Work

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I Love Mondays

It’s rare that I have anything significant waiting in my queue on a Monday morning since my clients are getting their week figured out. So when I’ve been burning the proverbial midnight oil, as I have in the last couple of weeks juggling a full work load and all the construction projects, I like that I can count on a quiet Monday to reboot my energy reserves.

I needed groceries, so I decided to spend a couple of hours in town today. I can’t wait to be in a location where such a plan could include visiting a museum, going to the movies, and other such activities. There’s really not much to do in Assiniboia, SK. I was tempted to get a manicure, though. 🙂

My first stop today was NAPA Auto Parts. I’ve been needing a new gas cap for my truck for weeks and resigned myself to the fact that those things are bloody expensive!!! The cheapest I found online was $25, plus shipping. I decided to try our local business first to see how much they’d charge for the part, if they had one. My timing was impeccable in that a gas cap to fit a 2000 Ford Ranger had come in this morning. However, it was still packed in one of 15 large boxes and I was asked if I could come back in a couple of hours. Yup. The cost was $25. At least I saved the shipping!

Next stop was Peavey Mart for a light source for the shed. I wanted one of those light bulb holders with a hook and long cord and Peavey Mart had the best price in town. Then, I had to find a light bulb to go with it. I haven’t had to buy regular light bulbs in at least six years. Wow are they expensive!

Then, it was off to The Bargain! Shop for paper towels. I’ve been here way too long to know who has the cheapest prices on such things. 🙂

From there, I parked ‘downtown’ and went to the bank to get a money order to pay for the latest gravel order since I was out of cheques. Boy have those things gotten expensive! I used to get money orders (and cheques) free with my account. Service fees keep going up, service keeps going down…

The Salvation Army is across the street from the bank, so I went over to look for pajamas and warm tops. I barely got to wear any of my summer clothes and now I’m already looking for cold weather gear. 🙁 🙁 🙁 There wasn’t much in the store today, but I did find what I wanted AND it was all 20% off!

By this point, it was lunchtime, so I headed to Trifon’s Pizza. Their pizza is very good and they have a deal for a tiny one with a salad that is just a perfect lunch portion. I like that they serve hazelnut coffee!

Groceries were next. I didn’t buy much since I’m leaving for Quebec next week for a week, and then I’ll be leaving for eight months shortly after that, so I need to get through my stores.

My final stop before returning to NAPA was the post office to mail the money order. At NAPA, the gas cap was waiting at the till for me and it was indeed the correct one. I actually contacted Ford to find out how much one of their gas caps would be and I forget the exact figure, but it was upwards of $40!

Now, I’m home and enjoying a quiet afternoon picking away at a few small jobs due tonight. I was going to do laundry, but we didn’t get any sun today and it’s spitting. We’re entering a cold snap, so it’s a good week for typing. The weekend will be nice to wrap up my Haven projects.

Now, exciting news to cap off a boring post: my friend Jody is en route and will be spending the night at Haven! Talk about a great way to end a perfect Monday!

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A Silk Purse

Southern Saskatchewan has just emerged from a very unseasonable cold and rainy period, brought to us courtesy of Montana, if The Weather Network is to be believed. My friend L says that it was payback for the Polar Vortex…

At any rate, it just rained and rained and rained and rained and rained for four or five days and only cleared up yesterday, Tuesday, although it was still a little chilly. I spent the dreary days in my office typing like mad so I could take some time off once the weather cleared.

It was still a little chilly yesterday, but nice enough in the afternoon to go out and finish cladding the shed. I was on my own and didn’t think I could get it done, but I did! It helps that Charles left me a bunch of tools, including his circular saw. I’d never before last week used such a tool and now I have no idea how I ever did any construction work without one!

So the cladding’s all tacked on and I just have some more screwing to do. Charles came by today and complimented me on my work. I asked him about trim because I am planning to clad both buildings in metal either in 2015 or 2016 and thought that while the trim would make the shed look more finished, it might be a waste of money. Charles agreed. So I’m just going to paint.

This morning, I worked, then went to town for painting supplies and a 12′ step ladder. I’ve been shopping for and looking at ladders for months and decided that this was a good compromise for height and the price was right. I can always borrow ladders, of course, but it’s nice to have my own now even though I will still need to use my neighbour’s when I want to get to the peak.

When I got home, I changed into grubbies and began to attack the interior of the shed. It was HOT, so perfect weather for working with water.

The floor was covered with several inches of mouse poop and seed, very disgusting. I hadn’t wanted to clean it before because the building was too open. It still doesn’t have a door, but it was time.

Like with the cabin, I started by bleaching the heck out of the interior. I demolished the grain chute and then set to work with a manure shovel (that came with the grainery!) to pick up the mess on the floor. I put it all into garbage bags, filling at least a dozen, and I’m still not done!

