Wednesday, January 18, 2012

New Year, New Plan?

Holy cow, can you believe that my blog has been around for a whole year? How about some history and a quick update are in order before I crack open a bottle of bubbly to celebrate being 1 years old.

So the history first. Last year in November or so I lost my job due to "downsizing" and while I missed my paycheck every two weeks I sure as heck didn't miss that stupid job. At the time I decided to see if I could make a living working for myself and soon after that I started this blog, which has been a big help.

I thought I'd look back on the year and try to put together the top 5 things I learned this year into a list. So;

1. CUSTOMER SERVICE IS HARD. At the heart of anything, camming, chatting, making custom stuff, you are providing a whole lot of customer service. But you have to go into every interaction like it's going to be the best ever. If you let your pessimism get the better of you you will get into a self defeating loop. I learned this because of item number 2.

2. LEARN YOUR CUSTOMERS. Some custies are worthless freeloading losers - cut them loose as fast as possible so you don't waste your valuable time trying to get something from a guy who won't give it up. Some custies are the nicest, most generous people in the world who genuinely care about helping you out.

The hard part is learning to tell the difference. I'm getting better at it, but I still think I spend too much time putting in effort on guys who turn out to be an empty wallet. But it seems like everytime I make a vow to quit, one of these guys that I thought was a deadbeat will surprise me with a huge contribution or a monster tip or a really easy, high dollar purchase.

3. TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF. Sitting at a computer for an extended period of time no matter if you are camming, chatting, typing, plotting world domination or fingerbanging yourself, is not a healthy thing to do. I know it feels like every minute you aren't in front of your laptop that you are losing money (and you may be) but is that small amount of money with your health? No, no way.

4. DON'T GET ISOLATED. Working at home and for yourself means that you are very much cut off from soem of your social networks - think about how many of your friends you met at work at one job or another, or how many people you hang out with at happy hour. It's a lot. In my case it was almost everyone. When I realized I was becoming a shut in after a few months I hit the Facebook hard and I remembered one thing - just because you don't work at the office doesn't mean you can't hit up Happy Hour! And hey, since you are self employed you can work drunk, have a few and then some money!

%. DON'T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF. Whenever I am worried or feel bad about my situation, I wake up extra early and go to the Starbucks by my house and I watch all the people who are hustling into work and gearing up for their long commutes to their own crappy episode of The Office and it usually makes me feel better because I don't really answer to anybody. No matter how tight money is, as long as the bills are paid and I don't have a boss, I'm winning the game.