. This is particularly true of support people of all types. I consider myself a support person of sorts, as I’m supporting an author or a client to make their message heard.

This particular topic comes up as I am dealing with a technical support person at TechSmith - creator of this fabulous new tool called Jing, that my colleague, Beth over at Life on Avenue Z, told me about.

I downloaded Jing and it’s the sweetest screen capture invention for free that I’ve seen yet. It shows up as a little half sun on the edge of your computer screen. When you hover over it, it expands to give you three options of capture. Click one, and off you go. You can even reposition where the half sun sits on your monitor.

After a few days, I needed to contact HP support for a completely  unrelated issue. After that issue was resolved to my satisfaction, I restarted my computer and noticed that Jing was no longer working. The half sun was frozen in place and was inactive. The only way I could get JIng to work was by launching the commands from the task bar - not my preferred method because I think that Jing’s screen launcher is the coolest method. So, I uninstalled Jing, and then reinstalled it. Still not working. I sent Techsmith an email with the problem:

"I love this tool, however, after a session with HP tech support yesterday for an unrelated issue, Jing is not working. I have the yellow half-sun graphic, with a black quarter circle near it, and when I hover over the yellow half sun, nothing works, but it did before. Hmmm. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Jing, but still the same issue."

Their response:

"We have had a few reports of this problem, but we have not yet found what is the cause. It is interesting that you describe this happening after working with HP. What kind of problem were you troubleshooting, was this a problem with your computer, or were you servicing a printer? Please give me some details of what was done on that call, as it may offer a clue as to what made this change in Jing’s behavior.
I would also like to get a System info file to help me troubleshoot this problem. Please click start > run and type msinfo32.exe then hit "ok". This brings up System Information. Click file > save as.. to save a .nfo report. Attach this to your reply."

Since there was no "save as" option, I sent them a .txt file - a bit nervous though as to why they need all that information. That file offers up everything about my computer. How do I know this support person is honest? But, I digress…

So, my response to her added more clarification:

"We were troubleshooting why my built-in microphone wasn’t working after Microsoft had me change my operating system from Vista Home Premium to Vista Enterprise. I loaded Jing onto Vista Enterprise and it worked fine. Then the troubleshooting with HP - we updated audio drivers and the BIOS. That’s all that I know we did - HP had remote control, but I was watching. I’ve attached the system information as a text file. There was no "save as" option, only save or export, so I chose export. Hope this helps. Oh, and Jing works, if I choose the image capture from the taskbar, not from the half sun at the top. I can’t move the half sun or get it to work, so I just turn off Jing now when I reboot."

Here’s the response I just got back that fried my eggs this morning:

"your system info file is not useful in this format, please try this again, and choose "Save" to save in the .nfo format.
If you updated your audio components or major Windows components after installing Jing, this may be causing Jing to not appear correctly. Please unisntall Jing, then reinstall Jing, and let me knwo if this solves the problem.
Jing should still work for you, this is just a display problem. If you click "More" in the task tray icon for Jing, then go into preferences, you can uncheck "show launcher" to make the sun icon at top go away, then you can use Jing from either the task tray, or you can also set a hotkey, also in the preferences window.
Please advise."

Um…. didn’t I already tell her all that? In my first message I told her I’d already uninstalled and reinstalled it. I also tole her that it still works from the task tray (what I called the taskbar.)

Seriously. If you are a tech support person - and I say this as a reminder to myself as well - make time to stop, digest what your client tells you, before shooting from the hip. This tells the client you respect their time, you respect them, and it also gives you all the information you need - or most of it - to really troubleshoot the problem successfully and quickly, the first time - without ticking off your customer and making them repeat themselves.

And now I’ll probably have to eat my own words because I could be firing this off too fast and someone else reading my messages to the support people could be as equally confused as she was - so perhaps it’s all my fault anyway.

One of the reasons I’m not posting here as frequently as I recommend (daily) is that my site needs help. While I love the layout and the look of it (I’ve received lots of positive comments on the header), it just is not receptive to subscriptions and adding cool widgets like Twitter and such to the sidebars. More importantly, I did something to the template, or it’s how my site is hosted, that my site shows up with no name when people try to subscribe with RSS. It needs some serious overhauling and a better template.

