One of the problems that I’ve been struggling with since I started my freelance business has been holding my cell phone to my ear with my shoulder while I talk to clients and type notes on my laptop at the same time. To free up my hands, my parents got me a blue tooth for my phone on my birthday - you know, those things that short men with leather suit jackets always have stuck in their ears at the grocery store?
Well, I know it’s a little uncool to wear when you aren’t using it, but this thing has changed my life. Although its number one use is to allow me to take detailed notes during meetings with clients, I’ve also discovered an even better application for the blue tooth: it allows me to do whatever I want during the two-hour multi-office conference calls that I often have to sit through. During these calls I often don’t have to say more than “hello” and “nice talking with you.” The majority of these calls are about web design and roughly 5% is about written content - it’s kind of like listening to a baseball game on the radio but only having to pay attention to one inning.
For the last two months, I’ve sat through these meetings as if I were physically present at a meeting - kind of paying attention, very bored. But now my blue tooth - which not only frees my hands but also blocks out background noise — has unshackled me from my conference call prison.
Before the blue tooth I would do regular meeting things: drink a lot of tea, try to pay attention and fail, stare at the clock, think about other things I could be doing that are also not pleasant but that I would still rather be doing, like folding the laundry. Now, though, today - I actually did get to fold my laundry. And since I get paid to sit in on these meetings, it’s like I’m getting paid to fold my laundry! I also got paid to write some thank you notes, iChat, brush the cat, and pay my phone bill - all for the same hourly rate. At the end of the meeting, I even started writing the web content that the meeting was about, both saving myself some time and saving my clients some money. What a beautiful world.
It also makes me wonder what the other three people on the line are doing, since we all work from home. Is the coordinator flossing her teeth? Is the tech guy putting the final touches on that free verse poem he’s been working on? I never thought I’d say this before I started working from home, but it might be true: there’s such a thing as a productive meeting.
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May 6, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Anonymous
This is great. While working from my home..oh about a month ago, I was on a conference call regarding statistical analysis (aka boring). It was early in the morning and I dozed off for a good 20-30 minutes. Of course no one noticed. Good to know that I’m not the only one “muli-tasking” while at home on conference calls:)
May 7, 2008 at 9:34 am
Beth from Avenue Z
You’ve solved a problem I continue to have. I have a land line, and I bought a headset that never really synched up right. So I mash my head against my shoulder to trap the headset while I type. It sucks.
May 7, 2008 at 10:30 am
Jason MacLeod
I’d like to start off by apologizing to you, your readers, your family, your reader’s family, and North America at large for the level of nerd-itude that I am about to display.
Bluetooth is actually a communications protocol akin to wireless. The Jawbone device that you display uses it, but probably wouldn’t technically be referred to as “a blue tooth.”
Well, my work here is done. I’m off to do some math then attend a conference on why Superman couldn’t _possibly_ have thrown the “S” from his chest in Superman II when he was fighting criminals from the Phantom Zone in his Fortress of Solitude.
May 7, 2008 at 12:41 pm
April
I just wanted to say what a small world because I’m actually conducting that Superman meeting this afternoon.
I’m totally going to bring up Louis Lane vs. Lois Lane in your honor.
May 7, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Emily
The post reminded me to look at the baseball schedule and tune in the ballgame… LOL.
I wish my home phone was bluetooth comptablie. Until then, I’ll have to use my regular plug-in headset. ~sigh~
May 7, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Benjamin
As a fellow freelancer, and someone who has previously worked from home for several years, I too share your pain of meaningless meetings where you are only involved in a small portion of it. Luckily the handset on my landline has a speaker function and mute function - enabling me to work on what needs to get done during the most irrelevant parts of the meeting.
Most of my freelancing communication is now done through email, which I find to be much more efficient than conference calls in some instances.
I discovered your blog through a friend, and then noticed that you had written the Duclod articles that fascinated me and a group of my friends last year. Great work.
May 8, 2008 at 1:18 pm
R.S.
I wonder, now that your blog is on your own domain name which also happens to be your name, if posting things that previously took advantage of the anonymousness of the Web is now a little… “riskier”?
May 14, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Your brother
Thank you Jason, for correcting my sister — which I was about to do.
Sarah saying “my blue tooth” reminds me of when moms used to talk about Nintendo when I was a kid: “Little Johnny sure loves to Nintendo all day long…”
“Hey Jimmy why don’t you invite over Matt and you guys can do Nintendo!”
Sarah, please never embarrass me like that again. If you do, when people ask what you do for a living I’m going to tell them “She is a free lance.”
May 18, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Bipolarlawyercook
That is awesome. I feel the same way about my wireless earbud. As long as I have pockets to put the phone in, that is. Now where did that bathrobe go?
June 17, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Anonymous
Do your clients read your blog?