Mean handshakes, toddler criminals and watching your own tail

I'm the innocent bystander
Somehow I got stuck
Between the rock and the hard place
And I'm down on my luck
—Warren Zevon, "Lawyers, Guns and Money"

On back-to-back days this week, I came across articles with the following headlines:

4-Year-Old Can Be Sued, Judge Rules in Bike Case
and
Candidate Files Criminal Complaint Over Firm Handshake

Then, last night, a 5-year-old girl dressed as a lion for Halloween told my wife, "My mom says that you shouldn't have candles in your pumpkin, because my tail is flammable."

To which my wife replied, "You're going to have to watch your own tail."

Indeed. I really wish that people would watch their own tails.

What kind of society do we live in that can sue a toddler for negligence on a bike, in which a politician can gripe over a grip-and-grin, or in which a kindergartener is allowed to scold an adult for having a votive candle burning inside a gourd?

Now, in the case of the elderly woman who got hit by the runaway cyclist and broke her hip — yes, it sucks. If you're a political candidate, and you get kung-fu gripped, sorry, that's part of the territory. If you're out on Halloween night and you're in a flammable outfit, by all means, please stay away from open flames.

Stuff happens. Sometimes awful stuff. No one should expect to be entitled to a risk-free life, and there is no way to legislate or adjudicate every single bad thing that occurs. According to a book by Harvey A. Silverglate that's next on my reading list, the average person commits Three Felonies a Day without even knowing it. Every year, more laws and more byzantine rules about every aspect of our lives go into the books...and our ability to take personal responsibility and manage happenstance seems to erode.

And, as a result, I suspect that the young lady in the lion suit has a promising career ahead of her as a personal-injury lawyer. Or if she works on her grip strength, maybe even a politician.

Federal copy editors run amok

Cross posted from Dr. Freelance. Just because.

There isn't much breaking news in the world of editorial jobs, but this article from The New York Post, "$27 million to change NYC signs from all-caps," is straight from the are-you-freaking-kidding-me file, sure to warm the heart of the most strident grammar pedant.

At the risk of offending any of my friends or readers who happen to have one of these federal copy editor jobs (Really? Such a position exists? What's the annual salary, I wonder...), I have to say this is asinine. It's worth reading the whole thing to get a sweet taste of the pure, harebrained wastefulness, but here's a quick excerpt:

Federal  copy editors are demanding the city change its 250,900 street signs --  such as these for Perry Avenue in The Bronx -- from the all-caps style  used for more than a century to ones that capitalize only the first  letters.

Changing BROADWAY to Broadway will save lives, the Federal Highway Administration contends in its updated Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, citing improved readability.

At $110 per sign, it will also cost the state $27.6 million, city officials said.

For starters, when is an editor allowed to "demand" anything?

Mind you, I am no fan of all caps. It is harder to read. It looks like you're shouting. I'm also no fan of signs that are misleading, misspelled, misaligned or mis-whatever. I'm sure it would be awful to have people looking for "Broadway" and driving right past a sign for "Brawdweigh." Replacing signs at the usual rate of 8,000 a year, OK, whatever.

But as Jason Alexander's character in Shallow Hal says, let's just cut through the old crap cake here. This is money being spent on an accelerated basis in a weak economy on the weakest of premises. Upper-lower formatting and changing from standard-issue highway font to Clearview is going to SAVE LIVES? SAVE FREAKING LIVES? (Yes, this is me shouting.)

Maybe I'd feel better if they would simply be honest about this and admit it's a make-work (please don't call it a stimulus!) program to keep starving copy editors and signmakers off the dole. But if they insist on trying to spin it as some sort of do-gooder way of preventing old people from getting into fender benders, I'm having none of it.

GOVERNMENT. COPY EDITOR. FAIL.

