Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

As some of you know, I took a deep breath a few days ago and sent off, along with my most recent invoice for freelance proofreading, a cover note saying that as of April 1, I was raising my freelance rate to $22/hour. (They'd been getting $18/hour for a long time--long enough that this is slightly over cumulative inflation for the period in question.) Yesterday I got back a note saying that this rate was fine, complimenting me on the quality of my work, and adding that they're going back to ten issues/year, which will mean a bit more work. That part will make more difference to the total income involved than the rate increase: I do seven or eight hours of work per issue, and I suspect the client thought both "she does good work" and "we can afford a couple of hundred dollars a year extra here."

In some sense, I should have done this sooner. But my own shyness about asking for things aside, it was easier to ask now, when we could have afforded for me to lose this gig, than when the $140 or so a month was a significant piece of the household budget.

( I also went to the gym yesterday )

I have here an offer letter.

As of April 1, I will be a full-time staff member at Triumph Learning. No more temp agency.

This not only comes with benefits--paid vacation, profit sharing, and some I'll find out about in a day or two when the HR person has a little more free time--it's about a 25% raise not counting the benefits. The HR person also has forms to give me, of course.

I will be getting out of the cubicle farm, but not until April 1 (there are sound reasons for this).

As the days and weeks go by, I'm doing more and more bits of the new job. It is very good for my confidence, because when I take them up, they are well within my abilities and experience. In some cases, they come with unexpected flattery, like Susan asking how I wanted comments on a manuscript she's copyediting, and in the course of the discussion saying kind things about my science knowledge.

I got a call early last week, offering me freelance copyediting for journals published by my former employer. I talked to the woman who runs this (they have it all farmed out these days, apparently) and asked her some questions about what the work would involve, what they were offering to pay, and how much time they were looking for, and told her I'd call her back in a few days. I also told her I had a friend who might be interested, and was good, and asked if I should pass her information along. She said yes. Then I talked to cattitude, and sent email to Q and adrian_turtle asking what they thought.

By the weekend, after talking to Cattitude and Q, I'd about decided to offer her a few hours a month, because it would be useful to have the freelance contact, but I hadn't called her back. This morning, I got email from Adrian, asking some sensible questions about how much time and energy I have to spare. That conencted to a conversation on the subway this morning, about having seen only one of the plays that won Tonys this year, for lack of time and energy rather than because we couldn't afford tickets. I checked in with Cattitude, who agreed that what Adrian had said made sense, and then called the woman back.

She thanked me for having a good enough idea of my time and availability to be saying "No, I can't do this now, shall I call you when I do?" rather than taking work and then not getting it done. She also mentioned having talked to my friend, and being glad because zie seems competent and has a bunch of time available. [I think you're reading this; feel free to identify yourself in comments.]

Then I finished my workday, and went and lifted weights. ( gym details )

I don't much like the sort of shoes that seem appropriate for job interviews, so I've taken to going most of the way to them in my regular shoes, finding a branch of my gym, changing, and stashing stuff there. This time that worked remarkably well: the nearest branch of my gym to the company I was interviewing with is in the same (large) building.

The interview itself went reasonably well, I think. I spoke to the HR person and took a proofreading test, but didn't get to speak to the editorial director because they had a deadline (and, I infer, were behind where they'd expected to be in their schedule). The HR person told me they have a temp in the position right now, but "want to see what the competition is," which suggests that they might not hire anyone right now.

The HR person asked me more or less sane questions, including what I liked and disliked about being a proofreader,and what I thought my strengths and weaknesses were, but nothing out of left field. She also told me about the company, and a little about the work environment, which is the editorial director/copyeditor, three graphics people, and a proofreader; they want the proofreader to have copyediting experience and skills so s/he can serve as backup to the copyeditor when she's busy or away. , and then gave me a proofreading test.

She noted that the pay was less than my hourly rate at my last job (McGraw-Hill; freelance is a different category), and I said yes, but right now I'm paying my own health insurance, and asked about benefits. They provide medical and dental coverage, paid vacation, holidays, and sick time (all utterly standard, but freelancers don't have them), a 401K plan, and transit benefits. It would be 9:00-5:30, with an hour for lunch, and I'd be non-exempt, meaning if I worked overtime I'd get paid for it.

