It’s Either “Yippee!” or “Yikes!”

So I’ve told you about this freelance gig that I’m working right now. The audio is atrocious and the whole job will take me much longer than the 7 days I bid on the project. Fortunately, the client is okay with that and said they are willing to move their deadline.

Today I was getting very frustrated with the crappy quality of the audio, and looked into purchasing PC transcription equipment. Fortunately, I found a free dictation software that will allow me to run audio at my pace, and allow me to use hotkeys to pause, rewind or stop the recording (I was using Windows Media Player which does NOT use hotkeys which means clicking into WMP, clicking on “stop,” rewinding it a few seconds, hitting “play” and then going back into my Word document to continue typing. VERY annoying.

So this software is awesome and I was able to get Chapter 2 done in no time once I had that working (what’s even more cool is that I don’t even need a pedal – this hotkey thing is PERFECT). I never have to touch the mouse while I’m transcribing!

About an hour ago I got an email from a guy for whom I had submitted a proposal a few weeks ago. In mid-April he wrote and asked me to lower my rate, and I sent an email back with a negotiation. I never heard back from him, so I figured he decided to use someone else. But it wasn’t a big deal, since I got the gig that I’m doing now.

Well, apparently the guy never SAW my email, because tonight he emailed and said, “I never heard back from you – are you interested in changing the terms and reducing your rate? If I don’t hear from you, I’ll be going with someone else to do the work.”

I immediately emailed him back with a copy of my original email response, then added that I’m working on a project that most likely won’t be done until Friday, but if he can wait until Friday I can work on his project after that.

He wrote back a couple minutes later and said, he’d be willing to wait until Friday for me to start, but he would then require that the transcription be done within two weeks. I said that was fine. He is sending me one hour by regular mail to do as a test run for accuracy, and if he likes my work he’ll send me the rest of the audio by regular mail. It’s 32 hours of audio. That’s 64 hours of work (it takes me 2 hours to turnaround 1 hour of audio).

I don’t know whether to shout “Huzzah!” because I’ll have two jobs back to back and will get paid before we head to the beach, or whether to cry, “Oh CRAP!” because I’ll have two jobs back to back that HAVE to get done before I head to the beach!!! And actually, now that I think about it – I’ll have to work on it WHILE I’m at the beach (which may end up being a good thing since the kids can hang out with the family and let me concentrate on doing this project).

Either way, I may rescind my other bid proposals because there is NO WAY I can do any other jobs that I’ve submitted for. These two alone will take up all my time until late May.

It’s a blessing, to be sure, that I’m finally getting some great freelance work. But man, all at once? That’s just nuts!!!