And a few other things I want the young ‘uns to know
Kids born around the turn of the century (like mine) are
digital natives, born into an age of technology that the rest of us have
watched develop and evolve. They either
assume that the lifestyle they take for granted and enjoy was always there, or
that everyone over 30 was born in the Stone Age.
So, to satisfy their curiosity, and on behalf of those of us who didn’t have programming code embedded in their DNA, here are a few things Gen Whatever-Letter-We’re-On-Right-Now need to know.
“What was it like back in the olden days, when you were a little girl … you know, before electricity?”
Electricity was around before we were born. But gas stoves still make the best grilled cheese sandwiches.
We only had one TV channel, and it didn’t run all night. It signed on in the morning and signed off at night. If you were bored, you would sit and watch the test pattern, which was a very interesting series of circles and lines. If you were extra bored, you switched to a dead channel and watched the snow.
For a long time, all shows were in black and white. I was six or seven before I discovered that Big Bird was yellow.
We didn’t have remote controls. You had to get up and turn a dial if you wanted the TV louder or softer. Better yet, you made your little sister get up and change it, and while she was doing that, you took her space on the couch.
You only got to see cartoons on Saturday mornings. Woe betide you if you had extra lessons on a Saturday; you’d miss Spiderman and the Flintstones for a whole term.
Once in a while, for no reason whatsoever, your radio suddenly started yelling at you in Spanish. Hence the expression “To cut in like a Spanish radio station.”
When we were out of the house and needed to talk to someone, we had things called “phone booths”, which were teeny little houses with huge phones in them, scattered randomly along the road. You needed 25 cents to make a call, so you usually kept a handful of coins jangling in your purse for this purpose. Most of the time, the phones didn’t work.
You actually had to remember people’s phone numbers, or write them down on paper. If you made a mistake while dialling, you had to hang up and dial again. There was no Back button.
When you needed to buy something, you had to leave your house and go to store. Often, it was your only trip out for the week.
On weekends and during school vacations we rode across the Sahara, forged the Amazon, and hunted crocodiles … all in the empty lot down the street. Our vittles were crackers and peanut butter. Nobody cared what we got up to, as long as we got back before dark.
“You mean, when you were a kid they didn’t have Internet?”
When we had research to do we used these things called “encyclopaedia”, which were thick books that came in sets of 20 or 30, and took up a whole shelf in the library. They were heavy enough to knock a grown man to the floor. We actually had to write stuff down; there was no Wikipedia to cut and paste from.
Power went out. A lot. If it happened at night, you went outside in the yard and played games like “Gypsy in the Moonlight” and “Jane and Louisa will Soon Come Home.” We laughed and told jokes. We didn’t stand by the wireless router and scream at it until power came back.
We talked to our friends face to face. And we knew their real names.
So, yeah, we were born before the
Internet. Instead of Playstation we had
“Play-in-the-yard”. It may not sound
like much to you, but, oh, we had the time of our lives.
Any questions? Any memories to share? Leave them in the comments.
Presenting my first novel in eight years and my first self-published novel. Yay me!
MR. FIX-IT IS VERY GOOD WITH HIS HANDS…. Jenessa Sterling, the sophisticated, successful Corporate Communications Manager of Bianchi’s frozen foods, has a mysterious admirer, who eventually reveals himself to be Mitchell Cooper, the new Head of Maintenance. Tall and hazel-eyed, he’s one of the hottest things to turn up on her horizon in ages, and he’s not afraid to let her know he’s interested.
Jenessa’s flattered, even equally attracted. But there’s one little problem: she’s Management. He’s a glorified handyman. What would her colleagues say? But as her attraction to this sensual, well-read, irresistible man grows, her prejudices begin to fade.
Mitchell is confident enough in his own masculinity that she’ll eventually come around. Far from unlearned and simplistic, he’s a complex, well-educated man who left academia to have more time to care for his 12-year-old niece, Ruby, shielding her from her mother, Mitchell’s crack-addicted sister, Coral. He’s a man who believes in heart, friendship and family.
When sudden layoffs tear the company apart, Jenessa and Mitchell find themselves on opposite sides of an ugly corporate rift, with Jenessa struggling to maintain the company’s reputation, and Mitchell putting his career on the line to bring peace back to the workplace and support the people he believes in.
Their relationship doesn’t sit well with the rest of Bianchi’s, either. His staff think he’s sleeping with the enemy. Her people have threatened to sink her chances of attaining the coveted Vice Presidency if she continues the relationship.
When Mitchell’s sister’s bid to recover Ruby turns dangerous, the couple must refocus their attentions on keeping her safe. In so doing, they forget the barriers between them and discover that love, passion and the bonds of family are enough.
In the last week of January, days before my XXth birthday (but that’s irrelevant), I began taking Upwork seriously. I’d signed up on a whim some time last year and never returned. Now, with the local economy sucking as it currently does, it was clear that if I was to continue to enjoy my indoor-pool, designer crockpot, Bahamas-vacation lifestyle, I was going to have to look beyond these shores for work. Hence, the freelance site, Upwork.
In just three months, I’ve been upgraded to Top Rated
status, with straight five-star reviews and a customer satisfaction rating that
vacillates between 96% and 100%. Not being boasty; being facty. And today I
want to share with my fellow freelancers and side-hustlers what I’ve learned.
Much has been said about how hard it is to eke out an
existence on freelance sites, but if you learn the tricks, you can make a good
living.
