This past week, work-wise, has been “the calm before the storm.” What do I mean by that, exactly?

I mean that next week, a bunch of work is going to be handed to me at once. I will be editing the first of three catalogs for a retail company and editing a church website which is being redone. My goodness–I will have to tell other potential clients that I am booked! (That’s a good problem to have.)

This past week, however, I was in a dry spell. I had finished a client portfolio for the retail company the previous week, plus a little bit of work for the church (a program and a supplement). So, in my dry spell, all I had to was edit this week’s program and supplement, plus a first-time guest card, all for the church.

What to do with all of my downtime?

For starters, I made two bank runs this past week–one for my business and the other for a personal reason. Thankfully, I was able to conduct my affairs both times from the drive-thru.

I also caught up on correspondence with two colleagues from one of my professional organizations. They both emailed me back quickly. Once you make connections, it is very important to keep them. Speaking of that organization, I found three names of new members who live in or near my state and looked up their profiles to try to contact them. I often do this with new members to welcome them and network with them. Sadly, I was out of luck this month, as none of these members had their email address on their profiles. This is understandable for security reasons, however.

I had a few Zoom meetings. I did some cleaning.

I voted in our city’s elections for mayor and aldermen (that is, I filled out the ballot at home and took it to an official drop box).

And finally…(drum roll) I changed my business email address to one which more accurately represents the specific kind of editing I do. And then came the task of changing the address with all of my organizations and social media sites, emailing my clients, and such. It’s a pain in the rear end, but it will be worth it.

Here comes the new week. Bring it on!

Roughly two weeks ago, I was leaving my home to go to church when, upon opening my front door, I saw a package. It was a box addressed to me. Funny, I thought. I didn’t order anything lately from eBay or any retail site. Since I did not want to be late for the church service, I put the box aside before I left.

Hours later, I checked who had sent me the box. It turned out to be my bank.

Hmmm, I thought. I know I recently changed my business name and opened a new checking account, but why would they have sent me a box? When I opened the old account under my old name three years ago, I was not sent a box (although this was at a different branch of my bank). With some trepidation, I opened the box.

Inside were gifts: a disbursement journal, a binder containing checks, and a stamp. I knew what the checks were for, of course, but…Whaa?

I figured there had to be some kind of mistake. When I first started my business with its old name, all I got was checks in a checkbook with a register in it. That was all I needed, right?

I absolutely had to clear this up. I put the items back in the box and drove to the bank, where I showed them to an employee and said, “There must be a mistake. I don’t think I’m supposed to have all of these things.”

The employee, a young woman, explained to me what each item was and what it was for. The disbursement journal was to be used like a check register–to keep track of deposits and debits. The stamp was for endorsing checks that I received (i.e. from clients). And the checks in the binder were real and if I wanted checks in a checkbook, it would cost [insert outrageous amount here]. The whole value of the items in the box was over $100, so I should keep them.

I thanked her for her help, decided to keep everything in the box, and apologized to her. I should not have apologized, because what was I apologizing for? Being stupid? Although the young woman was incredibly nice and patient with me, she probably thought I was just that. At least, that is what I suspected, being paranoid as I am. (I have an MS in biochemistry, by the way, so stupid I am not.)

I’ve begun to use these items, and I feel like I am an “official” business. It makes me feel very professional.

Dear reader, if you own a business, what items to you use in the bookkeeping of your business? I would love to know and get some ideas.

As most of you know, my editing specialties are in the biological and biochemical sciences. I have, after all, an MS in biochemistry.

However, in my time as a freelance editor, I have learned to branch out, or “diversify,” to be more refined. I believe that this must be done in order to succeed as an editor. It’s just common sense.

For example, I edit materials for my church. Now, none of them have anything to do with the sciences. However, quite a bit of fact-checking can be involved in the form of looking up Bible verses in different translations of the Bible. There is an absolutely wonderful website, BibleGateway.com, which one can search to find just about any Scripture verse in any Bible translation. Since the programs at my church contain Bible verses, I could not do my job without this website.

