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Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

Appearing tonight only

Posted in Bruce Byfield, corporatelife, Free Geek, Free Software, freesoftware, hightech, opensource, Personal, television on August 23, 2007| Leave a Comment »

I never did write about my experience two weeks ago taking about GNU/ Linux in the TV studio. Partly, that’s because I was waiting until my article on the subject appeared on Linux.com. However, I also suspect that I did poorly, being out of practice with public speaking and flustered by the technical difficulties that emerged just before my spot. That’s not easy to admit, yet I have to admit that if I’m going to write about what happened.

Still, it was an interesting experience. The show was Lab with Leo, a tech program that appears in Canada and Australia. It’s shot on a permanent set designed for the purpose in an office building in one of the rougher areas in Vancouver. Strangely, the set isn’t totally sound-proofed, which occasionally causes trouble when people pass by in the hallway.

One thing that fascinates me about the experience is the way that film involves the creation of an artificial reality. Viewers only see certain parts of the set – they don’t see the area reserved for the cameras, or the technical crew in their glass walled offices on one side of the set. And, at one point, while the camera was focusing on the host of the show and a guest, besides the two or three members of the camera crew, another half dozen people were watching silently off-camera, not five meters from what was being filmed.

Everything — the makeup on people’s faces, the star’s bonhomie, the opening sequence in which the star walks down a hallway and stops to talk to a cast member who is seated where a receptionist might, the moving around the various pieces of the set to soften the fact that the show is mostly talking heads – is calculated to create the illusion of something that doesn’t quite exist, at least in the form that viewers might imagine.

I thought the whole process neatly symbolized by the contrast between the pristine set and the cluttered office and prop rooms from which you entered it. The office and prop rooms were what you might see in any office, especially in high-tech. By contrast, the set looks like a workshop, slightly rough around the edges, where the concerned star fields questions from viewers and wanders around from guest to guest and interacting with the cast.

I’m not a Puritan who wants to close the theaters. Still, I’m an academic by training, and a journalist by career choice, and both those professions are based on the assumption of objective truth and tghat the effort to find it is worthwhile. So, while I enjoyed the experience, even while feeling I didn’t hold up my own end as well as I might, I find that whether I only make one appearance or am asked back a matter of less importance than I thought.

Being asked back would be flattering, and I would probably do it. Yet, at the same time (and at the risk of sounding as though I’m indulging in sour grapes), if I’m not asked back, I won’t be unduly bothered, either. As a member of the audience, I’m perfectly happy accepting the illusion that the show – like any other – tries to create. I’m just not sure that, temperamentally, I’m suited to creating such illusions regularly. Illusions, in the end, don’t interest me nearly as much as ferreting out truths.

Besides, if I did do as badly as I think, I can’t complain. I’ve been doing so well lately that a failure to keep me humble may not be so bad an idea. I learned a lot, and got an article from the afternoon that might help others, so what more can I ask?

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Why would I care about Microsoft?

Posted in Bruce Byfield, Free Software, freesoftware, journalism, Microsoft, opensource, Personal, software, technology, Uncategorized on August 19, 2007| 18 Comments »

Whenever I mention in a crowd that I use free software, someone always seems to comment that I must hate Microsoft. When I add that I write about free software for a living, someone is apt to call me a Microsoft-basher. In either case, the implication seems to be that my identity is defined by Microsoft, and, perhaps, is composed of an unhealthy amount of envy. When I reply calmly that Microsoft is mostly irrelevant to me, the people who made these comments seem disbelieving, or at least disappointed. But why would I care about what Microsoft is doing, beyond a mild interest in news that doesn’t particularly concern me?

Oh, I know that some free software users seem fixated on denouncing Microsoft at every opportunity. You can find them on any forum with a free software slant, writing about “Micro$oft” and referring to Windoze, and seeing a deep conspiracy in every move that the company makes. Mostly, I suspect, these users are in their teens, and either passionately young or anxious to sound as though they belong.

