The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!

[Tafdolphin]

Also it's Comté not compte.

It's a good job it was an (attempted) video chat and not a text one or I would have been gone.

Gone. Dead.

[OrangeRKN]

Red Leicester

[Jenuall]

Also it's Comté not compte.

It's a good job it was an (attempted) video chat and not a text one or I would have been gone.

Gone. Dead.

Dodged the bullet there.

[Dual]

Smell my cheese you mother

[Green Gecko]

Essentially they wanted to know the same value as if you were subtracting - ie how much of the value was made up of vat (so 1/6th not 1/5th, since we're starting with the value that includes VAT)

Ah I get you, I'm not vat registered so I'm always adding it, so pretty much never have to do that.

For a couple of seconds I was doing X * X.2 and thought I'd lost my mind as all my purchase orders work out at worst penny off that way. I'm the kind of person who doubts my answers and changes them to wrong answers

[Moggy]

What are your favourite cheeses Taf?

That was literally the only question that he asked. I answered that we go to a farmer's market every weekend where there's a stall specialising in goats cheese. They have something just called The Brick which is a, yes, a brick of super creamy, super strong goats milk cheese which is incredible.

Also, compte.

Writing tests are coming in 8 days apparently, so we'll see what they are then!

Unlucky, the correct answer was Dairylea.

[Jenuall]

Cheese Strings all the way.

[Bunni]

Turns out I calculated my annual leave without accommodating for public holidays so I only have 7 shifts to work for the rest of the year.

[Corazon de Leon]

Excellent work. Just the 30 for me. Not including my second job, or the third one I’m interviewing for on Monday.

[That's not a growth]

Cora you utter lunatic. Why don't you just go write a few more books and create a YouTube series while you're at it.

[Green Gecko]

His is what happens when you dedicate your life to being a brain, everyone wants a piece of it while paying you in cherrios.

[Tafdolphin]

I applied for a job a few weeks back, a full-time remote writer position at a software developer with some really innovative work practices....

So I've gotten the next stage email for this job. They had close to 1300 applications for the writer role and I'm down to the last 12. It's not often I'm proud of myself but I'm pretty proud of myself.

But now they want me to do some writing for them, and man there's a lot. They want me to:

- rewrite their product feature page
- craft announcement pages on a new product feature for their blog, facebook, twitter, instagram and linkedIn
- Make an "About us" page

That's...quite a lot. They have been super honest and open about the "doing prospective work for free" thing though, saying that in the unlikely event they actually end up using any of it they'll pay. But still. Got to get my work on, it seems.

[That's not a growth]

Good luck Taff. While that's a lot, considering how many people they need to go through its believable they have a lot of strong candidates so will need a moderate selection of scenarios to better compare people - and the fact they've already said about paying for work used is reassuring about the type of company they are.

[Jenuall]

Nice one, good luck with delivering their free re-brand!

Seriously though, hope it goes well - getting this far from that many candidates is already impressive.

[Victor Mildew]

Well done.

I had a prospective client once back when I was freelancing who was effectively interviewing me (which rang alarm bells when I was freelancing and he knew my work from my portfolio site). Part of said interview was describing how I did my workflow. Second part was him trying to get me to send him my master files for one of my best designs. Multiple times he tried, apparently 'to see if our work styles matched'. I sussed the strawberry floater was basically trying to steal my work for nothing. When I suggested I'd send him the files if he paid me the equivalent for having done the work for him, he suddenly went quiet and I was no longer being interviewed. Prick.

Another time I went for a full time job, but during the interview sussed that the pay was too low (I told them at the time). I'd done some concepts for their brand off my own back as part of my usual suprise bit of my portfolio. They phoned to offer a second interview, I declined on the money basis and they then had the cheek to ask for me to send them the designs I'd done! banana splits.

[Tomous]

I declined on the money basis and they then had the cheek to ask for me to send them the designs I'd done! banana splits.

Should have offered to send them with an invoice.

[That's not a growth]

Had my interview. Think it went mostly ok, but realised I find it so boring taking about my work, but I didn't want to rush to ensure they had enough context, but also worried I was giving too much context. At least it's done with.

[Tafdolphin]

Had my interview. Think it went mostly ok, but realised I find it so boring taking about my work, but I didn't want to rush to ensure they had enough context, but also worried I was giving too much context. At least it's done with.

We need a 'thumbs up' emoji. But thumbs up.

Too much talk and context is better than the opposite

[Green Gecko]

Well done.

I had a prospective client once back when I was freelancing who was effectively interviewing me (which rang alarm bells when I was freelancing and he knew my work from my portfolio site). Part of said interview was describing how I did my workflow. Second part was him trying to get me to send him my master files for one of my best designs. Multiple times he tried, apparently 'to see if our work styles matched'. I sussed the strawberry floater was basically trying to steal my work for nothing. When I suggested I'd send him the files if he paid me the equivalent for having done the work for him, he suddenly went quiet and I was no longer being interviewed. Prick.

Another time I went for a full time job, but during the interview sussed that the pay was too low (I told them at the time). I'd done some concepts for their brand off my own back as part of my usual suprise bit of my portfolio. They phoned to offer a second interview, I declined on the money basis and they then had the cheek to ask for me to send them the designs I'd done! banana splits.

None of this surprises me. For some reason whining about the expense and time invested in hiring is seen as justification to retain and even use unpaid work product, when really they are just farming in and stealing work which ever way they frame it. You get intellectual property clauses trying to siphon off anything that gets submitted during an application process.

I'm fairly confident these days I lost a contracting role because I was a threat to the lead designer as my work was actually better than they were expecting. Whatever, I just walked away with the most I've ever earnt in such a short space of time, and so I've never cared too much about it. Lesson is, demand reasonable payment or don't bother.

If corporates were actually willing to (1) treat contractors with an ounce of professionalism and respect and/or (2) give their "permanent" (if you're lucky) staff appropriate compensation and any protections/securities whatsoever, we wouldn't have those sorts of problems.

So, I prefer having basic Terms & Conditions through my business, and if someone is a banana split for any reason they can strawberry float off. I'd honestly rather be broke than miserable.

[Tafdolphin]

Sent my writing task responses off to that writer's job. I was pretty happy with it, which is a miracle considering yesterday I thought the whole thing was gooseberry fool.

We'll see [fingerscrossed.emoji]