Coming too clean with the clients
As readers of this occasional journal will know, I foster cats. I like cats.
The group I do it for - well, they're one step beyond. They're vegans. They're quite outspoken about it. It's never come up that not only am I not vegan, I'm not even vegetarian, and there's no immediate reason it should. I'm aware it might, some day, if somebody came by while I was simmering a pot of chicken soup. But it's not likely, if I don't slip and say or do something unwise.
A few months back I went to a talk by an occasional client who's involved in Wordpress. I do some Wordpress sites and she and her business partner had promised a presentation about multilingual plugins. Since everyone making sites here struggles with multilingual issues it was a popular topic and a fair number showed up. She realized later I'd been there and not said hello - we've never actually met - but I had a reason: she is also a militant vegan - has written books about it - and there I was with my beautiful new Roots shoulder bag in gleaming black leather. Oops.
I lay out a quarterly newsletter for a Christian meditation group. I've been doing the job for years, during which I've run through several editors. The latest editor, whom I've never met, is tolerable, but he recently told me a new issue was due although he had very little content, and would I like to help him find some pictures or other material?
I've never been explicit with any of the editors that not only am I not a member of their group, I'm not even a Christian, and not only that, I'm not a theist. It's not been relevant. But I had to tell this guy I wasn't a good candidate to help him find content because I don't belong to the group. It's been silence ever since. My actual deal is with someone else who no longer edits the thing, but delegates the job. He likes what I do, so I've probably not lost the contract, but what else could I tell the editor once he started to try to involve me more? I'm not even sure now whether the editor is aware I've been doing this gig for pay, not out of devotion to the cause.
And then there was the time I told a boss who was a Chabad guy that I don't believe in anything. "You have to believe in something," he said, aghast. (I found out later this probably had to do with the Seven Laws of Noah, which the Chabad movement is quite keen on, of which #1 is that human beings - not only Jews - must not deny God.) I had very little other personal conversation with this man. That job was never going to end well, though.
The group I do it for - well, they're one step beyond. They're vegans. They're quite outspoken about it. It's never come up that not only am I not vegan, I'm not even vegetarian, and there's no immediate reason it should. I'm aware it might, some day, if somebody came by while I was simmering a pot of chicken soup. But it's not likely, if I don't slip and say or do something unwise.
A few months back I went to a talk by an occasional client who's involved in Wordpress. I do some Wordpress sites and she and her business partner had promised a presentation about multilingual plugins. Since everyone making sites here struggles with multilingual issues it was a popular topic and a fair number showed up. She realized later I'd been there and not said hello - we've never actually met - but I had a reason: she is also a militant vegan - has written books about it - and there I was with my beautiful new Roots shoulder bag in gleaming black leather. Oops.
I lay out a quarterly newsletter for a Christian meditation group. I've been doing the job for years, during which I've run through several editors. The latest editor, whom I've never met, is tolerable, but he recently told me a new issue was due although he had very little content, and would I like to help him find some pictures or other material?
I've never been explicit with any of the editors that not only am I not a member of their group, I'm not even a Christian, and not only that, I'm not a theist. It's not been relevant. But I had to tell this guy I wasn't a good candidate to help him find content because I don't belong to the group. It's been silence ever since. My actual deal is with someone else who no longer edits the thing, but delegates the job. He likes what I do, so I've probably not lost the contract, but what else could I tell the editor once he started to try to involve me more? I'm not even sure now whether the editor is aware I've been doing this gig for pay, not out of devotion to the cause.
And then there was the time I told a boss who was a Chabad guy that I don't believe in anything. "You have to believe in something," he said, aghast. (I found out later this probably had to do with the Seven Laws of Noah, which the Chabad movement is quite keen on, of which #1 is that human beings - not only Jews - must not deny God.) I had very little other personal conversation with this man. That job was never going to end well, though.