Personally, though, my teen years are long gone. These days, I tend to hold my beliefs with a quieter but no less deep conviction.

Yet, even when I was younger, I could never rally more than an abstract dislike about Microsoft. Sure, I object to a monopoly. I’d have to be an idiot not to think that the constant anti-trust cases brought against the company world-wide are coincidences. And my personal sense of aesthetics and quality revolt against anything that is designed poorly and intended to keep the user ignorant.

But I’ve never felt much need to convert others to my beliefs, and I certainly wouldn’t be rude to Windows users. I’ve even chatted amiably with a number of Microsoft employees; some of them are pleasant people.

My move to free software was not a rejection of Microsoft so much as a discovery of a philosophy that was in sync with the rest of my social principles, and a decision to go with the superior software.

Since I made that decision, I’ve generally had a small partition with Windows on at least one machine. But it’s been kept mostly for games, and months sometimes passed between the times I booted it. For the last eight months, I didn’t have a copy of Windows running anywhere in the house, and that only changed because my new laptop came with one. I immediately minimized the partition and allocated four-fifths of the hard drive to Fedora 7. Probably, I’ll only boot into Windows when I’m doing comparison articles. I certainly don’t need it for anything else.

Under such circumstances, why would I care about Microsoft one way or the other?

The only time I’m interested at all is when a Microsoft executive makes some far-fetched statement about free software or makes a tentative attempts to interact with the free and open source software community. Yet, even then, the most I can muster is a mild professional interest. Mostly, Microsoft interacts with free software-based companies, while I prefer to use community GNU/Linux distributions, so on a personal level, I don’t care much.

I suppose that one reason people assume that I must spend my time conducting Three Minutes’ Hate sessions against Microsoft is that I earn a living from free software, so all the related issues must be of absorbing interest to me. But, the truth is, I usually leave writing about Microsoft-related issues to other people. It’s a beat that I prefer not to cover.

Anyway, even those who do write about Microsoft are rarely rabid about it. They’re professionals. They work eight hours or more a day with free software, and very few people are capable of sustaining a fierce hatred for forty hours a week. Nor are editors especially interested in paeans of hate, even if some of them have a fondness for stirring up controversy. For these reasons, if you are passionately anti-Microsoft going into free software journalism, you either don’t last long or mellow.

I could be wrong, but I suspect that the main reason people assume that I hate Microsoft is the poverty of their own imagination. For many people, Microsoft is such a large fixture in their world that — love or loathe it — the idea of not caring what the company does is almost inconceivable. They seem unable to comprehend that, among other things, the free and open source communities are refuges where – unlike the larger world – Microsoft’s latest doings or Windows’ new security patch are irrelevant.

Frankly, the obsession with Microsoft is theirs, not mine. There are days, even weeks sometimes, when I don’t think of Microsoft one way or the other. Believe it or not, mostly Microsoft just doesn’t enter into my life.

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Maybe I’m a geek

Posted in Bruce Byfield, computers, Free Software, freesoftware, laptop, officework, Personal on August 17, 2007| 9 Comments »

For the past couple of weeks, I have been setting up my new laptop. It’s a challenge, since a number of items – the wireless card, the LightScribe capacity on the DVD drive, the webcam and the modem – are not supported straight off the CD with GNU/Linux. I’m frustrated that I don’t have the time to sit down and focus on each of these puzzles. However, I find that after eight years of using GNU/Linux, my attitude to these puzzles has changed.

Understand, I am an English major by education, and my technical knowledge is what I’ve picked up as needed. Moreover, I get bored by puzzles for their own sake – one reason I’ve never applied to MENSA (another is that one of the first members I met died because his pride in his own intelligence made him careless, but that’s another story). So, by training and temperament, I should be disliking the slow setup of the laptop immensely, especially since it’s compounded by my decision to use the Fedora version of the operating system, rather than the Debian one with which I’m most familiar.

Instead, I find myself unusually patient. Strangely enough, I actually look forward to approaching each problem, trying out ideas on my own, then scanning the Internet for possible solutions and patiently trying them one at a time. And, when I solve a problem (I’m now working on the third one), I have a small sense of triumph.

