Beginnings

Here it is then. Winter! Good job I bought that big winter jacket, isn't it?

Shirts

One perk of upgrading all my bank accounts in June was that on my credit card, I got the choice of either gift points or a 1% cashback on purchases. 

Given that the payment is about to land in the new year, and a Yorkshireman never needs an opportunity to spend free money, I used that last week on an internet shopping purchase. Wednesday night football has seen me have to change out of my green shirt more than once this season; for some odd reason we have more than one team that play in green in our league. My blue change shirt is far too tight when wearing elbow/arm pads, so I went online and ordered some more change shirts from the same place we got our muppet-personalised kit from, and also in the same style. They're short sleeved, so I can wear the pads without having to worry about restricted arm movement. After all, my legs are the real problem these days.

I hope they bring me better luck next week. The team we played last night had a record of P6, W1 D1 L4, F32 A54. Yes, you read that right. They concede 9 goals a game on average. They conceded (in the BBC vidiprinter style) FIFTEEN goals last week. Last night? We lost 5-4.

Busy

So where were we?

New posts on here have been a bit thin of late, but since I actually have something to do during the day now, I can't spend all my day wittering away on here. I'm now two weeks into being a freelance editor. While it isn't paying riches yet (nor is it likely to), I'm beginning to get an idea of how much I can do in a day. The first couple of weeks have been getting used to the process, seeing what my managers in Mumbai want in terms of style, level, detail and so on. I've now sent 14 jobs back, my average feedback rating is now climbing, and they're starting to send me longer jobs at the Premium edit level (as opposed to Standard Edit). Because they're now sending me Premium jobs my average rate has now climbed to the giddy heights of $17.79 USD per 1000 words.

Due to the 12.5 hour time difference, it's a bit frustrating to apparently miss out on jobs (due to emails saying that they've been withdrawn) more than once because I've been in bed sound asleep and can't accept them. I've sent them an email today saying "please can you send me emails between 10pm and midnight"

I did my first thing today for an apparently difficult client, a ten page (!!) response to reviewers. We shall see whether he says of me, like he does of many others on his feedback page "do not let this person edit my work ever again"

Home Office

So there is finally some good news on the work front. After finding out about that job I posted about a few posts down, the company concerned gave me some official feedback that they'd like to keep me on the radar for the near future. The phrase "the new year" was mentioned on the phone by the HR lady present in the interview. It would be unprofessional to go into details, but let's just say I hope they can sort their budgetary issues out and get back to me. 

In the meantime, my EI payments finished last week, and so the thought of having to trash my house fund yet further wasn't appealing. However, a couple of months ago I applied for a position as a freelance scientific editor for a company based in India (with offices in the US and Singapore amongst other places). On Monday, having finally sent my editing test a couple of weeks ago, I found out that they were happy with my submission (which took 2 hours to untangle an 800 word article on perfluorinated cyclopentadienyls, for the chemists out there). They confirmed my daily availability, and so today I received a contract offer, a non-disclosure agreement and a form to stop the tax authorities in the US deducting tax (since the US has a tax treaty with Canada, it will be deducted here). It has prompted an afternoon of much scanner rage (needing to sign the documents, scan them and send them back), since my printer/scanner is seemingly incapable of scanning the third page of a document.

The rates aren't great by editing standards, but they should serve to continue to keep my head above water until such time as the company who really liked my interview can perhaps get back to me. So finally, after more than five years, the Beige Towers desk will now get some proper use, and not just be a dumping ground for bills and bank statements. Still at home all day, but at least now not going mad with boredom, and earning money under my own steam again.