Hey, it’s unexpected side benefit of inventing my own career number 133: This afternoon I’ll be interviewed for Purse Strings, a Webmaster Radio show. I’m pretty jazzed about it; I love talking about money, and marketing, and later today I’ll be doing both.

The part that blows my mind is that I was approached about this because… well, because I’m female, I guess, and because I blog, and because people read me. I am not any sort of “expert” in the conventional sense of the word. I’m just someone who likes to talk, really. Um, don’t tell. Maybe they’ll realize they invited the wrong person. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s probably not a way to say this without sounding like I have a great big swelled head, but it’s relevant to a point I want to make so I’m just going to say it: My freelancing career (thus far) is a quintessential success story. I mean, in the grand scheme of what can happen when one decides to go into business for oneself, I somehow did it right and am reaping the rewards. I’m not rich—and probably never will be—but I earn a very respectable income. I have regular work and plenty of business contacts. My schedule is flexible and I set my own hours, yet I have more than enough work to make this a sustainable career choice.

Furthermore, my work and income levels have been… if not completely steady, at least predictable for over a year, at this point. Barring any major catastrophe (excuse me while I go knock on some wood), there’s no reason I shouldn’t believe that this is what my career will look like for years to come. Read the rest of this entry »

I feel like I’m having the same conversation over and over again, lately. Everywhere I go, I’m being asked the same question.

During the Today Show interview, Janet asked if “anybody could do this.” During BlogHer Business, several people asked bout what happens when bloggers are in competition with each other. And in a conversation with someone yesterday—wherein I was giving my standard explanation of how I came to be a freelancer and how I write on this very topic—I was asked, “Oh, but don’t you want to keep your methods a secret, so that other people can’t take your clients?”

Maybe I’m naive, but I don’t understand this attitude that everyone else who does what I do is somehow standing between me and success. Read the rest of this entry »

In astonishing news, researchers recently discovered that water is wet, people need to breathe air, children are demanding, and that it’s important to have hobbies. But you knew all of that, right?

I tend to forget that last one, myself. For me, the hardest part of the so-called “juggle” is remembering that it’s good and healthy to do things I don’t need to. More specifically, I forget to pursue things I don’t need to which don’t include sitting on the couch with some ice cream. I mean, I’m pretty sure I don’t need to watch American Idol, but I’m also not sure that watching bad television and stuffing my face truly qualifies as a hobby. Read the rest of this entry »

I was a stay-at-home mom in a crumbling marriage when a nice man came to our house to refinance our mortgage. He went on and on about how it was a perfect career for him, as a single dad, and I mentioned that I was thinking of trying to find a family-friendly part-time job. He gave me his number, and shortly thereafter I became a mortgage broker.

It was the worst job I ever had. Part of the problem was that my personal life was in shambles, of course, but most of the problem was that I’d spent my entire professional career with meticulous, highly-educated engineers, and suddenly I was outranked at work by folks with half my education, but who made piles of money in ways that oftentimes bordered on (or crossed over into) the unethical.

I did the work I needed to do, but I quietly refused to do anything unscrupulous. I was still surprised, though, when one day as I was working through a mountain of paperwork, I was called into a conference room and fired. Read the rest of this entry »

Happy New Year! I don’t feel very different than I did yesterday, but the good news is that this year, both days I felt pretty good. The truth is that 2007 was a great year for me both personally and professionally. So I was in no hurry to bid it farewell, but I’m looking forward to an even better 2008.

Nataly’s post the other day about things she’s done and learned this year got me rethinking the whole New Year’s resolutions thing. As a rule, I don’t do resolutions. I think it’s sort of lame and arbitrary to say “Okay, now I’m going to do those things I should’ve been doing all along.” But in looking back over my posts here at Work It, Mom since I began this blog last May, I realize that I, too, have learned many an important lesson in the past year; many of which I have been waiting for the new year to implement changes. Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes, when I write, I’m me. Like, here. Look up top there, and you’ll see that Cornered Office is written by me, Mir Kamin. For some of my regular work I just go by “Mir.” And for some of the work I do, my name isn’t visible on it anywhere.

I’ve never really given this a lot of thought, frankly. I’m okay with the terms of my various contracts; it’s not always important to me to have my name front and center on something. In fact, given the fickle nature of the internet, I’m often more comfortable not being immediately identifiable as the author of some of my work. (Not because I’m not proud of it or because I write controversial stuff—I am and as a rule, I don’t—but because some people like to use the internet to indulge their Inner Crazy.) Read the rest of this entry »

I’m fond of saying that I’m fine whenever I can get out of my own way. My propensity, however, to needlessly complicate matters or otherwise make mountains out of molehills is somewhere legendary. This dubious talent extends to my mental health, wherein I’m easily stressed out or grumpified (totally a word) by whatever the downside of a given situation is, regardless of whether or not the predominant atmosphere is, you know, good.

That’s pretty much what I was doing last week. Allow me to paraphrase that entry: “Wah wah wah, it’s a holiday and vacation and I’m cranky because I still have to do some work. Woe is me.”

This weekend I realized I needed to tell myself the same thing I say to my kids: “Awwwwww. That’s a pretty rough life you’ve got there.” Read the rest of this entry »

So, I’m not going to lie to you. The last three days have been tremendously awful. My hosting provider’s “little problem” has still not been resolved, which means the only data I have from my previous web presence is a month-old database back-up (which, by the way, will require that I open a ticket with my new hosting company to actually install, which I am holding off on because just maybe my data will still be recovered).

But as of right now, everything else is… gone.

For a control freak like me, this is beyond devastating. I’m losing revenue, yes—lord knows that financially this is going to be a nightmare long past whatever site restoration I do—but more than that, I watched my business, my baby, vanish. And there wasn’t anything I could do. Read the rest of this entry »

I know. I know. Halloween hasn’t even passed yet. And yet the stores are starting to put out their holiday crap (can I call it crap? is that disrespectful? does the Baby Jesus really want us to use more tinsel?) and my thoughts are starting to turn to the holiday season and necessary preparations therein.

I am frugal by nature and also due to many, many years where being frugal was a matter of survival. My children—much to their dismay, I’m sure—are not showered with stuff; and Christmas is a time for presents, sure, but it’s not the grotesque retail-fest that I know a lot of their friends experience.

(Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I suppose. It’s just not my thing, either fiscally or philosophically.) Read the rest of this entry »