What’s changed me, I’m convinced, is using GNU/Linux. Unlike Windows or OS X, GNU/Linux assumes that you want to do things your way, and provides dozens of options for you, even from the desktop. If you need help, many programs have detailed help pages in one format or the other. So, naturally, if you’re the least bit curious, you can’t help starting to poke around. For some one like me, who is in Pandora’s league when it comes to curiosity, the temptation is constant and irresistible.

Besides, what choice do I have when something goes wrong or isn’t to my liking? I don’t use a commercial version of GNU/Linux, so I have no technical support to step me through solutions. If I go to a computer store, I’m lucky to find a clerk who has even heard of something called Linux, let alone Debian or Fedora. I can ask advice on mail forums, or search for helpful lines of investigation, but, in the end, I am left to experiment methodically.

This sort of patient trial and error is what developers call hacking (and, no, it has nothing to do with breaking into other people’s computers – that’s called cracking, to the initiated). Since my programming skills are laughable and I’ve never identified as a developer, the realization that I’ve picked up the habit and even learned to like it is somewhat disconcerting.

For years, I have made a living interpreting geeks to other people – and sometimes the other way around. But now I have to reassess myself. Maybe I’m a geek after all.

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Achievement Statements in resumes

Posted in Bruce Byfield, Business, careers, corporatelife, officework, Personal, resumes on August 14, 2007| 2 Comments »

Achievement statements are a way of listing your expertise on a resume to attract a readers’ attention. They are small case-studies, really, that show-case both your skills and your effectiveness. They’re ideal for those with too wide a variety of experience to fit comfortably on a few pages, and probably more likely to tempt a reader to look at your resume carefully. At worst, their novelty makes them interesting. At best, they state very clearly what you have to offer.

If you decide to use achievement statements, divide a sheet of paper or a text file in a word processor into three columns. Label these columns “What,” “How,” and “Results.”
Then think of things you’ve done that have made you happy or proud. Ideally, these accomplishments should be about business, but you should also consider events connected with family, school, or volunteer activities, especially if they highlight a desirable trait that might help you to get hired.

For each accomplishment, state what you have done in the What column. To keep the statement short, start with the past participle of a strong verb (for instance, “created” or “organized.” Then summarize what the accomplishment consisted of.

Then, in the How column, write what you did in order to achieve the accomplishment. Again, use the past participles of strong verbs.

Finally, in the Results column, use the same structure to explain what happened as the result of your efforts. In many ways, this column is the most important part, because well, it suggests reasons why someone reading your resume might want to hire you. At the very least, it gives readers and interviewers a point in your favor about which they might want to ask more details.

For these reasons, make your results as specific as possible. For example, giving figures where possible is more effective than a general statement. Readers are going to be more impressed by “increased sales 65%” rather than just “increased sales.” Sometimes, though, you won’t have the figures, and have to make do with what you have.

Then repeat this process for each accomplishment that occurs to you. If you can get a colllection of twenty or thirty, you’ll have all the statements you need to match them to any job for which you are likely to reply.

Some finished achievement statements from my own resume preparations:

  • Consulted on policy decisions as Contributing Editor by senior editors at one of top 3 Linux magazines. Wrote two regular columns, technical articles and reviews; advised on individual issues and articles. Results: Wrote 4-6 pages per issue of 90 page magazine. Magazine increased circulation by 56% in 8 months.
  • Set direction of first software product for startup company. Researched and wrote competitive analyses; set feature list; created branding campaign. Results: Company met production deadline with a competitive product. Company praised for its advertising and corporate philosophy by reviewers and customers.
  • Corrected serious flaws in a company’s first software product. Found flaws while installing software at home; explained problems to company principles; prevented new employee from becoming scapegoat; coordinated emergency effort to correct problem over Christmas. Results: Problem corrected before product shipped. Company avoided sales loss due to negative publicity. QA and programming work methods revised.
  • Negotiated bundling deals for retail product. Researched potential partners; discussed terms with third parties; advised lawyer on licensing issues and contract terms. Results: Product’s appeal enhanced and remained within budget per unit.
  • Developed and supervised branding campaign for new company and first software product. Originated concept; worked with design company; planned ad placement; negotiated ad rates; planned trade fair activities; liaised with customer base, partners ,& media; wrote ad copy, newsletters, and public statements. Results: In 4 months, company was regularly regarded by media as one of top 6 in a field of 20 companies.