Upwork is more than writing
I’m a writer and editor, yes, so that’s the field I’m
registered in, but as long as you can deliver a service long distance, whatever
it may be, there are people looking for you.
Work that profile
I spent days on my profile, polishing and primping, checking
it over again and again, making sure I looked as good as a Miss World pageant
applicant, shiny teeth and all. I thought about everything a client would want
to know about me, and everything I have achieved that might put me ahead of the
competition. This is not a time for modesty.
Check the job listings frequently
Check the job listings relevant to your field of expertise several
times a day. In just an hour, an attractive listing can garner 20 applications.
You want to be in early.
Check them first thing when you get up and last thing before
you go to bed. Remember there are English-speaking clients on the other side of
the world—Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc.—who are up and posting
while you sleep. Get in on that!
Keep your proposals clear, thoughtful and appropriate
Be clear about what you are offering, how and when you intend to deliver. Don’t apply for a job if you have doubts about your ability to fulfill their requirements. You will screw that shit up, and a pissed-off client will blast you in the reviews.
Speaking of which . . .
Remember you are being monitored
All the time. Clients can review your performance after your
contract is up, and you can review theirs. Upwork also has an algorithm running
in the background that measures “customer satisfaction” according to a number
of undisclosed factors. These include how fast you respond, how fast you
deliver, how many clients come back asking for you, etc.
There are a few traps I consider unfair. For example, if a client chooses not to review you, it is considered negative, so your rating is affected even when there is no activity. I had a client who was so excited he gushed about what I’d done and rehired me, but he’s not good with computers so couldn’t find the review button. No stars for me, and Upwork thinks he’s pissed off.
I also learned that if the FREELANCER clicks “end contract”
it mitigates against you, as opposed to if the CLIENT does. Sucks, eh?
Ask for your review
If your client doesn’t fill out the review field, politely
ask, explaining that it impacts on your future jobs. Most of them comply.
Read your proposal carefully
Some clients bury traps and loopholes in their job listing to catch out the slackers who madly apply for every damn job. Like, at the end of a long listing, they will ask you to write “Butterfly” at the start of your proposal. This is to ensure that you have read the entire thing.
Proofread, proofread, proofread
Don’t let a perfectly good proposal be overlooked because of
a misspelling or grammatical error. If they have 20 people to choose from and
you spell something wrong, consider your ass kicked to the curb.
Separate yourself from the herd
A nice little note like this at the end of a contract lets them know they are special to you.
Clients receive a dazzling number of proposals, especially for the more lucrative posts. How do they choose? Apart from your excellent profile, your qualifications and your carefully framed post, they choose YOU for YOU.
I have asked clients why they picked me out of the pack, and they have all told me, apart from my experience and portfolio, it was my personality. Your proposals must be warm, approachable and fresh . . . but still businesslike. They ain’t your buddy.
Suck it up
Prosperity on Upwork is built upon your reputation, ratings,
and experience. You need to put some time in the trenches for people to take
you seriously. This means that at the outset, you must be willing to take jobs
for a little less that you’re normally earn IRL.
Think of it as paying your dues, or making a sacrifice for
free advertisement. Your focus at the outset must be on EARNING YOUR STARS. My
first job, I was paid US$35. And I worked on that project FOR DAYS. The result
was a five-star rating, an invitation to become one of their permanent writers
(I declined) and the promise that they will come to me whenever they have
another book to edit. Two of my clients have since offered me 10-book and
6-book contracts for a tidy sum of money.
In time, as your profile rises, you will no longer have to
go looking for them; they will come looking for YOU.
Hang on to your self-respect
By the same token, don’t be so focused on building your
stars that you let people take advantage of you. There are clients out there
who, like certain *cough* jeans and sneaker companies, have no problem
leveraging their first-world status over us third-worlders. But you do not live
in Bangladesh. You cannot feed your entire tribe on $1 a day.
I will never forget the client who, in my first week, very
snidely and patronisingly offered me US$2 for each 500-word article I wrote. “You
can get stars,” he dangled before me, “and you can write as many a day as you
like!”
Um . . . IRL I get TT$1 a word from my corporate clients. I
declined as sweetly and politely as I could, even though the urge to cuss him
and all his generations was strong in me. I kept it classy.
Get yourself a Payoneer card
For my Trini homies, it can be hard to sign up with these sites if they demand a US bank account. You can get around that by applying for a Payoneer debit card. It’s secure and reliable, and Upwork pays directly to it. Try Payoneer.com .
Every client is a VIP
It doesn’t matter if they’re paying you $50 or $300; their
job is important to THEM. Treat it as such. Give your all, no matter what you’re
earning. Be respectful, hard-working, and honest with your time calculations.
Every job you deliver should be the best you have ever done. Their happiness
(and your stars) will be your reward.
Google your client
Try to find their Facebook, Insta, Twitter, whatever. You
might learn a bit about them, and how to approach them. You might also get some
red flags. I was very excited about one client I applied to. The job sounded so
cool . . . and then I discovered in
several online newspapers that he was indicted for a series of major federal
offences and was looking at doing a dime behind bars if he was ever convicted.
So, yeah.
Keep at it
Upwork is a commitment. Like a delicate houseplant, it needs
daily attention. But if you water it, feed it, give it lots of air, sunlight
and love, it will thrive.
What do you think? Any experiences to share? comment below.
