Extra money is not always a good thing

Ok, so you know how on Monday I mentioned that I'd had a hard weekend and I would elaborate soon?  Here it is:

I agreed at the end of January to type a manuscript for someone.  It's the good friend of one of the people (P) I work with.  P brought in a "help needed" poster her friend had asked her to post on campus for the students to see, but P came to me first because she knew that (a) I type fast, and (b) I need money.  I looked at the flyer, which said the lady needed someone to type a manuscript for her and she would pay 75 cents a page.  I thought to myself "Hell, how hard can that be?  That's easy money." Wrong, my friend, wrong.

Ya know how you're always thinking "Gee, I wish there were work I could do at home in my free time and get paid for it, that'd be perfect."  No, it wouldn't.  Because what you don't think through is that after working all day you have to come home and sit at a computer and IGNORE your child so you can do the pointless typing.  Of a bad story.  That's horribly written.  I kept wondering "who in the world would publish this?" and it finally came out that she is doing one of those "publish it yourself" things -- where you pay all the costs and a company will print your book and help you get it listed on Amazon and Barnes&Noble.com.  People, there's a reason books need to be approved by SOMEONE before getting printed.  That way if they SUCK you won't be wasting your time.  (Seriously, this book sucked.  All 297 pages of it.  I think that typing it out made me a worse writer, because I was immersed in bad writing for two weeks.  I'm going to have to get out some classics and read some decent writing just to get myself back up to average.)

So every night after work and for two weekends I sat at my parents' dining room table with Lou's laptop and my dad's ergonomically correct keyboard and typed and typed.  Now I type about 90 words a minute, but even so, it took me about 4 minutes each page.  Which means I could only type like 10-12 pages a minute when you took interruptions into consideration.  Even at 12 pages a minute that's 24 f*cking hours of typing.  I ended up getting paid a total of $220, which means I was getting paid LESS THAN $10 AN HOUR to give myself carpal tunnel and ignore my child.  Dude, weekends and evenings are Jake time.  Jake knows this.  He knows it's all about him when mama is home from work -- so imagine what it's been like the past two weeks.  I felt horrible for ignoring him, he was acting out to get my attention, my mom was stressed from watching him so much, Lou felt ignored, I was completely exhausted and constantly at the end of my rope . . . it was NOT a happy time.  Oh, and the whole ordeal caused me to GAIN 5 POUNDS.  (To make it worse, last weekend was ALSO Frankie's MK newsletter weekend so I had to spend 10 hours doing that IN ADDITION to typing the manuscript.)

I honestly have damaged my hands and wrists and I'm hoping that if I just lay off the heavy typing for a while (aside from my blog entries, heh), they will magically self-heal.  If they don't, then what?  I don't even want to think about it.  Oh, and I had to buy IcyHot Sleeves to help my wrists feel better twice at $8 a pop, so really I only made $204, which puts my per hour down to $8.50 an hour.  My time is worth MUCH MORE than that.  So here I sit -- $200 closer to paying down my debt, wrists damaged, and lesson learned.

Comments

[Kelly]

I am sorry hon! :(

[Kate]

Hey, that sounds like the time I decided to do "Fullfillment" orders when I was still working for the scrapbooking company. I thought, I can totally fold a sheet of stickers and stuff them in a bag for 15 cents a piece. I mean, how long could 1000 possibly take?

Sweetmotherofallthatisgoodandholy, it took both Brent and I ALL WEEKEND. In the end, we couldn't finish them all, we'd invested 12+ hours each in the project, papercut every freakin' inch of our hands, and got a pathetic $50.00 paycheck.

[Becca]

ACK!!! I'm so, SO sorry.

I hope it passes QUICKLY and you get the rest of the $$. Thinking of you!

[Pink Stuff]

Jen, I am so sorry to hear about your wrists. I think that most people, at one time or another, have experienced something like this. Mine was hemming 30 pairs of pants for $5 each many years ago. Whew!

Hope your wrist is feelig better soon!

[Sandi]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news hon...but once the carpel tunnel syndrome begins, there's no reversing the damage.

You may remember that I had the surgery at the end of the summer last year. I would do it all over again to stop the pain I went through.

A splint is recommended though for protection if you're continuing to type constantly.

My prayers are with you hon!

[Kelly]

http://kelly.typepad.com/kelly/2005/02/thank_you_jen.html#comments
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!
I hope you had a nice weekend,yes its 4 am as I type this, been up awhile.
Love
Kelly

[Sue]

I'm sorry about your experience with this Jen :( I've been caught in that trap too and finally realised that my weeknights/weekends are precious (as are your wrists too!). I hope this weekend just gone has been a good one for you.

[Leslie]

Sweetie--

First of all I am sorry about your wrists. I hope the pain goes away

Second you have me laughing here at work...you are such a good writer and I can just picture the whole scene in my head. It's like an episode of I Love Lucy- Generation X style LOL.

Sorry the $$ wasn't worth it--we have all been there. I will keep this in mind next time I get the urge to stuff envelpoes from home for extra money

Love,
Leslie

[Jen_Jake'smom]

"It's like an episode of I Love Lucy- Generation X style LOL" -- my current favorite comments quote!!! You crack me up, Leslie!!! Good to hear from ya (slacker.) Actually, I'm the slacker, I still haven't written about our PP adventure. ;o)

Jen