The Rest of the Irony

Remember that blogging project I got hired to do?  The story gets funnier.

To start out, the Blog Boss was very prompt in responding to emails, gave good, clear directions, and to top it off, he even paid me correctly and in a timely manner.  After that, I began whipping out those blog posts left and right.  I emailed them to the Blog Boss all throughout last week, all the while gaining encouragement from him saying he'd pay me after number three.  When I emailed him the third post, I had a stroke of anti-procrastination and promised him this week's posts all at once the following day.

After six posts were written, I sent them off to him expecting a reply and some $$.  Nothing.  It was the weekend, so I figured he was busy.  No worries.  Monday came and went.  Still nothing.  Tuesday I began to get irked.  No reply and no $$.  I wrote a brief email asking when I could expect to be paid.  Nothing.  By Wednesday I was flat out annoyed.  I wrote a strongly worded email (strong for me--it was still pretty polite) telling him I would be happy to write more after he paid me.  I also added a pretty powerful ultimatum.  I told him I'd delete the posts he didn't pay for if I wasn't paid by Friday.  He has a copy of all my posts, so I'm sure the Blog Boss was just shaking in his bloggy boots.

Seeing as today is Friday, I triumphantly logged onto the WordPress account and double-deleted the posts (the first delete only puts them in a trash folder, but the second delete totally obliterates them).  Not that it does me much good--he can easily copy and paste it back on there--but it made me feel better anyway.  To compensate for the fact that he can put my stuff back up again, I went to the effort to delete all the categories, tags, and pictures that I had made and uploaded.  If he's going to use my work, it's going to be as inconvenient for him as possible.  I'm also going to keep my eye on the blog for a while (probably until he deletes me as an admin) and delete any of my work that he re-posts.  I will not go down without a fight.

While this experience has been really obnoxious, I can't say that I really lost anything from it.  Heck, I feel pretty lucky that I made $25 off the Blog Boss.  He got some blog posts for free, but you better believe I'm going to post those on here, so that's not really a loss--I write for free on here anyway!  Also, I'm a notoriously slow writer--I do the "contemplate, write, contemplate, erase, repeat" cycle frequently--and this really helped me learn to bust out posts without taking too much time.  And last, but not least, I've learned that in the future I should take a moment to really dissect future requests.  The Blog Boss' requests seemed innocent at the time, but looking back I can see that he totally set me up.  Thanks for the good times, Blog Boss.

On a slightly related note, these pre-written blog posts are really going to simplify my blogging life for the next several weeks because things are going to be crazy busy.  My husband got a job, so we're moving in about two weeks!  I'm sad to leave my job here, but after a whole summer of iffy-ness I'm so game for some permanency.

Oh, the Irony

A funny thing happened to me this week.  I randomly applied for a job writing for a parenting blog, and it just so happens that I got the job!  I'm getting paid to write!  Granted, I'm not making bank--I get paid one and a half pennies per word.  But I like it and it's something fun to add to the resume.

Brace yourself for the funny part.  The blog is called "Single with a Baby:  Raising a Child on My Own."  The irony makes me smile every time.  I'm not single, I don't have a baby, and yet I'm writing this blog.  Fortunately, parenting is parenting--single or not--and the basic principles stay the same.

Anyway, feel free to follow along at {said website}.  I'll be writing three posts a week, and the majority of the stuff I'll write will apply to any parent (even though I'm directing it toward single moms).  I don't anticipate that blog getting really big and famous or anything--my boss said it's there mostly to promote another blog--but I'm ok with that.  It's mostly a fun little project at this point.