C.I.T.O.K.A.T.E.

Today I had a conversation with a graphic design client who, for the past several years, I have charged $20 per image. It is an example of how, merely by setting your own boundaries in a healthy place, you often don't have to filter other people out of your life, because they will do so for you. I refer to this as a "self-solving problem".

Hi Matt,
I leave for a conference in Israel on Wed, Sept 2. Have any time between now & then to upgrade some graphics?
-Clientname

Probably. It will depend on the nature of the upgrades. There are more demands on my time these days, so I will have to raise my rates somewhat, but it will still be proportional to the amount of time I expect it to take. What did you have in mind, specifically?

Hi Matt,
I find your response of raising your rates because of "more demands on your time”very disappointing. It sounds like you have taken on the attitude of big business (airlines)…meaning charge whatever the traffic will bear.
I am sorry, but this “attitude” is contrary to my thinking and I withdraw my request for your services.

This is why it's so valuable for me to put things out there from the outset, which will prevent going down a path that can only end poorly. In various areas of life, this could be "I don't take on new clients unless you pay me to have our first meeting", or it could be "I don't want to work more than 40 hours a week", or it could be "I'm not interested in monogamy and I have a vasectomy." Etc.

Unfortunately, not everyone who should self-select out of your life will do so. Some of them will stick around and complain about your boundaries, or exert other pressures.

There are two main categories of this, depending on the power imbalance. In one case, the person who wants to set boundaries is vulnerable to the pressuring party, as I was financially vulnerable when I originally met this client.

In the other case, the power imbalance is reversed. The pressuring party has too much to lose if the boundary-setting party asserts healthy boundaries. This is often expressed as a form of romantic love, in which the chemical attachment of bonding persists long after the problems of a relationship outweigh the benefits.

If you (as the boundary-setting party) have sufficient alternatives, and if the pressuring party has sufficient alternatives, they will filter themselves out of your life. Then the only way you will continue to have the wrong people in your life is if you fail to assert yourself calmly but firmly. Sometimes walking away is not failure-- it's success. You do not have to make every relationship work.

This is also why it's smart to empower other people with independence and alternatives. Seeking out power imbalances, or setting them up, generates more conflict than it resolves.

In my adult life, I have lacked health insurance almost as often as I have had it. Reading through the effects of last night's passing of insurance industry reform in the Washington Post, I discovered that it expands Medicaid to cover those who make $29,327 a year (for a family of four). That's more money than I've ever made. That might mean, had the Republicans not defeated similar insurance reform in the Clinton era, I would have had health insurance all this time.

I might be misinterpreting the phrase about a family of four-- it may be a stipulation of coverage. I don't know of any government incentives for the responsibility I have exercised with my reproductive system. It is its own reward. I have seen countless cases to convince me that reproductive irresponsibility carries with it more consequences than I would wish on anyone. So I'm not resentful.

Of course, here's hoping that by 2014 when this Medicaid expansion goes into effect, I will be making enough not to need it. But it's nice to know.

Maybe some situations would be better without managers, but not necessarily Better Without Bosses. Most of us are better off if we look to "hire" a boss to do things that, frankly, most people are bad at, and don't want to do. A boss exists to reliably transform your work into your money, and take part of it for the service. This is better than doing a lot of work and getting little or nothing in return.

A boss task:	Be your own boss but don't possess boss skills:
Figure out what people would pay for.	Hope against hope that there is a market for your skills by themselves, not incorporated into some larger product.
Figure out who can do that work well and would actually get it done.	Hire a freelancer who never actually completes the job; or squabble over whether the result is worth paying for.
Tell the world your work exists and persuade them to choose it.	Have no clients.
Find out who has both the need and the money.	Get clients who could only pay you a fraction of your rate.
Make the client pay what they owe.	Spend time nagging for your invoices to be fulfilled, time that would be better spent using your skills to earn more money.

From the outside, these tasks look like magic, as if only certain mages can perform the incomprehensible rituals to channel the eldritch forces outside the ken of mortals. If you can do all that for yourself successfully, and not die of boredom, then you're better without bosses. If what you really want to do with your time is to do work and not worry about getting paid for it, "hire" a boss to provide you with that brokering service.

I've been a loyal customer of Fictionwise for years, and am a big promoter of the science fiction short stories they sell as e-books. The short stories have no copy protection, but the novels are sold in secure formats such as Secure Palm Reader. I've always been leery of digital rights management, but hearing Karl Schroeder at last year's (2004) ConFusion describe his novel Permanence was what first tempted me to venture slowly into them. I found it ironic that this was a book about digital rights management being encoded with nanotags and micropayment radio frequencies into all the physical property in the society. For instance, if you stop paying royalties for the door on your house, the door stops opening for you. This has just happened to me with my secure e-books, and I do not plan to purchase secure digital formats in the foreseeable future. For that matter, I'm incapable of doing so now that I don't have credit cards. DRM apparently doesn't care for the business of those who pay on Fictionwise only with micropayments sent through Paypal.

At ConFusion I asked Robert Sawyer when he would be putting more work on Fictionwise, and he said he had just recently done so. I went home and bought several of his short stories (which are not DRM, they work just fine) and a Secure Palm Reader e-book, Hominids. Years ago I entered a credit card with Fictionwise, but I lost all my credit cards last year during my layoff. I only use Paypal online. When I downloaded Hominids and went to read it, the secure software on my Palm asked me for that old credit card number as copyright protection. I discovered that the old secure e-books such as Permanence are now asking me for it too because they're on a new device. But I cut up that old card and no longer have the number. I tried switching credit cards on my Fictionwise account but they submitted it to the credit card company-- despite the fact that I've already paid for my books-- and of course it was declined. I have no valid credit cards to use.

I own these books. I have paid for them. I am not willing to go out and buy a paper copy of Hominids now that I've already paid for it and can never read the one I paid for. I'm pissed. I don't know how it must feel to be an author. I don't blame them and I'm not in their shoes. But I know how it feels to be in my situation, and it's wrong, wrong, wrong. Cory Doctorow is a smart self-marketer-- he has positioned himself as the champion of my consumer rights. I'll go out and buy another paper copy of his free books (Eastern Standard Tribe, this time) tonight on my way to the M.O.F.O. meeting, just to reward Cory for pioneering with his own intellectual property. Lots of people write about the future-- Cory is creating it. I can't wait to meet him at Penguicon this year. Download his TOTALLY free Hugo-winning, Nebula-pre-nominated e-books and read them! Try before you buy!