{"id":186,"date":"2004-09-10T11:36:15","date_gmt":"2004-09-10T19:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sixsquare.com\/?p=186"},"modified":"2004-09-10T11:36:15","modified_gmt":"2004-09-10T19:36:15","slug":"are-we-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sixsquare.com\/index.php\/are-we-done\/","title":{"rendered":"are we done?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sixsquare.com\/blog\/images\/0904\/olive.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>I think I&#8217;ve been abandoned by my boss. The situation is partly my fault. I should never have gotten myself into a position to depend so entirely on this guy. But I work for this chap as sort of an independent contractor. I handle all of his web domains and do a bunch of web design work as his needs arise. And his needs are mercurial. The projects range in complexity from simple webpages, like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.goshapeworks.com\/\">this one<\/a> to help him round up <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cockeyed.com\/workfromhome\/workfromhome_s.html\">Herbalife<\/a> customers, to complex, multi-page, media-streaming sites like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hollywoodscarefest.com\">this one<\/a>, which represents a film festival he founded. But like all his projects, even that one seems to be drying up.<\/p>\n<p>Most recently, he asks me to build a storefront website to sell Herbalife products, and he asks if it could be done in a month, meaning he&#8217;d be getting a fully-functioning commercial site for a tiny fraction of what it would cost using a real web designer. So I do as much as I can, but there is only so much I could put together without some kind of capital investment from him to set up some of the site&#8217;s more complex features. He balks at this point, deciding after all that work that he&#8217;s now interested in putting together promotional websites for a pair of &#8220;screenplays&#8221; he&#8217;s working on, one about Icelandic poet Stein Steinarr and one about Leif Eriksson (he&#8217;s from Iceland himself.) No problem, I tell him. I&#8217;d build a website that catalogues his navel lint collection as long as he pays me with some regularity.<\/p>\n<p>But it&#8217;s the tenth and he seems to have bailed on me completely. It&#8217;s not the record. Once it took him eleven days to pay me, but I was in contact with him much of that time. &#8220;I forgot my checkbook,&#8221; was a typical excuse, or &#8220;I can&#8217;t make it out to Rocket. Can I get you the check tomorrow?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Oh, also, he co-owns Rocket Video, which is own set of nightmares. And it&#8217;s also how I happen to know that he&#8217;s around, that he&#8217;s not dead or in exile. There is a staff meeting on Wednesday. I do not attend because earlier that day I&#8217;d sat down with Jeff, the manager, and turned in my long-expected resignation. He is there. I am not. He just refuses to return my phone calls or emails. Am I to infer that we&#8217;re done?<\/p>\n<p>If so, what do I do now? Should I hold all his websites hostage? Should I start looking for another job? I can&#8217;t support myself on Amoeba alone, even if I work full time (which I&#8217;m going to try and do anyway.) I happen to have some cash left over from the birthday month, so September rent&#8217;s taken care of. But what about October? And how about those bills?<\/p>\n<p>My only response thus far has been the least practical, yet most emotionally satisfying. I&#8217;m writing. I&#8217;m finishing up Blood &amp; Mist. I&#8217;m tackling the rewrite of Strange Angels. I&#8217;m doing stuff that I hope will pay off. Problem is, my happy-go-lucky landlord won&#8217;t except a check written on hope. So the writing takes on a desperate edge.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll post updates, but if a couple weeks go by and there have been no posts, call the authorities.<\/p>\n<p>Just kidding. Sort of.<\/p>\n<p>P.S. I encourage you to check out that Herbalife link above. The story is fascinating. Who hasn&#8217;t seen those &#8220;Get Rich From Home&#8221; flyers out and about the world&#8217;s streets?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I think I&#8217;ve been abandoned by my boss. The situation is partly my fault. I should never have gotten myself into a position to depend so entirely on this guy. But I work for this chap as sort of an independent contractor. I handle all of his web domains and do a bunch of web [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixsquare.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixsquare.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixsquare.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixsquare.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixsquare.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixsquare.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixsquare.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixsquare.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixsquare.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}