Archive for September, 2009

We all have moments where we do something and find ourselves embarrassed.  And for those of you like me, that embarrassment really does lead to a red face.

Today, I’m taking a jab at myself and the faux pas that I’ve made in the past when trying to be a svelte business person.  We all have them.

My most recent red-face moment happened a couple of months ago.  I was working on a series of articles for my local newspaper.  I was conducting interviews with business owners all over the city.  I headed to a downtown restaurant that is closed for a couple of hours between lunch and dinner.  The owner asked me to come during the downtime.

I entered the closed restaurant, told the employee who I was there to see and he went off to find the owner.  I stood beside the bar, waiting.  A minute later, a well-dressed man came walking through with a purpose.  I assumed he was the owner.  Trying to be assertive and overcome my natural shyness, I stuck out my hand and said, “Hi, I’m Stacey with The Star Press.”  The man kindly took my hand, shook it and responded, “Hi, Stacey.  I’m just passing through.”

I’m not sure what I said, if I even said anything.  I do know my cheeks turned bright red, though.  Now, it’s quite funny.  It was a bit funny then, but it was definitely more embarrassing.

And of course smaller embarrassments happen as well.  I have a small digital voice recorder that I often use for in-person interviews.  Combine that with my clumsiness and the formula for disaster is quite apparent.  I was interviewing a local school principal for an article when the recorder flew out of my hand and hit the floor.  Like everything I own, I’ve dropped this recorder numerous times, but somehow this time it hit just right and the cover flew off and the batteries rolled out.  Yeah, I’m a professional…  Definitely worth a good laugh now, though!

Even though it isn’t a work-related incident, I have one more red-in-the-face moment to share with you.  I suppose sharing my shame is cathartic!  Not so long ago, my husband and I were working around our house.  He needed to make a quick trip to the home improvement store.  I decided to tag along.  Since we’d been working, I had on old clothes and ran inside to change quickly into something more presentable.

I grabbed a green V-neck T-shirt from my closet and threw it on with some clean jeans.  We headed to the store.  I never looked in the mirror.  As we were walking in, I realized I was getting a breeze on my back.  Yep, I’d put my shirt on backward.  I looked down and realized the size information was on the front.  Not only was it backward, but it was also inside-out.  I was already embarrassed.

Fast forward to paying for our items.  The cashier looked at me a minute and said, “You’re shirt is on inside out.”  I mumbled something about how I knew that.  Then he said, “And it’s backwards.”  Yeah, thanks for pointing out my incompetence!  I was definitely red-faced over that one.

No matter what happens to embarrass us, at the end of the day we are at least left with good stories and good laughs.  We are left with lessons learned.  I know make sure to find out who is walking toward me before I introduce myself.  I am still working to clutch tighter to my recorder and not drop it.  And I most definitely check my clothes to make sure they are right-side out before I put them on.

Feel free to share your red-in-the-face moments so that I don’t feel quite so alone…

Part of this blog is to share with you the ins and outs of freelancing.  While I’ve listed the drawbacks of being a freelancer on here before, I also felt it was important to share some of the tasks I dread.  Though these are tasks that I personally dread, I know they aren’t dread-worthy for everyone.  Perhaps I just needed to vent them!

Updating my clips. I love what I do.  I love having articles published, but I hate organizing my clips once I have them.  Right now I have a pile in my office of clips that need to be organized.  I started by cutting out each article, pasting it on black card stock and inserting it into a sleeve in my portfolio.  I’ve stopped doing that for all articles because I have too many.  But, I still try to do that for my big articles that I’m most excited about and want to really showcase.  I also will scan clips to have the electronically for my Web site.  However, I put it off.  This task is especially easy to put off because I can justify that doing paying work takes precedence over non-paid work.  The downside is that I end up with older clips than I’d like to have on my Web site, too, which could inhibit my paying work.

Processing income. I also love getting paid for what I do.  But as a self-employed person, it’s up to me to track every check that comes across my desk for paying taxes.  I also have to track them to ensure I’m getting paid for the work I do.  I tend to let check stubs pile up until there are a few to process at a time.  I’m not sure why I put that off, but I do.

Processing expenses. This is pretty much the same as above.  I tend to wait until I have a few expenses to track, like mileage, office supplies, etc., before I knuckle down and just process the information.  All I have to do is enter it into a spreadsheet, file receipts and make sure my business check register is updated, but I still put it off many times.

Filing. This kind of goes along with processing expenses, but filing is another task I just don’t enjoy.  I’ll let the aforementioned receipts stack up a bit before filing them.  I’ll have a pile on my desk of papers that need to be filed somewhere in my office that I also let stack up.  I just put it off.

I guess that’s my top list of tasks that aren’t fun.  They are all part of my work, but I’d much rather be researching and writing than conquering these tasks.  Since none of them directly result in income, I find it all too easy to make excuses for putting them off.

What tasks do you avoid doing?