Disposing with dignity

Hold on a sec. Not talking about eliminating dignity, here — I'm referring to throwing away things on your own terms.
We recently moved, and part of that process included disassembling my office over THERE and re-creating it over HERE (in a slightly smaller space). As I gazed upon the stuff that had accumulated over the years, I knew that there were a couple of Hefty bags in my future.

Which brings me to disposing with dignity. With some items -- boxes for electronics past their warranty, faded neon paper that I used for a long-ago direct mail campaign, several miles' worth of USB, Firewire and ethernet cable — it's not a hard decision to pitch.

But then you get to those things that may once have held some meaning but now just collect dust: stacks of photos that didn't make the cut into an album or onto a wall; silly awards; CDs of stale computer archives; and, perhaps most painfully and poignantly for a freelance writer, stacks of magazines, samples and old clips that are way past their expiration date.

I threw it all away. The "disposing with dignity" principle is something my wife and I formulated and have employed (usually when moving), and it comes down to this: As the owner/possessor of an item that has some emotional value to you alone, it's best that you are the one to throw it away. Not to go too morbid on you here, but if you were to die tomorrow, this is stuff that would be chucked away without remorse. In fact, it might only serve to annoy the people who wondered why you kept all that crap.

In any event, purging felt good. I had one final chance to pay my respects and reminisce on those things that I didn't really need anymore. I just heard the garbage truck do its pickup...but I still have my memories.

International Freelancers Day online conference

If you haven't already heard or signed up, the International Freelancers Day online conference will be taking place on September 24, 2010. A quick look at the agenda and 25 speakers makes it look like a worthwhile confab. It's founded by Steve Slaunwhite, Pete Savage and Ed Gandia of TheWealthyFreelancer.com, which is one of my regular RSS reads.

And it's free, too.

If you're registered, you'll also be able to watch replays of the presentations, in case you're working on deadline or out of town.

I am MacGyver

No, I'm not talking about the mullet I wore back in the late 1980s. I'm talking about the fact that, as a freelance writer, there are going to be times when you're given a piece of dental floss, a stick of gum, and a Bic lighter, and you're expected to create a nuclear weapon a brochure or ad campaign or website out of it.

Earlier this week, I started work on a project for a longtime client. He's a great guy, funny as hell, and I know exactly how he works: It starts with a kind of fuzzy, two-sentence email about what he wants the project to be. That's followed up by me giving him a call to find out the details...only to find out that there really aren't any yet, just kind of a big picture this-is-what-I-want-it-to-be. Next, he sends a couple of links to websites that kinda do what he wants to do, but not quite. Similar, but different.

Day two, he sends me a follow-up email to find out how it's going. Which prompts another call from me to say I need more information. Now, I click on the digital tape recorder, and play Mr. Reporter for a while, asking as many questions as I can, grasping at threads. The conversation ends, I transcribe the file, and I'm marginally farther along.

I start writing babble-style, then suddenly the piece starts to take form. Hmmm, not half bad. I shoot him the draft, he shoots a bunch of holes in it (as I mutter to myself, "Why didn't you tell me that earlier?), and I give it a rework. In the end, he's happy, I'm relieved, it's all good, another one's in the books.

The reality is, I wouldn't put up with these antics if I didn't genuinely like him and know that it's just the way he is. It wouldn't do me any good to try to change his style, either. I simply accept it, and I know I'll provide him a product that does what he needs it to do.

And the other reality is, it's kind of a kick to strap on my MacGyver mullet-wig, and create something explosive out of damn near nothing.

Now, where the heck did I put my Bic?

Losing a loyal client or editor

It happens to all of us eventually: Losing a loyal client or editor to a new position elsewhere. But hey, I'm nothing but an undaunted optimist — in fact, it can be a bit of a Johnny Appleseed opportunity, with new work and opportunities in a new company with an old friend. Developing a strong client relationship, always, always, always, is a freelancer's best business strategy.

More details and thoughts on how to handle a client/editor departure at my newest Freelance-Zone.com post, "Losing a loyal client."