The hardest part is getting up in the morning. Especially when you've somehow gotten yourself trapped in this weird website that calls itself a collaboratively filtered data base. I don't even know what that means. Maybe that's why I keep coming back; thinking that somehow it will tell me what that means. I guess I'm expecting it to start speaking through my sound card or something, 'cause reading the words here ain't telling me any more than what I already didn't know.
After finally getting up in the morning, it became harder and harder to actually get dressed. At first, I'd shower, shave and put on some nice clothes. Then I began just putting on shorts and a T-shirt. The showers were the next to go. . . . I haven't shaved in weeks.
I ran into one of my clients at the mall the other day and we were chit chatting. She said, "I guess it's great working from home, isn't it? I mean, you can just sit around and make phone calls in your underwear?"
I said, "Honey, it's gotten to the point that if I'm talking to you on the phone, you're damn lucky if I even have underwear on." That scared her a little bit, I think.
But I still manage to drag myself down to my little home office at some point before noon, where I had ever so neatly put up filing cabinets and shelves and arranged all the nice office furniture. I put the carpet down myself (don't ever try that!) and painted the walls with two coats of neutral, work-related, non-threatening, off-white paint. I put up all my awards (from back when I used to actually work) and pictures and a calendar on the wall. I put two chairs facing my desk where clients could sit as we solved their financial problems. I even bought a little crock pot in which to cook potpourri so it would smell nice in here.
Now it only smells like smoldering nodes. During the day, I log-off and make a couple of phone calls. I might even go put on some clothes and drive to see a client. But it's not usually more than an hour 'til I'm back in my shorts, diving back into the congenitally flittered dogma base, or whatever it is.
(Note to self: /msg Nate or dem bones
and ask them what the fuck this place is.
Yeah, like they know any more than I do.
Forget note to self.)
In the evenings, my family sits upstairs, eating dinner or watching TV, and I say, "I've got to go downstairs and do some work." Work. That's funny.
You folks who get paid by an employer to sit at some job and get on here and waste your whole day are just screwing that employer. And I know who you are and where you work and I also know your immediate supervisor's name. I'm going to be cool for now.
But folks like me who work for themselves, out of their homes, we're the ones really getting hosed here. I don't know what this has cost me so far. Has it made me a better communicator so that when I actually do see a client, I'm better prepared? Does the esoteric smatterings of knowledge I gain here (and who even knows if it's correct?) make me a more well-rounded guy? Does trying to put up with the idiots on here make me more tolerant?
Bottom line? You are getting paid to do this. I'm not. That call to your employer is now on my speed dial, and the next time you post anything except a write-up which either amuses, entertains, or enlightens me while you're at your so-called job:
Well, Mr. Dithers may just want a minute of your time, soon afterwards....
UPDATE: moJoe was fired from his job he mentioned in a long-gone writeup that used to reside below, soon after these writeups were posted.
moJoe then became a stranger to this website due to a lack of a free speedy connection.
Coincidence? You decide.