Here:
Sorting through the hundreds of magazine articles I've written to find the ones that best represent my talents is a daunting task. In a career including newspaper reporting; writing and editing articles for internal and external corporate audiences; for The Nuclear Professional magazine; and as a freelancer, I've written about everything from meter readers who dodge alligators and attack geese to licensing nuclear power plants. I've ridden in experimental aircraft and visited 25 U.S. nuclear power plants and one Canadian plant. I have offered countless ways to save energy and use technology. It's never stopped being fun.
I'm getting a little punchy, I think. I'm at that phase of a project in which the last 20% takes as long as the first 80%. Also, I'd rather right about stress corrosion cracking than myself.
(Pssst...Ginger! Thanks for the birthday card! [It fits, topic-wise, with this discussion.] I laughed and laughed and laughed. And then Tim made me define a preposition, which launched me into Eddie Izzard's "Le singe est sur la branche" routine.)
That card spoke to me and it said Steph....
You're amazingly good with apt cards. And that paragraph is golden.
Was the the "Where's your party at, BITCH?" card? A friend got my that one a few years ago; it's still on the fridge...
I am looking for some help/input on an issue I'm trying to figure out.
My law firm has done fairly well in the last year. It's not quite 2 years old and I'm making enough to support myself and 1 paralegal, although to be completely open, I'm getting child support money and alimony at the moment. I'm not sure that should be a factor but it means I don't feel completely independent. Yet.
So, the business is doing well, but it feels disorganized. I *really* do not function well with disorganization. I feel like we are losing a lot of time/money because we don't have good systems in place. I'm not an accountant and that is an area of constant frustration. But I also feel like we just lose a lot of time tracking down information.
All this frustration led me to seek out a business development person. I like her and I've seen her do good work in other places. So I'm comfortable with her as a person. Her hourly rate is $50, which I think is probably fair although I have nothing to compare that to.
I met with her before my vacation and we talked for about an hour about how to make things better. She had some original ideas although many of them were things I'd already thought of but haven't had time to implement. And that right there is the heart of the problem. I only work probably 40 hours a week but I have three kids who need me. I can't spend all weekend coming up with new systems or marketing ideas. I have lots of ideas but I want help implementing them. And i think I need help - I haven't had any major catastrophes yet, but I've come close once or twice and I don't want that to happen again.
So, that's a lot of reasons to do it. The downside is that the cost estimate is about $10,000. She broke it down by tasks and they look legit. She also won't bill me for hours she doesn't actually work.
I don't know - I want to work with her but that seems like an insane amount of money for stuff that I can essentially do myself. But I'm not sure I ever will because I don't have the time.
Can you choose the top 2 tasks that you really need a system in place for and start with those, rather than the 10K get it all done price?
That is a good idea. I should ask her if I'm committing to the whole thing or if we can work in pieces. She does estimate 2 months to "audit" the business and then 4 months to implement her ideas.
eta: sometimes being an adult is so boring. I'd so rather take that money and buy a vacation to Argentina, but I really am willing to invest in the future of the law firm.