The floor was partially covered with thin plywood and I decided to pry it up to see what was underneath. To my immense surprise, the plywood was just lying on the floor and covering up gorgeous pristine boards! I was shocked! Unfortunately, the exposed boards have been covered in crud for who knows how long and aren’t as pretty.

Once I had picked up as much as I could, I headed to C&C’s to pick up a length of garden hose (and have a coffee and a cuddle with their dog, of course). I came home and gave the shed its first pressuring washing. This helped lift a lot of the caked on muck.

I am going to let everything dry and do another big pick up with the shovel and broom, repressure wash, and then finish up with the shop vac, a final pressure wash, and a final bleach spray.

I’m going to start on that tomorrow between coats of paint. I bought a five-gallon pail of white exterior farm paint and plan to put on as many coats as I have paint for. I am also considering painting the interior of the shed, including the floor. I don’t plan to finish the interior of this building any time soon, so a coat of paint will go a long way to making it feel fresh and clean. I didn’t bother with the cabin because it was so much cleaner.

My feelings towards this building have changed dramatically now that I have gotten at its bones and found them to be solid. I was really worried that I brought home a rotten piece of garbage, but nope! The shed looked absolutely terrible, but all it needed was a facelift. I can’t wait to show it off with a coat of paint!

South side of the shed. Grain chute gone. Tearing it out with a crow bar was fun!

South side of the shed. Grain chute gone. Tearing it out with a crow bar was fun!

Still have a ways to go, but a huge improvement! North side of the shed.

Still have a ways to go, but a huge improvement! North side of the shed.

The interior before. You can see the grain chute, plywood covering the floor, and lots of mouse poop!

The interior before. You can see the grain chute, plywood covering the floor, and lots of mouse poop!

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A Not So Difficult Winter Finally Winds Down

Sunday will mark a year since I rolled into Haven. It is also very likely the day that I will be moving out of my friend Laura’s yard and back to Haven!

This winter truly wasn’t that bad and was much more comfortable than the winters I spent in British Columbia, the dry sunny cold being much more tolerable than the humid overcast warmth. I will miss my view out the office, but look forward to being able to fully open my house door!

Except for the exceptionally frigid nights that propane wouldn’t liquefy and I had to keep getting up to switch tanks, this winter was effortless in terms of RV maintenance and keeping my rig comfortable. I do not in the least feel that I ‘survived’ this winter.

SaskPower came by earlier this week to examine the work done by the electrician and deemed it satisfactory enough to schedule the installation of my meter. I was told it could take up to 10 business days. I called this morning to ask if they had a date for me and explained my situation in the hope that they would take pity on me. They did and promised that I will have power tomorrow or Monday at the latest if something comes up tomorrow! Once the meter is in, I will have power immediately, no waiting for them to flip a switch.

I’m still swamped with work, but hope to start prepping Miranda tomorrow afternoon. I don’t have that much exterior work to do beyond putting away the skirting and charging the house battery, but I will admit that the interior is a bit of a disaster. Getting out of here will mean a lot of jockeying back and forth and tight turns, so I am doing a full pack even though I’ll just be going around the block.

I eventually need to empty out Laura’s garage as well and I can’t believe how much stuff is in there! Where the heck did I used to put it?!

I asked the RM the turn on the water at the hydrant I used last summer, but have not received a reply from them. I will call tomorrow to ask if they have an idea of when that will happen. More than anything, even power, I want running water! I have spent so many winters since 2003 without running water and I am beyond done with that!

Warm weather appears to be holding tenuously and we have several beautiful days ahead, so I look forward to continuing work on cleaning up my property. I have received compliments for my efforts from total strangers, which makes me feel quite proud!

Folks who have met me in the last few years would probably not recognize me this spring, so bright eyed, slim, and energetic. I think my physical state speaks volumes to my mental state and that I am not lying when I say that while I might not have had the winter I wanted, I had the winter I needed.

My year in Saskatchewan has done me a world of good and allowed me to decide on what I want to do next. It’s almost sacrilegious to talk about next winter, but the wheels have already been set in motion for the next great big adventure of my life. It’ll come into focus in late July or August, but I’m already talking about it with some folks like it’s a done deal. Last time I did that, I wound up on a beach in Texas, so the chances are good this is going to happen. 🙂

Well, I’d better get back to work as I have a late deadline tonight and an early Skype meeting with a client in the morning. Hopefully, my next post will be of pictures showing Miranda parked at Haven!

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Tips For Freelancers on Screening Potential New Clients on Craigslist

As a freelancer, I have many resources for finding new contracts and clients, but I’ve had the most luck finding excellent clients through Craiglist. A lot of freelance information sites will say not to bother with Craigslist ads in the search for work, but I’ve really had more luck there than with cold emailing and specialized transcription and freelance job boards.

Yet, for every good company I’ve signed on with, like A and P Transcription, I’ve rejected at least five. I now have enough experience looking for work on Craiglist to quickly catch the companies that won’t be worth my time.

Let’s start with the ad. Very few companies put their details on the Craigslist ad, so for an initial review, I look at the kind of work that is expected and the pay, if that is included.