    • You can place five or six of these achievement statements on the front page of your resume, with your work experience on the second page. If you choose the statements well, not only will readers have read a page of your resume – an investment of time that will encourage them to read the rest – but, before they have read the details of your career, they will be thinking of you according to the perspectives that you have chosen – and that can’t hurt in any job-hunting situation.

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Freelance writers need subject expertise

Posted in Bruce Byfield, careers, journalism, Personal, Uncategorized, writing on August 10, 2007| 2 Comments »

So far as I can determine, complaints about the rates for freelance writers first began in the 18th Century, when Daniel DeFoe invented the profession. Today, the complaints have some justification, considering that, in many markets, payments haven’t changed for a couple of decade. And when Writer’s Digest publishes a list, as it did a few years ago, about the best places to be published online and the rates for the top two sites are below $30 per article, you know that the list is aimed at hobbyists rather than professionals. All the same, as a freelancer who does make a respectable living from writing, I can’t help thinking that the complainers are approaching the problem the wrong way. To me, they always sound as though they expect to make a living because of their writing skills when what they really need is subject matter expertise.

The complainers remind me of the technical writers who insist that what they offer is writing expertise, not technical knowledge.These technical writers produce mediocre documentation, and, after a year or so, have trouble finding employment. Then these same purists complain that their profession never gets respect – even though the minority of technical writers who do learn their subjects have no trouble finding employment and command ever-increasing salaries.

In freelance writing, the purists are usually those with a literary bend, but the attitude is much the same. They feel that their language skills make them an elite, and they condescend to those who are experts and can make a living from their writing. To them, the experts are hacks, literary prostitutes who have sullied the purity of the written word.

Haven’t the purists heard the old dictum that you should write what you know? And, if they have, why should they imagine it doesn’t apply to them? Or to non-fiction as much as fiction?

As a former university English instructor who taught more than his share of composition classes, I am satisfied that most people can be taught to write a publishable piece of writing. Not a classic, you understand, but something comprehensible that an editor would consider publishing. Beyond a very basic level of literacy, what a freelancer offers an editor is an interesting topic, one that’s either entirely new or – more often – one that offers a different slant on an old topic. Editors appreciate fine writing, but they consider it a welcome extra, rather than a requirement, the way that originality is.

And to provide that basic requirement, you have to know what you’re writing about. Otherwise, the ideas won’t come. You’ll have no idea that what seems fresh to you is a cliche (For instance, hardly a week goes by when Linux.com doesn’t receive a query from someone wanting to write about how they converted from Windows to GNU/Linux). You won’t know what to focus on to develop a new idea, or the powers of observation to know what you might develop into a new idea. Just as importantly, you won’t have the contacts to develop enough new ideas to make your living by writing.

Nor will you learn the biggest secrets of all: Not only that editors will pay money for expertise in a way that they won’t for fine writing by itself, but specializing makes it much easier to be productive.

Take my example. Partly by idealism and partly by accident, I have become a computer journalist specializing in GNU/Linux and free and open source software. When I first starting selling articles as a sideline, I considered myself lucky to manage three articles a month. The writing itself only took a few hours, but gathering the information and finding sources to quote was time-consuming. I couldn’t imagine doing 12 articles a month, as Robin Miller, the senior editor at Linux.com, suggested.

Now, two years later, I average 16 articles a month for Linux.com and other online sites. What’s more, I get enough information that I could easily write three times as many, if only I had the time. Not only do I know my subject and where to find more information quickly, but people I’ve consulted before often let me know when they have a newsworthy item. Some even give me the scoop.