A good site needs more than just good looks or good copy. It needs to be interactive. I want people to be able to come here and chat (as in leave comments - and I want to be notified when a comment is left - right now, I’m not notified.)

Lately, I just don’t have the time to fix it, and that nagging concern bugs me daily. I may just have to take time out of my already packed schedule of writing and editing - and living life - to redo it and choose a better template. God forbid, I actually hire someone to do it for me. That would be the logical thing to do, and I’d recommend it, but I have zero budget for that right now.

Anyone up for some trading? Are you a good blog/web site developer and need your content edited or written? I’ll write, you code. Let me know.

Since I don’t have anything for you right now, let me introduce you to my friend and fellow writer’s, Moonbeam McQueen. She has just posted her solution to writer’s block. Hilarious.

I read Moonbeam McQueen’s blog regularly. She is talented with a fresh sense of humor and creativity that I find inspiring. I hope you enjoy her as much as I do.

What do you do when you work at home, you’re a freelancer, and you get sick? Do you call in to yourself?

"Self, I’m sick. I’ll be staying home today."

"Okay, Self. Hope you feel better soon."

Seriously, though. It’s been a long time since I’ve really been sick with the flu, mostly, I think, because I’m not cooped up in those airtight offices that are breeding grounds for germs. I stay away from sick people, for the most part. When I did get sick, I think the worst part was trying to get ready for work, make myself at least feel presentable, and commuting in to the office. Once there, I could barricade myself at my desk and sniffle away.

Now, working at home, I don’t have to worry about that. Another gift of being self-employed and contracting my services. I can rest when I need to, work when I have bursts of energy, and still meet my deadlines.

(Not my actual window, but close to it, except there’s no view of the lake from my window. Image courtesy of easyart.com)

The sun is out, the breeze is blowing softly through the windows, I can hear the birds chirping, and the solitude is the best ever for editing and doing the work I do. I feel extremely lucky. No corporate stuffy, stifled, enclosed office cube with dust mites, fluorescent overhead lighting, re-circulated air that recycles germs, and windows that don’t open. No noisy neighbors gossiping outside my cube. No sitting in traffic for two hours a day. At lunch, I can walk through my tree-lined neighborhood and go get fresh veggies from the supermarket a mile away, or a Subway sandwich, or take Lily for a walk.

If we could all work like this - rather, if corporations realized the benefit in telecommuting - there would be less traffic, happier people, less pollution, gas prices might even go down because we wouldn’t be using so much gas, and life would be grand. Now, I’m not naïve - I do realize that some people have to be in the office or their place of employment. Telecommuting doesn’t work for everyone. I know that. Some people might not even like being at home all the time. But I do, and it works fabulously for me. Just saying.

Now, I really need to edit that doc. TTFN.

Remembering this:

And knowing that sometimes it is absolutely necessary. I love my  job.

PS - This hangs on the wall in my office, right next to the window that I get to look out of and open to let the sweet, almost-summer breeze float through.

A little background

I’ve been writing and editing for years in one fashion or another, but always in the corporate environment, for a long time in Human Resources, and then in the technical communications arena. I have had the opportunity to write and edit just about every type of corporate communication possible. It’s something I enjoy and something I’m good at - or so I’m told.

However, I grew weary of corporate head honchos and other management types determining my worth and setting limits to how successful I am, regardless of how hard I work. A few years ago, I was in my manager’s office. I recall mentioning to him something about starting a writing and editing business. I think then my thoughts were centered more around the idea that he should start it and I’d come work for him.

Consulting anyone?

Fast forward a couple years. That manager left, and I assumed his role - unofficially - leading a team of two technical writers, as well as managing the implementation of a corporate intranet upgrade using Microsoft SharePoint 2007. I was smart enough to know that I was lacking in some critical areas of expertise, so I hired some consultants who could handle the technical side of the implementation and I worked closely with them. It was during this time that I realized I really liked the consultant side of business.