Not having talking to the editorial manager, I'm not sure whether I'd like the job, but it sounds plausible.

After all that, I went downstairs, bought a banana from a street vendor for a quick snack, and went to the gym where I'd stashed my stuff, and worked out. I don't like it as well as my regular gym, though some of that may be familiarity, but it would be very convenient; if I get this job, I'll probably use this branch sometimes, including occasional lunch hours, and go to the one I'm used to for the long workouts.

( workout details )

A few weeks ago, the company I was discussing doing freelance writing for (it turned out they want a writer more than an editor, which is fine with me) sent me a contract. I wrote back, asking for a couple of changes, and heard nothing.

This morning, I sent a brief email, asking where we stood. I got an almost-immediate reply, saying basically "I got it and forwarded it to $CTO. It seems to have fallen through the cracks. I'll follow up on that and get you a revised contract as soon as it's ready."

That was followed within the half hour by a message saying I should expect a revised contract next week.

I am greatly reassured.

With a bit of luck, they'll get me some work before I go away for New Year's (my usual week in the Frozen North).

I just had a nice phone conversation with Dan, the Editor/CTO of the company I've been talking to (yes, that's what his business card says). He seemed quite pleased by the idea that I've got strong editorial skills as well as writing skills. The rates seem good; they'll pay 75% of their normal rate for the first ten hours, which is what he calls a "draft project" to make sure I'm what they're looking for, and 50% as a "research rate," which isn't the serious research I've been doing but means things like "read this book to get up to speed on XYZ." They'd also want up to two hours/week nonbillable to discuss how projects are going, if I'm not the project manager, but he said they don't use those set-aside hours most weeks. Project managers get less than writers/editors, but still a respectable rate: I think I made it clear that I'm willing to do that, but that writing and editing are my strong suits.

After I briefly described my background, he tossed me an absolute softball question: "What do you like to do?" I told him "I like finding things out and explaining them to people." And this looks like a job that will pay me to do that.

What's still up in the air, unfortunately, is how soon they'll have work, and how much. He seemed pretty optimistic about projects coming in soon, though. He's going to have his comptroller send me a contract, which he descrbed as "standard." Since he mentioned non-compete/non-solicitation clauses, I will be looking it over carefully.

I got email last night, from Ruth who set up the first phone interview, asking if I was available at 9:30 this coming Friday to talk to Dan. I checked that they meant telephone again rather than in person, and agreed.

I'm hoping this leads to actual work quite soon. It should almost certainly leave me with a clearer idea of how much of my time they're likely to want, and how much money I can get for it. Knowing how soon would be a bonus, given what Deb said this past Friday.

That went quite well, I think. The woman I talked to was friendly and enthusiastic. She told me that the company probably won't need people right away, because they're waiting to get the okay from the clients on various projects. (Basically, they do documentation, white papers, etc. to order.) It was the sort of conversation that included questions like "You're a vi person, right?" and "Does Bruce still have the ponytail?" as well as giving me the chance to say that I would be quite happy to edit in Word, or other software if the client preferred, as well as on paper, and that I have lots of experience with Wikipedia.

The work would be from home, not in their office; she's not even near New York City herself, but near D.C., which explains why it was a phone interview. I asked about rates, and she told me a number (which I consider satisfactory) and said that was something to confirm with Dan (my original contact) or Ruth (who I think fills the role of H.R. there), one of whom will probably call me to follow up on our conversation. (Thus far, my interactions with them both have been by email.)

It seems that a lot of the temporary/contract work available is for legal proofreading. There are places that advertise legal proofreading classes. What I don't know is whether (a) they teach what I'd need to know to get such a job, and (b) whether law firms would hire me given general editorial and proofreading skills, plus one of these relatively short classes (say, two four-hour sessions, with practice/homework between), and the ability to pass a proofreading test, in the absence of specific legal proofreading experience.

Does anyone reading this know, or know where I could find out? The people teaching the classes claim high success rates, but they would.