By contrast, consider the freelancer whom Russell Smith mentioned yesterday in his column in The Globe and Mail. It was hardly worth her time, she said, to do an article for $3000. She would have to do about twenty interviews, she said, and research would require intermittent effort over a couple of months.

No story is going to quote twenty people – that would be too confusing for the readers, and any competent editor would send such a story back for a rewrite. Five or six is more that most stories can handle. I can only assume that the freelancer was talking about writing an article on a subject for which she had expertise.

And a couple of months? Allowing for difficulties in contacting people, a couple of weeks is about the maximum a story should take – and, even then, you’d be normally doing several other stories at the same time. Moreover, between email and IRC, you shouldn’t normally need more than a few days if you’re actively assembling a story.

Yet if you’re relying on your writing skills rather than your expertise, the sort of effort and time-line described by this freelancer is probably unavoidable. You start from behind, so everything is harder and takes longer.

Some people might say that, by becoming a specialist, you narrow your subject range. Yet even that isn’t necessarily true. For instance, I started by writing articles on OpenOffice.org, the free office suite. For a while, I was worried enough about being type-cast that I went through a period during which I avoided the subject, but I soon found myself branching off into other related topics, such as other desktop programs. Before long, I had enough articles on a variety of topics that I had the credibility to write about almost anything.

Free software, recycling, the music industry – it doesn’t matter what your area of expertise is. But if you’re going to be a freelance writer, you need to find one. And if the literati call you a hack, just ask yourself which you’d prefer: Striking a pose and lamenting how you are misunderstood and underpaid? Or having the power to earn a living and be your own boss while doing something that interests you?

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Blogging begets blogging

Posted in Blogging, Bruce Byfield, Personal, Uncategorized on August 7, 2007| Leave a Comment »

For someone who rejected the idea of blogging for so long, I’ve made up for lost time.

Last year, I started writing a twice monthly blog for the Linux Journal site, making me one of the few bloggers I know who is actually paid for the hobby. I confess that the blog is more a function of the content management system used by the site, and what I am really writing is articles, but I admit that I enjoy the look on blogging advocates’ faces when they hear that a parvenu like me is getting paid.

Then, in March 2007, I started this blog for personal topics, mostly unrelated to my usual work covering free software and GNU/Linux. It really isn’t a regular blog, either. Instead of keeping a journal, I usually write entries that are short personal essays. The result hasn’t been a runaway success, but the readership is growing nicely for a new blog, and, a couple of weeks ago, my entry “What Makes a Canadian Canadian” received almost six hundred visits in a day.

Left to myself, I probably would have been content to stay at two. However, a few days ago, David Repa from Free Geek Vancouver asked me if I wanted to start writing a blog for that organization’s site. Since I’ve already written a few blog entries here about environmentalism and computing, I agreed.

The experience should be interesting. Like many people, I’ve always been vaguely supportive of environmental topics, but I confess that I was originally more interested in the free software side of Free Geek’s efforts. However, I’m less ignorant that I was a month ago, and with luck I’ll be less ignorant a month from now than I am now.

I already have enough topics for my first four or five entries. Bar disasters, I’ll be posting the first entry on the Free Geek Vancouver site some time in the next few days.

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Baby crow season

Posted in architecture, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, crows, Personal, Uncategorized, Vancouver on August 5, 2007| 3 Comments »

Since I live beside a green belt, one of my markers of the year is when this year’s crop of newly-fledged crows become independent. The Vancouver area is in the middle of the season now, and it never fails to entertain me.

The first sign that the baby crows have left the nest is the echo of their plaintive cries as they try to convince their parents to regurgitate for them. The more aggressive of the babies go so far as to push themselves underneath their parents’ beaks. At first, many of the adults oblige, but, after a week or two, they keep their beaks resolutely shut, no matter how the babies position themselves. Once, I even saw an adult thrown off balance by a baby’s insistence. And there’s always a few parents who do their best to lose junior at this stage.

