I canceled out on getting together with a friend yesterday afternoon as I just wasn’t up for being casually social. My mind was going all fidgety and speeding along the various problems and potential solutions to my current daily woe. So I spent my day trying to quell the anxiety attack and focused on money issues.

The back story

In recent years the bulk of my income have come from two main clients. I’d learned the hard way the dangers of too many eggs in a single basket. But in early January I worked my last for Client Number Two and was told they wouldn’t be needing my skills any longer due to changes in their business. But this didn’t seem so bad as I still had my bread and butter client remaining and Number Two actually referred me a couple quick one shot deals that netted some pocket change. So things ended well there.

Client Number One was great. I liked what I did and who I was doing it with. The hours were brutal but it was condensed as ninety percent of the work with them happening in the summer. I started with them a couple years back and was hired to just do few simple tasks. It wasn’t anything of note but it was simple, quick money. Soon my notoriety grew for being over the top with my skilled execution, rapid turn around and I charmed my way into bigger and bigger projects. They were happy with me and I was happy with them and all was good.

Over the weekend I finally heard back from my contact person for the company and it was bad news. The midwest wasn’t in their current plans and so I wasn’t going to be working with them. I still had hopes up as they always waited until the last minute to green light projects so I figured I’d soon be frantically working on projects. But no, I’m not in New York or LA so I’m no longer in the picture. I wasn’t counting on getting the work, I don’t speculate on wishes, but I was really, really hoping for some action from them. It really could have turned my year around.

My response

The news left me feeling broad sided and sleeping horribly last night and feeling very out of sorts. Even though the work would have been in the summer I wouldn’t see any checks until late summer or early fall–possibly longer. Being a large company getting paid took forever, sometimes even over 90 days–but it always came.

Now I don’t have any scheduled income for the year and I have zero clue what to depend on to replace it with. This really worries me as I don’t know where any of my future money could come from. As I’ve mentioned earlier in the blog I plan out my money months at a time as that’s how it comes to me, in lump sums a couple times a year. So I’ll still be okay for a while but that belt is going to tighten about a dozen notches further now. And I’ll really have to scramble to find a replacement–and fast.

Yesterday Afternoon

I felt bad skipping out on my friend yesterday afternoon but I wasn’t going to be much fun to be around and I didn’t want to force anyone into therapist mode. There was just too much on my mind to work through and it all needed to be addressed I could process it through best on my own.

The person I stayed with for my Big City Visit has a neighbor who’s moving out of state. She was leaving town mid-afternoon and had a panic moment that brought her knocking and looking for help. It was a nice distraction as I helped pack a couple boxes and schlep them over to the local UPS Store to ship them to her new home. She was running behind and a few minutes assistance got her back on track and I snapped out of my funk a little bit.

After dropping off the packages we went our separate ways. I was going to return to pointlessly sending out more resumes to be ignored by companies. I’d already spent a couple hours but figured I’d be good for at least a few more submittals. But on the way back I stopped into a dollar store to see what deals they had.

Getting more than I bargained for

I’ve become quite the wiz with resumes and job searching. People come to me for advice and I’ve done numerous resumes for friends and they’ve quickly found jobs with them. I do all the tricks. I look all over for job leads, research the company, write cover letter that address the points in their ads and how I could specifically address their needs–both from the ads and my own research–and send a resume tailored to their position. I literally have a selection of generalized resumes for different types of position and a large master resume to create special ones from. This way I can just pull a stock resume out for most jobs and for the special few I can pull out the three page one and cut out what doesn’t directly fit. I’ve even been known to read local business sites and newspaper looking for companies announcing expansions, research who they are and what they to then send letters to the appropriate managers.

So why have I not gotten a job or some new clients? I haven’t a clue. And this is a big part of the problem as when you can’t define a problem you can develop a solution. So I’ve been feeling like my hours spent soliciting for work to be pointlessly spent as I’m expending effort but not getting rewarded in anyway for it. And this is a problem I can define. I work and I don’t get paid. Rather then blindly send responses to ads and net nothing in return I need to do something else. Something more effective and something that pays immediate results that are tangible if not outright profitable.

This was comically realized while in the dollar store looking at hair care products. In my job search I’m a product and I’m trying to sell myself to people looking to have a need met. If I’m not getting sold then there must be a reason. I was struck by the logic behind the old saw, “like selling a freezer to an eskimo,” where you can have the right product but the wrong audience, or the right audience and the wrong product.

Looking at the packaging of the Wuwangwo shampoo I wondered who in their right mind would buy such a product. The label was a mess! Butchered English, sloppy typography and an ugly look done on the cheap. No wonder it was in a dollar store! Then I started thinking about this as I walked around. I couldn’t figure out who’d buy it yet there was open space on the shelf as if some was purchased. And then it hit me.

This wasn’t a shampoo meant to appeal to me, it’s not my product nor is it for people like me. It’s clearly someone else’s shampoo. I’m presuming from the non-English characters that it was made in China so perhaps the neighborhood Chinese people were buying it. And many of the other customers in the store, from what I could discern, didn’t speak English as their native language. They wouldn’t question the quality of the product because of the lack of concern with proper translation. And so what if the overall look of the package doesn’t appeal to me? That doesn’t mean that a native of some other land wouldn’t see it as attractive. The problem wasn’t the product, for all I know that’s a top selling item. the problem was my narrow viewpoint as the empty spots on the shelf made it look to me like Wuwangwo shampoo was a well selling item.

So what I need to do is drastically rethink what I’m trying to do. My current resume and sales spiel just isn’t working and the problem isn’t refining it anymore. I’ve done that to death. The problem must be that I’m using the wrong tools to sell the wrong skill to the wrong people in the wrong way.

Of course, I have no idea where to go with this at the moment and will have to ponder fiercely on this topic. I need to find that “aha” light bulb overhead idea that’ll change my fate.

Post freakout

I’m realizing that I have a few months before I really need to worry. I’ve counted up my pennies and I’ll be okay for a while. It’s still unsettling to know that I have essentially no income at all anymore, that my income has been a pittance thus far this year and I have no clue where more could come from. I was hoping to pick up several thousand from the canceled gig but I wasn’t betting the farm on it. Nothing in the future is certain and I don’t pretend it is. The present tells me that I’ve lost this gig but tomorrow is another day with new opportunities.

This is a tough blow as I’m not sure what I’ll be doing. It makes the need to find money all the more imperative and the need to conserve all the more keen. The move from living in an apartment to living in a vehicle was motivated by making my expenses match my income. But now with my income further diminished I’m wondering how I can possibly cut more from my life.

Nothing in life in certain but the optimist in me was hoping that I’d be working for Client Number One again this year even though it didn’t very sure. But hearing the final “no” and realizing that it’s too late to change the opinion was a big, rude wake-up slap.

In a very short order I need to change things around. And that’s one thing I can believe in with 100% certainty. The current path isn’t working and continuing in it is completely futile as if it hasn’t worked yet isn’t not going to. I thought that I was expanding out and trying new things in the last couple years but now I don’t think I tried hard enough. I need to reinvent, and do so in a drastic new way. And what I do needs to be directly related to income. No more working for days, weeks, months at a time achieving nothing. Results are needed, not just effort.

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