When I see an hourly rate for transcription, I know the client has no experience working with transcriptionists, so I send my stock email detailing my qualifications and explain that I charge per audio minute because it creates a flat fee for the project.

I very rarely get jobs from these kinds of ads because people who know nothing about transcription have no idea of how long it takes to do the work and can’t fathom that the $75 per audio hour rate only represents an hourly work rate of $18.75. And if they can, then they usually find that rate is way too much anyway.

I’ve probably gotten a half dozen jobs over the years from an ad like this and only one repeat client. I still reply to them because it takes just a minute of my time, but I don’t expect anything to come out of the email.

If a per minute rate is given in the ad, then that tells me the client likely knows a little about the transcription world. If the rate is half decent, then I send my stock email without mention of rates.

The second stage of screening comes when the prospective client replies to me. I am now going to give two concrete examples to explain why one seemingly promising email was rejected while one email with red flags turned into an ongoing job.

Last week, I replied to a Craigslist ad seeking experienced legal transcriptionists. The per minute rate was excellent, so I fired off an email. Sunday afternoon, I received an email containing instructions and attachments for a transcription test. The test was a of reasonable length with clear instructions and decent quality audio.

But the email had a huge red flag: absolutely no client information.

I have no problem spending a half hour completing a transcription test, it’s just part of the process of getting a client, but before I spend that time, I want to know if it’s a client I’ll want to work with. When there’s a transcription test involved, I’m dealing with a transcription firm, so there’s always information on the web about them. The transcription community is quick to review firms, both good and bad.

I pasted some of the text of the email into Google and found a link to a site that gave a lot of information about the company who sent the email. What I found was not good. There was an issue with lack of payment to transcribers as well as lawsuits under an old company name. Now, it appeared that the firm had reorganized itself under a new name.

Just in case my research was wrong, I replied to the email asking for the company for some information about themselves before I take the test. I don’t expect a reply.

Now, compare this to my experience with A and P Transcription.

The owner’s reply to my initial email gave her full company information. I was able search for reviews of A and P Transcription immediately. I found one red flag, a Rip Off Report post that claimed that the owner, Heather, had stiffed transcribers out of a lot of money.

But I wasn’t a government analyst all those years without being able to read between the lines. And there were a lot of lines to read between because Heather replied in great detail to the claims in the Rip Off Report. Based on the two stories, I was able to determine that the only thing she had done wrong was hire unprofessional people who didn’t deserve to be paid.

I agreed to take some work with her and started slowly to see if she would pay when she said she would. Absolutely!

I’ve been working with A and P Transcription since October of 2013 and am thrilled to be on board. Their rates aren’t great, but the work is steady, I have always been given as much as I wanted to take on, I am paid promptly, I can talk to Heather about any issues, and, best of all, I know the week before what the following week’s workload is going to look like. In the freelance world of feast or famine, steady work like this is a rare treasure.

After I finish today’s work with A and P, I have to start on a new assignment for a seemingly shady company that I also found through Craigslist last fall. I took a chance on them and am happy I did. The work is sporadic and pays in 60 days, but it’s interesting and the unexpected little injections into the cash flow are most welcome.

The takeaway from this is that when you’re going through Craigslist ads, it’s important to be cautious and to do a lot of research, but it definitely doesn’t pay to be cynical or to jump to conclusions without all the facts. I just about never bother with my other resources now!

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Storm Watch

The Arctic freeze is receding, but leaving behind it an impending dump of snow. News of this came too late yesterday to go out for propane so I knew I needed to squeeze in a town run first thing this morning.

As it turns out, I had 25lbs of propane left between all my tanks but I was unable to run any one of them for any length of time last night. It looks like in temperatures below -30C I can only use up half of each of my 20lb tanks and about two thirds of my 30lb. I still get enough gas from them to light the stove, but not to feed the furnace. Anyway, it’s definitely warmer today and going into a warming trend, so I’m not worried about this in the least.

I left home at about 9:00 this morning into a very dark and ominous sky. The road out of the hamlet to the highway was less icy than it was on Friday so I made it to town quickly. The snow started to come down as I pulled into the Co-Op.

I’m posted a few times about how I’ve been caught a number of times with very little gas in the truck tank since I forget to check the gauge regularly. Well, I impressed myself this morning when I had the foresight to see how I was doing for gas and saw that I was nearly in the red, a huge no-no for winter conditions in rural country. So I got gas while my propane tanks were being filled, then I went inside for a coffee.

Visibility coming home was fine on the road although I couldn’t see far beyond the road, the sky was so low and heavy. The snow was just blowing though, so the roads were clear and I got home without any issues. The whole trip took about an hour and fifteen minutes, which is really good and probably a record for needing to get three propane tanks filled. This past summer, I learned that I can drive to town, get one tank filled, and drive straight back home in exactly one hour.

Well, I’d better get to work. Being three hours behind is not a good way to start the week!