Eventually, though, the young ones grudgingly accept their independence. They come together in groups of four to twelve birds, all identifiable as young ones by the narrowness of their bodies and their slightly shrill cries. Like human teenagers, they tend to do everything together, the flock chasing after one who has sighted something that’s possibly edible and squabbling as they brush against each other in midflight or land too close together. They seem to congregate where the food is plentiful, such a shopping mall, and, for a few months at any rate, their elders seem to cede such places to them.

At this stage, the young crows are clumsy – which isn’t surprising, considering how fast most birds grow in their first few months. They simply haven’t had time to learn coordination in the middle of their constant growth. Frequently, they’ll try to land on a branch too small for their weight, and lose their footing as the branch whips up and down. They haven’t learned, either, to coordinate hopping along the ground and keeping an eye out around them, so they sometimes trip themselves.

Unfortunately, too, they don’t understand cars, and some of them always die each year before they can learn. However, crows are adaptable enough that many of them learn quickly enough to survive. In another month or so, they’ll have left their small flocks for the great host of crows that roosts about six or seven miles from where I live, and become at least tentative adults.

Many people despite crows as vermin, and no doubt I would feel the same if I were a farmer. But as an urbanite, I find myself impressed by how adaptable crows can be to human changes to the environment. Whatever else you can say, crows are survivors, and I always enjoy their first self-taught lessons in how to get on in the world.

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Live on cable TV

Posted in Bruce Byfield, Personal, television, Uncategorized on July 31, 2007| Leave a Comment »

My television debut occurred at the age of 6, when I was poster boy for the local March of Dimes campaign. My only qualification was being at a speech therapist when no one who was deaf happened to be (my problem was a difficulty pronouncing a hard “k”, and the experience left me with a precise way of talking that many people mistake for an English accent). The experience brought only brief fame and no fortune, and was memorable mainly for the reaction a few weeks later, when my older brother looked up and exclaimed, “Bruce is on the television!” and my mother replied, “Well, tell him to get off it.”

My only other experience with TV was as an extra in a crowd scene for a locally shot movie with my wife and sister-in-law. At the time, it was an easy if tedious $80, and I never did learn if we were visible in any shots. In fact, now that I think, I can’t even remember the name of the movie.

One way or the other, though, I’m about to increase my TV experience. Next week, I’m scheduled to appear on the Lab with Leo cable show to talk about the GNU/Linux desktop for five or six minutes. The reccomendation came through Free Geek Vancouver, one of whose coordinators is scheduled to appear on another couple of segments.

Like many people, I have the idea that I appear overweight and gauche on film. And I know that I often talk too fast or mutter. I could get away with these tendencies when teaching but I suspect that idiosyncrancies are less forgiving on TV. I would very much like to solicit the opinion of someone with some experience on TV, but I’m not on speaking terms any more with the only person who might be worth consulting.

Instead, I’m on my own, doing my best to approach my adult debut in the spirit of adventure, not in the least self-important, but curious about the experience.

Already, it’s proving interesting. The show has a list of colors not to wear: No blacks and browns, because they blend into the set, no white shirt because either my torso or face will suffer from the contrast. No shorts, either, because the show might be shown in winter time, and would look out of season if I did. The color restrictions alone has me mentally thumbing through my closet in a way that I rarely do.

I also have to write in advance an outline of what I am going to discuss, along with any biographical information or any web sites that might illustrate my stint.

Visions of failure nibble at the edges of my self confidence, but I keep telling myself: one way or the other, it’s going to be an interesting experience. But “interesting” is such a neutral word: Proving a natural and coming across as an idiot could both be described with it. Unsurprisingly, I find myself apprehensive and anticipatory at the same time.

So why go through with it? All I can do is answer in the time-honored way, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I wonder if I’ll feel the same way after the spot is shot?

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The life of a freelancer

Posted in Bruce Byfield, editing, journalism, Personal, work, writing on July 29, 2007| 1 Comment »

So you think you want the life of a freelance writer? Maybe after you hear about my monthly ups and downs, you’ll think again.

