Fun With Freelancing
(from a recent e-mail I sent someone...)
This particular project reveals all the glory of the freelancing life, that's for sure. [/tongue-n-cheek] Basically, there's a company in northern California that assembles, then sells access to a database called Tech Trends which covers technology related articles in over 200 periodicals. My job is to read 90-100 of these articles per month and write the abstracts that help the database users decide if they want the full thing.
It's not a bad job, aside from the fact that it's time-consuming and not very lucrative. Maybe half the articles are quite interesting, actually: I get to read about science-fiction-type research taking place, and all kinds of new toys I'll likely never need or be able to afford. :-) Occasionally, I even get ideas for my school and nonprofit -- links to good websites and info about wikis, that sort of thing.
I quit this job around Christmas, because it's really too much to do during the school year, even if the hours and pay weren't so underwhelming. But now that summer's looming...it was quite nice, actually, that I was able to get it back with a single, short email; somewhat less nice that the guy wanted me to start right away, but hey, at least it's writing (even if I privately refer to it as word-whoring).
This particular project reveals all the glory of the freelancing life, that's for sure. [/tongue-n-cheek] Basically, there's a company in northern California that assembles, then sells access to a database called Tech Trends which covers technology related articles in over 200 periodicals. My job is to read 90-100 of these articles per month and write the abstracts that help the database users decide if they want the full thing.
It's not a bad job, aside from the fact that it's time-consuming and not very lucrative. Maybe half the articles are quite interesting, actually: I get to read about science-fiction-type research taking place, and all kinds of new toys I'll likely never need or be able to afford. :-) Occasionally, I even get ideas for my school and nonprofit -- links to good websites and info about wikis, that sort of thing.
I quit this job around Christmas, because it's really too much to do during the school year, even if the hours and pay weren't so underwhelming. But now that summer's looming...it was quite nice, actually, that I was able to get it back with a single, short email; somewhat less nice that the guy wanted me to start right away, but hey, at least it's writing (even if I privately refer to it as word-whoring).