Archive for the "What not to do" category

It’s happened to me, it’s happened to you, it’s happened to all of us.  You apply for a job opening, get the interview and then after what feels like some good solid communication you discover the job went to someone else. Well, you could do some yelling and screaming and run about the house tearing [...]

It’s not easy to be a freelancer. That’s just the way it is. It takes a certain kind of bravery. Lately, a lot of my friends have seen what I’ve been doing, and they want “in on the action.” Of course, I’m perfectly willing to oblige by pointing them in the right direction. I say, [...]

I haven’t posted here in a while. A long while. There’s one reason why: I went into full shutdown from freelance writer burn-out. I couldn’t even log into oDesk without getting a sick feeling in my stomach. The danger of destroying yourself from overworking is very real, and as part of my personal therapy in [...]

I was on the oDesk forums recently and came across a comment from a new provider who was worried by the ratio of working to registered providers. She couldn’t find the page, which was probably the main oConomy page here which currently shows 248 providers working and 95,545 registered int the system.  I admit that [...]

This is just a quick post to mention something I saw recently online that I didn’t like. I was on another site and someone was hiring members to take and pass the oDesk Readiness Test for them.  Don’t do it. Just don’t.

When I’m not writing (or I’m avoiding work in general) I like to read about writing. So I haunt a few news groups and forums. A few days ago I ran across an interesting thread in CopyWriter Mastermind. What they say about us. The thread started with someone who wanted to sell writing services to [...]

I bet that title got your attention; I know it would get mine. I’ve been writing about money a lot lately, and not just because it’s one of my favorite things.   Today’s topic is a grab-bag of tips that can help you make more money for your work on oDesk. Let’s start with one obvious [...]

Just the other night I received an email inviting me to join a Provider Company on oDesk. Regular readers may know that I have already decided that I like being an independent contractor, but I decided to open the email anyway.  It was an automated invitation saying that person ‘x’ had invited me to join [...]

I was writing a post about the oDesk community when I saw something that made me realize there was something more important I needed to focus on first: Money. I bet that got your attention; it gets mine. We’ve talked about rates before, but what I want to discuss today is setting them.  One of [...]

When I worked in a Call Center I had a supervisor who always used to talk about the importance of “Being in Integrity.” I didn’t always agree with his English, but it’s hard to fault the sentiment. If you’re a long-term reader of the blog, and I hope you are, some of this may sound [...]