Currently, I am under obligation to provide 16 articles – about 22,000 words – each month about GNU/Linux and free software. I may also do a number of other paying articles on other subject, depending on what other contracts I have going at any given moment. Unless I am working on a breaking story, most of this work doesn’t have to be submitted at a more particular time than by the end of the month.

I start each month by sending out invoices. Invoices are the part of my work that I enjoy the least, but are also the whole point of my efforts, so I grumble and force myself to send them out. Then, overcome by the effort and aware that a whole month stretches ahead of me, I am likely to take a few days to slack off. I may do a little research for possible stories, but, more likely, I run the errands that have been piling up for the last couple of weeks, and work on other projects.

By the end of the first week of the month, I start to get nervous and produce a few articles. Come the second week, I am producing steadily, but anxiety is riding me like a nightmare as I count the remaining number of articles I have to finish by the end of the month.

In the third week, the anxiety leaves me hag-ridden. “You’re not going to make it!” a mocking little voice seemingly just above my head starts saying over and over. At night, I have dreams of inadequacy and lie awake staring up at the dark as the little voice continues its chorus. “You’re not going to make it!”

In the day, motionless and cramped in front of the computer. I start scanning the Internet for possible story leads – any leads – and making the rounds of my contacts. I start writing furiously, sometimes even managing to submit two stories in one day.

It’s not, you might say, the ideal time to confront me with the unexpected, or ask me a favor. At this point in a month, I truly emerge as a geek — and by that I don’t mean a computer programmer, but a grubby refugee from a circus capable of biting chickens’ heads off for a living.

At times, too, in the middle of the month, I wonder if being a circus geek wouldn’t be a less stressful way to make a living. At least the job would get me out of the house and meeting people face-to-face.

By the fourth week, I can see the end in sight, but I hardly dare to hope that I will make my quotas. In fact, I’m a great believer in flop sweat, and have a half-superstitious belief that if I think I can make it, I won’t. But I plug away steadily, seriously over-dosed on writing, and then, miracle of miracles, it happens: I finish, usually with a day or two to spare. Sometimes, I even manage to finish ahead of times in months that have 30 days, or even in the cruelty that is February, with its punishing three days short of a normal month’s length. And, a day or two aside, I rarely have to pull any especially long hours to reach quota.

Part of me is chagrined by this work flow. In school and university, I always had assignments done well ahead of deadline. Common sense tells me that I should dust of those old habits, and write to a schedule, four stories each week, banged out in regular order.

Yet somehow it doesn’t seem to work that way. After my rollercoastering month, I usually need to rest for a few days at the start of a new month, and so the whole sorry cycle gets perpetuated. Maybe the stark, raving terror of deadlines is a great motivator, but it sure doesn’t make for peace of mind.

And you want to know the really sorry part of this schedule? The fact is, I set it myself. I don’t pretend that I am indispensable to any of the editors for whom I write regularly. I’m told that I write well and on-time, and generally need minimal correction – virtues that all editors appreciate – but, should I suddenly disappear or miss quota one month (and sooner or later, I’m bound to), my editors would survive the catastrophe far better than I would the shame of it.

You see, the trouble with being a freelancer – or a consulting editor, if you want to pretty up my position – is that you’re your own boss. And if you have the personality to be a freelancer, you also have the personality to be the most demanding and obnoxious boss for whom you’ve ever had to work.

So pity the poor freelancers. Not only are we under the worst bosses imaginable, but the only escape is back to the nine-to-five jobs we escaped. And nothing, not even our abusive management, is worth such a desperate move.