Once the implementation was complete, I changed sides and started to work as an editor for a consulting firm. I absolutely loved it. I loved working with different clients, I loved the exposure to a variety of topics and businesses, and I got to see how the inside of a consulting firm works. I also had the chance to work with some very intelligent and creative people. I remember during the hiring interview telling the hiring manager that I’d start my own writing and editing consulting firm, if I had the courage, which I didn’t at the time.

Change comes unannounced

On December 14, 2007, that consulting firm reorganized and I was essentially laid off. It came as a complete surprise as I was still finishing up a project for a client, and we expected there to be another phase to that project. However, over the holiday period this gave me some time to reflect on my future and what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted more flexibility in my lifestyle, more control over my income, and more control over my career. Starting my business seemed to be the best option.

Starting Up

Once I made the decision to go solo, I came up with a business name and got my business license. That previous consulting company still contracts out work to me and I have work coming in from other places. I’m quickly learning to appreciate the ebb and flow of working for oneself - primarily the financial fluctuations. Once I understood how this worked, I learned to panic less and believe in myself.

Where will it lead?

I really like this new lifestyle I’ve chosen.As I go along, I’ll share with you some of the events that have occurred as I start my own business. I’m not sure where it will all lead. Perhaps someday I’ll own my own staff of fabulous writers and editors, or perhaps I’ll continue on my path of working for myself, by myself. Time will tell.

I found out from my fellow freelance copywriter, Beth from Avenue Z Writing Solutions, that Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2008 is free. So, that’s what I’m using for now. Seeing as there’s only me here, and I don’t (yet) have a complicated employee and accounting system, it seems the easiest way to go. Downloading was easy and with most Microsoft products being released lately, there seems to be an emphasis on usability. I’ll report back with more when I have used it more extensively.

In the world of Agile project management methodology, retrospectives are held at the end of each sprint. A sprint is a short period of time, usually two or three weeks, in which a software is revised and a potentially marketable version is ready for release. I was first introduced to Agile methodology a year ago when I was placed at a forensics software development firm as a technical writer. Retrospectives aren’t a new concept. They are part of the “plan-do-check-act” cycle that most businesses use.  What is different, in my opinion, is the short cycle of review that the Agile methodology employs. I think this short cycle works because memories are fresh and courses can be altered swiftly before the project veers too far off track.

In life, everyone performs retrospectives, but at different periods of time, often at yearly intervals. On New Year’s Eve, we look back at the year to see what occurred and then we look forward to see what we want to do differently. On our birthdays or anniversaries we take stock of our relationship and feel gratitude for our successes or sadness for things that might not have turned out how we had hoped.

I grew up in a family that loved sailing. My father raced small, one or two person boats, and he and my brother were champions in their divisions. At the end of each race, win or lose, while folding the sails, hosing off the boat, and tying up the loose sheets (ropes), there’s discussion about what went wrong or how they nearly lost it to a competitor but with the sails set just right, they won.

Retrospectives inspire change, and I always say to myself, that which does not change dies. The reason retrospectives work is because they help us keep a sharp perspective on where we’ve been and where we want to go. (And I don’t think its a coincidence that the word retrospective is so similar to the word perspective.) Retrospectives keep us focused on doing the right thing so we can be successful at whatever we choose.

How can they work for a freelance writer and editor? The same as they do for a major corporation. The point is that even though I am a freelancer, it’s important that I conduct my daily work life as a business, not as a hobby, if I want to be successful. And how do I do that? I can do this by:

• Defining short-term and long-term goals for my business
• Establishing regular intervals to evaluate my own progress in relation to my goals
• Conduct self evaluations regularly - what did I do well, where can I improve, what additional training do I need?
• Review my finances on a regular basis so I know whether I’m making a profit or a loss
• Be regular and disciplined about my work schedule and activities

I thought of this topic today because I realized it was a year ago today that I started working for a consulting firm and my first client was the software forensics firm mentioned above. I’ve learned about the consulting business from the inside, about Agile methodology, about being unemployed, and how to start my own freelance writing and editing business - all in the last twelve months. My plan is to start documenting some of what I learned and how I can apply that to become a successful small business owner. Stay tuned.

Next up: How did I get here and where do I want to go?

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