And in this pocket

"Can not publish web. Root server is busy." Is it now? Hm. Well I'm busy too, for a couple of hours now, at work but doing nothing to do with my job. This morning I've been a web designer, search engine optimizer, Google ad words marketer, IT support and event organizer. If only I could collect that many paychecks. (If I only collected one paycheck! A topic for another time.)

I have freedom working as a one-man-band, no one tells me what to do and I can drop everything and say, "It's sunny: I'll go outside (right after this post actually)." The flip side is that no one tells me what to do, so every move, every comma, conference and commitment is my responsibility. Choose right AND do the damn work (AND get lucky) and I get paid. Another downside is that I am my company.

I keep my pension in this (small) pocket, my vacation pay in that (even smaller) one. Payroll (sic) is in a back pocket, savings I keep in a sock. Capital budget, promotion and marketing funds are all jumbled up in my shirt pocket, a bad thing as I often wear a T-shirt. Then there are the hats, so many hats. Besides the web designer, IT support and other jobs listed above, I am the head of marketing, sales, customer service, order fulfilment, quality control, accounting, administration. None of these hats make me a dollar; to make money I must wear my speaker, trainer, writer or consultant hat.

Take just one task, using video online to pump sales. For you to see the video I must first: plan the video and write the copy, learn to use camera, learn lighting and sound, create a background, put on makeup (lots of reflections off my polished cranium) and teach myself how to do the video, right tone and speed, correct facial expressions, what to do with my hands, no um, er or ahs. Then I must learn how to transfer it to a computer, how to edit it into what I want, how to add titles and such, then choose what format I should save it in (that alone takes hours). Once saved I must figure out how to upload it into YouTube, on to my website or a DVD, after of course deciding how I will use the video and where I will show it.

I envy people in actual companies who can just say to an assistant, "make a video for this." I do say that to myself, but it does no good as I rarely listen to myself. So world, if I get behind on something, take a little longer that I said or act just plain out-of-my-mind please consider that I may have spent the day on some crucial but confusing task, like figuring out why the wireless network isn't working since I changed to Vista.

After a walk in the spring sun that's what I return to, reading a computer book written in a language that looks like English. Oh yes, that is after I find out what is wrong with the root server (above). If I am lucky I might get two good hours of work done in my job-filled ten hour day.

I keep the aspirin in front pocket.