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Navigating manufactured needs

Posted in Bruce Byfield, fashion, manufactured needs, Personal, Uncategorized on July 27, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Except when buying books, I have tried to avoid reflex consumerism since I was a young teen. I don’t want to be a Luddite (as a computer journalist, I could hardly be that), because, while I sometimes admire the independence of such people, I also think they take a neurotic pleasure in denying themselves. Yet, at the same time, I don’t want to buy the latest appliance or follow the latest fad unless doing so fits my long-term needs. In trying to avoid these extremes, I have become somewhat paradoxical, on the one hand having up to date computer equipment, and, on the other hand, having chosen to live without some of the things that most people take for granted, like microwaves, credit cards, and cell phones. The paradox leads to a very different outlook on life — a slower and less harried one.

To me, a microwave simply duplicates what’s already in the kitchen — and doesn’t function as well as a standard issue oven and stove. It’s nearly impossible to prepare a sauce in one, or anything except non-gourmet meals, because it eliminates most of a hands-on approach to cooking. For this reason, they encourage the use of prepared foods, which add to household expenses.

Their most common use seems to be to heat coffee quickly, a use that hardly justifies the counter space they occupy. So, why bother with them? I don’t stand waiting for water to boil for my peppermint tea — I busy myself with something else — which means that I don’t need the extra few seconds that a microwave promises.

Nor have I ever carried a credit card. Why should I? Living with debt makes me uneasy, and I’m no longer an adolescent who demands instant gratification. Saving beforehand, I appreciate a new car, a new house or a trip more than I would if I were paying for them for months or years after I had them. Sometimes, while I’m saving, I have second thoughts, and realize that I don’t need the high ticket items that I thought I did. At other times, I can enjoy the anticipation of waiting for gratification.

This approach confounds bank employees, who insist that I should take out a card to build a line of credit. “But I don’t care about credit,” I say. “But you should,” they reply. “You never know when you need it.” “But I’ve arranged my life so I don’t need it,” I reply — and so it goes, in an endless Abbott and Costello routine in which neither side understands the others. The bank employees are dumbfounded at the idea of a life without credit, while I have no patience with the idea that you have to increase your levels of anxiety just so you can momentarily act like an infant.

The only real drawback to life without credit is that I consistently over-estimate the income of others. What seems like a wealthier lifestyle than mine is often just a similar income with credit.

(By contrast, I approve wholeheartedly of debit cards. They’re pay as you go — a concept of which I heartily approve — and much more convenient than carrying large amounts of cash, so I’m quite prepared to pay processing fees for using one)

In the same way, I was probably one of the few people in North America who had no interest in the iPhone as the pre-release hype built to the release date. Whether I work in an office as I once did or at home as I do now, I am always within a few meters of a land line. When I am on an errand or on my own time away from my place of work, very few people ever have business with me that can’t wait for an hour or two — and, when they do, it’s extremely rare. I have no wish to have those interminable monologs that sound like a homework assignment at announcers’ school.You know — the ones in which cell phone owners describe the mundane details of their daily activities: “I’m standing in front of the frozen peas now. Is it cold! And there are all sorts of different types of frozen peas here…” Personally, if I was that interested in public performance, I’d have become a mime.

The few times that I do need a phone, I can usually find a pay phone (although not so much recently, since public planners are starting to assume that everyone has a cell phone). At other times, not being connected 24-7 means that I actually have a few hours most days that are mine. The result is that I’m a much calmer person, because I suffer fewer interruptions.

The truth is, very few of us need a cell phone. Those who do — for instance, those whose work day takes them to many different locations in the day and who would otherwise be impossible to contact — are welcome to them. But, for the rest of us, cell phones are a self-indulgence that have little practical use, and serve only to add to the problem of high-tech waste piling up at the landfill, or being exported overseas to endanger the citizens of developing countries who try to recycle them.

Personal coaches and motivational speakers like to talk about taking control of your life and building the sort of life you want. However, I wish a few of them would apply such glittering generalities to our culture’s love affair with technology and fashion. Navigating between going along with the crowd and a perverse self-denial is tenuous and difficult effort, and it doesn’t actually succeed. However, unless you can get ride of the artificial needs foisted upon you, how can you hope to realize the needs you actually have? You’ll only get sidetracked and wind up vaguely unhappy.

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