The Complaining and Bitching Thread

I don't know why I am up. Oh well.

 

insane in the membrane...

the scary part...I'm better off than many.

 

After losing out on 28 bids, and while still having 20 bids in the pipeline to potentially lose out on, I have officially given up wasting time on Elance, hoping to land an underpaid job.

 

If it makes you feel any better...in the past year, my previous company won a bid for the US Fed govt, that was submitted 3 years ago.
And they submit bids left & right which they lose out on month after month.
And this is a company that has existed over 30 years.

I've done Sologig and other contractor/freelancer sites again & again...it's a crapshoot.
But when they do hit, it's nice money.
Personally, I try to cover all the bases...a FT job, off-hours contracting...plus my own business
AND partnering with others (both true partners and other larger firms)

Mostly, it's about getting them to do their part...or keep them from stealing ideas and profiting on their own.
That and kicking myself in the ass, after the FT work and other outside obligations to keep things moving forward.

Don't give up...sooner or later, you'll make something happen. (just make sure you keep your own end up too for yourself too)
Statistically, they say that on avg. most millionaire/billionaires go bankrupt 2.5 times before making it & stabilizing.
The trick is don't be one of those guys that do go under.

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Now for my own complainin' & bitchin'...
Arrgh...doesn't anyone make decent browsers anymore??? (or sites/pages that are fully compatible with them...)
Now they all don't work...Opera, Firefox, Chrome, Safari...and IE.
Hell, even Microsoft has stated they don't support some IE versions with Microsoft apps (IE is a Microsoft product!!!)
I keep play switch hit with the top 5 browsers, seeing which works.

 

Oh, I'm not giving up giving up. I'm giving up Elance. It's really scraping from the bottom of the barrel, and I'm not about to leap in face first in desperation as it seems a lot of freelancers do on there. I really don't get it. I was simply looking to fill in some time gaps I have with some small/easy jobs, despite the lower value. I just didn't realize it was all so really low value.

I have sunk several hours in there now, and as I've said I haven't seen a bite in nearly fifty attempts. I was reading some articles about getting clients on Elance, and they're all, like, "Oh, hang in there. You'll get your first job after ten or fifteen bids."

The problem: Low (really low) bids get the job. What's frustrating is that I've even lost bids where I thought that I among the most qualified and reasonably priced (on Elance, that is)—for business-oriented editing jobs that get relatively few bidders (less than fifteen instead of sixty to eighty). I've seen really small jobs (like $25 total) go to guys clearly less qualified than me, but perhaps the client wanted to go with an American instead of a Canadian, or a writer instead of an editor (see my previous rant).

I think the latter is a big issue. I see a lot of bids going to folks who are all, like, "Oh, I'm a writerly fucking wordsmith, yo! Look at my overwrought words, bitch! I can edit the fuck out of your words, and I'll make them the bomb, yo!" Translation: I'm an awesome editor because I'm an awesome writer. (To me, they appear to be neither.) I think a lot of people buy into that. I have no writing/publication credits, and I think that kills my (perceived) value as an editor on Elance.

I mean, seriously. I think I'm the only editor on there I've seen who lists actual book publishing industry experience. I normally charge around $35 an hour. I've charged as much as $100 an hour. But on Elance? I can't get paid $10.

Anyway, I'm doing more in meatspace. I need to network more face to face, with other editors and with writers. I'm going to a meeting with a writers' association this week, so I'll test the waters of going in as an editor to where writers congregate. I will be showing up more at events in general. They start up this spring and continue into the fall. I need to be more visible.

Who knows? Maybe I'll even start showing up at business/industry events and prove to all those suits that they write garbage.

They need me.

 

Really want to turn the corner on this smut, but I keep getting interrupted.