Another way in which I have diversified is in my editing of the website and catalogs of an outdoor furniture company, Country Casual Teak, which sells very beautiful teak outdoor furniture. My job here requires more of a sharp eye than anything else, since I have to compare prices on a PDF with prices on a master spreadsheet, for example, or make sure that a product’s dimensions are correct and consistent. Although such work can be tedious at times, I enjoy it, largely because I get to see so many beautiful photos as a fringe benefit.

This past week, I was assigned a scientific paper to edit which was in a field that was very different to me: economics and logistics. I surprised myself by being able to understand the terms used and the logic behind the conclusions. I found myself having impostor syndrome while I was working on this paper, and I still have it now, because I do not yet know whether the authors approve of my work. If things go well, however, I will definitely be able to claim a huge victory.

How about you? How do you diversify?

Please allow me to write today about limiting my intake.

Intake of what? Food? Caffeine? Alcohol?

No, no, and no. I’m talking about TV news.

I have recently renewed my effort to limit my exposure to TV news. It is not uplifting or encouraging at all, because, let’s face it–bad news sells. (I remember years ago hearing a story about a newspaper that was created to report only good news, and that it did–and went bust less than a year after its founding.) And in the TV industry, as everywhere, it’s all about the money, right?

I now actively turn on the news only for the local weather forecast. Oftentimes, I have to suffer through local news stories while waiting for the forecast. However, the local news isn’t as bad as the national news, which is horribly sensationalistic in my opinion. ABC, NBC, and CBS want to hold the viewer’s attention, so they spread colorful graphics on the TV screen and have their anchors and reporters talk loudly and dramatically. Before now, I watched the national news’s reports about COVID and how it’s getting really bad again and how the vaccine’s effectiveness is waning, et cetera, and felt my face grow longer as the broadcast went on.

My one cousin once stated that the local news is actually more depressing than the national news. “First story–a murder. Second story–a murder. Third story–a stabbing. And so on.” (At the time, my cousin and I were both living in the Washington, DC area, so your local news may vary.) I respectfully disagreed, however. The local news is not nearly as discouraging as the national news.

For those of you who regularly watch Bad Morning America (Good Morning America) or The Blah Show (The Today Show): Have you ever noticed how at the end of every story, an anchor always says something like, “Such a tragic story. Thank you, Bruce,” or “Absolutely heartbreaking. Thanks, Jennifer.” They never say anything positive. That’s because there never is anything positive on those shows. Or so it seems.

Do you agree?

I have been active on LinkedIn for a few years now–enough time to watch it evolve.

Or, should I say, devolve.

Don’t get me wrong–LinkedIn can be very useful for landing jobs or clients, and I believe it is still worth being a part of. I’m saying that it’s devolving because it’s looking more and more like Facebook. LinkedIn was created to be a professional tool, not the mess that Facebook is.

Back on February 28 of this year (I am well known for remembering obscure dates), one of my LinkedIn connections posted a video of a Croatian one-man band frenetically playing all of his instruments at once and making beautiful music as he did. Was the video appealing to me? Of course it was. Did it belong on Facebook? Of course it did. Did it belong on LinkedIn? Absolutely not.

A lot of people seem ignorant of the fact that potential employers look at LinkedIn all the time. When a young man posts on LinkedIn a photo of himself holding a sign that says “3 Years Sober Today!” that says to potential employers that he is a possible loose cannon who could relapse without warning any day. (I’m painfully aware that I am going to get all the hate in the social media world for saying this, but the truth hurts, people.) This kind of post, however, would be perfectly at home on Facebook, where people would congratulate the sober young man and share his victory with their friends (as they should).

Don’t get me started on the comments that people make on LinkedIn, either. One woman who identified herself as a nurse once made a comment which many thought was heartless on a post that I do not remember clearly. Along came a person who read the nurse’s comment and replied, “You’re a nurse? Crap, you need help.” [sic] This kind of reaction would be appropriate on Facebook but highly unprofessional on LinkedIn. People are just as nasty in comments on LinkedIn nowadays as they are on Facebook, and I think that is a great shame.

As for me, I left Facebook almost four years ago, deleting my profile and everything–not just deactivating it. I simply had had enough being attacked my total strangers just for having an opinion and losing friends through posts with which I did not agree or, even worse, having my friends attack me just for having an opinion. I am staying on LinkedIn, though, and being as professional as possible.