That Awkward Age

Of Motes and Beams and Tiger Woods and Waking Up with a Fever

 "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" -- Matthew 7:3

Blessed are the meek: They shall inherit the earth." -- Matthew 5:5.

So three days ago I poked some fun here about Tiger and his foibles, noting that I hadn't had as much as a cold all winter. 

This morning I woke up with a fever and my head feeling like somebody had been bowling all night down my sinus passages. Apparently the sneezing I've been doing was the precursor to some kind of viral infection, and not any pollen that Mr. Woods might have stirred up doing what he does best, if you know what I mean. 

I guess that's what I get for being judgmental. It's not like I'm perfect, after all. For example, I've been nursing a resentment for a week now since I heard Christian Lander, author of the blog "Stuff White People Like," speak at the Erma Bombeck Writers Workshop in Dayton. This, this, kid started a little joke of a blog for his friends and in two lousy months he got 11,854,026 hits, which led to appearances on The Early Show, Later with Carson Daily and Late Night with Conan O'Brien, NPR and a whole host of other stuff. 

Not only that, but he got a book deal -- get this -- in which publishers were calling HIM, begging HIM to write a book and suggesting that he might want to get an agent to represent him. He interviewed agents and selected the one HE wanted -- not the other way around. And within six months, he had a book on the New York Times Bestseller List. 

I'm sorry, I really hate this guy. Everything in me screams, it's not fair! I've been writing, like, all my life! Since the sixth grade, when I was editor of "The Nutshell" for our classroom, one of those trailer classrooms off the side of the main school buildings. I've been doing this blog thing for a year, and I get excited -- I mean ecstatic -- when my stats go up to FIFTY for a post. WOO-HOO! Oprah, here I come!

I actually go make myself some popcorn, pour myself a tall Diet Coke and watch the ticker go up by refreshing my dashboard every five seconds, that's how pathetic I am. AND THIS GUY GETS ELEVEN FLIPPING MILLION HITS IN TWO MONTHS and a book deal? Somebody tell me, now, be honest. Other than talent, what does this guy have that I don't?

OK, maybe I do have a tiny little coveting problem, too. (Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's. Exodus 20:17). 

But unlike Tiger, I don't want anybody else's ass, I just want somebody else's blog. Is that so bad? 

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pasukaru76/ / CC BY 2.0

Stop Making Excuses! Go Take Out a Loan and Hire Yourself an Employer!

If you’re out of work and not having any luck, chances are, you’ve been going at this thing the wrong way.

The problem is that you have been expecting to get paid, rather than offering to pay your employer. What a revelation! I can see you smacking your head now in one of those “I could have had a V-8” aha moments!

We all know about the crash in home values, the demise of employee benefits, the ruin of Social Security and Medicare and the slashing of our 401Ks’ worth. But did you know that the game has changed so much that now you need to PAY for the privilege of working?

Advertising Age posted an article recently announcing that the Huffington Post recently listed a two- or three-month internship at a charity auction and has gotten bids as high as $13,000. Sure, it benefits the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, but are new bees this desperate for a job that they would pay for an internship?

And get this – if the winner comes from Connecticut, he or she has to pay taxes on the internship. Apparently rather than “income” taxes, that state charges “outcome” taxes – as in, the “outcome was that it got me a nice line to add to my resume.”

I guess that since interns typically make very little – or nothing – for their internships in most companies, the Huffington Post had to lower the bar, since they pay most of their bloggers NOTHING. Now isn’t that special? Apparently their freelance “citizen” bloggers do it for the “exposure.”

As a writer and independent PR pro, I can tell you this. “Exposure” might give you the flu, but it won’t make your mortgage payment. “Exposure” might get you caught running around in your underwear, but it won’t put chocolate-covered bacon on your shelves. You can’t eat, drink, sleep on or ride in “exposure.”

At 57, I’ve had just about all the “exposure” I can afford.

 think I know what the problem is here. It’s the word “freelance.” To be more precise, it’s the portion of the word, “free.” I suggest that this term be changed to more fairly represent those of us who do not feed at the corporate trough. I suggest the word “FEElance.”

The nice thing about that choice is that it can be read two ways. Read it as “fee-lance,” and it tells any scumbag business that might think about not paying that we charge a FEE for our lancing.
Read it as “feel-ance,” and it says if you don’t pay us a fee, we might just feel like cutting out of here and going to Ance, a commune in Aquitaine in southwestern France.

Then who would write your stupid blogs?

If I want to not get paid to blog, I'll write my own stupid blog!