Start the week #99

Where I'm coming from

Greetings!

This week I’m ranting waxing lyrical about Linkedin and being expected to work for zilch. Plus, how my mouth worked faster than my brain in a work situation, and another selection of chortlesome videos.

But enough of this persiflage! On with the newsletter.

Terry

Linkedin

Every so often my natural masochistic tendencies kick in and I feel compelled to respond to people on Linkedin. So there I was, minding my own business, when a message popped up: Jane Doe¹ would like to connect with you. What the hell, I thought. Why not? I clicked on Accept, and almost immediately I received a message to thiis effect:

Hi. We’re starting a new publication and we’d love to have you write for us. Please note that this is an unpaid opportunity, but you don’t have to pay anything to take part.

Oh boy, how could I refuse? Quite easily as it happens. I love the use of the word “opportunity”, by which I presume they mean the opportunity to donate my time and expertise in order to make someone else some money. Although I suppose I should be grateful that they don’t want me to actually pay for the privilege.

Still, this was very useful, because it enabled me to see how chilled I’ve become in my old age². A few years ago I was offered a similar “opportunity”, although at least on that occasion they told me the reward would be “exposure”. I emailed back as follows:

Thank you so much for reaching out to me with this exciting offer. I should love to take you up on it, but first I just need to ask my mortgage provider if, instead of my monthly payments, they would be happy for me to put up a notice on my property stating that this house has been financed by Acme Building Society. After that, I will contact my local supermarket to ask if they will let me have my weekly supplies for nothing as long as I walk around carrying a bag with their logo on, to give them exposue.

Strangely enough, I didn’t receive a reply.

This time I have decided to just quietly ignore it.

Another strange thing is that I’ve almost never³ worked just for “exposure”. True, I’ve written for no money on my own blogs and in my own newsletters for years, but at least the copyright belongs to me and I don’t have that horrible sense of having been ripped off.

Why is it considered OK for writers to write for nothing, or give talks for nothing? Not just writers either. I was approached by a company a few years ago to ask if I would speak at their conference. They were charging £300 per ticket, and expecting 1,000 people. They were paying their speakers nothing — even though without those speakers nobody would turn up to the conference. I offered the organisers a polite version of the Bartleby response⁴.

Everyone has to do what they think best for themselves of course, but I’ve always thought that if someone puts a value of £0 on their own work, why would anybody else offer them a high rate than that?

I had a dramatic illustration of that around twenty years ago. I was doing educational consultancy work, and some new kid on the block came along charging a third of my daily rate. I stuck to my guns, and the work kept flowing in. After a few months, the new kid gave up and went back into teaching.

Giving value for money

When it comes to Substack, I keep reading that in order to give paid subscribers value for money, you should hold weekly Zoom sessions, or weekly chats or threads. I can’t think of anything I’d like to do less. I write posts going into the behind-the-scenes aspects of some articles, or asking for people’s opinion — such as Three possible beginnings of a book review — and there’s a huge and growing archive of articles available for paid subscribers⁵. I’d rather write than talk any day!

Put a sock in it!

Have you ever heard yourself say something without consciously thinking about it, and wished instantly that you hadn’t?

That happened to me when I working in a government agency some time ago. It was around 6pm and a colleague called Jane⁶ and I were the only people still in the office. Jane suddenly said to me, à propos nothing at all:

Jane: I read a report recently that said all men are obsessed with either football or breasts.

Me [without even thinking]: I’ve never been a sports lover myself.

OMG. I glanced over at Jane, already working on my defence for when I was summoned to the HR department, and was greatly relieved to see that she was desperately trying to suppress a grin.

And on the subject of saying things and then wishing you had meditated more so as to be able to instantly teleport yourself somewhere else, here is another video from Pro Muso, who I mentioned last week. This time he’s advising on what not to say on stage.

More videos

Do you ever have a big surprise when you see someone you’ve only heard up till now? I experienced that when I first saw the singer of Vehicle, below. Somehow, the voice doesn’t go with the face. 😂

Another daft joke from Tommy Cooper.

Robots playing football

Seems a bit pointless at first glance but it’s also quite sinister. How long before the Terminator or Robocop graduates from the realm of fiction?

Well, that’s it from me for now.

Rebecca Holden

and I write to each other here on Wednesdays, and it’s her turn to write to me! Last week I set her a dastardly challenge, so I’m looking forward to learning how she got on. <Snigger>

I’d love to hear your comments about any of the things I’ve discussed here!

Bye for now

Terry

1. Not her real name, of course.

2. Please note: this is a figure of speech. I identify as 25.

3. I say “almost” because I have spoken at one event where some influential people were going to be in attendance. As far as I can tell, it led to no extra commissions, but one can never tell I suppose.

4. In Bartleby The Scrivener, by Herman Melville, Bartleby’s response to every request to do something is, “I prefer not to.”

5. The articles are automatically paywalled after two weeks.

6. Please see footnote #1.