I've had
to spend the last couple of days catching up on things left undone before
the holidays, and doing some things I can bill for. Some of that involves
relatively boring "secretarial" tasks for an organization
I for which I free lance.
I don't
really mind this free lance job. The best part of it is that I am left
alone to do it when and how I want. I've always been good at organizing
things, and I'm also great at being self motivated most of the time.
(If you really expect to make any money at being an artist you damned
well better be self motivated.) I've got this job down to the point
now where I have created databases, and I have all these nice form letters
and templates and so on, so I don't always have to start from the beginning
and type new documents all the time.
But, when
I do this kind of work, I am always grateful that I have been able to
avoid working in offices for most of my life.
When I was in high school, I took typing, (and shorthand) but I purposely
avoided getting really good at it because back in the "old days,"
to be a good typist meant that there was the possibility that you might
always be employable as a secretary. I really did not know what I wanted
to do, but I was pretty sure secretary was not on the list. (Not that
there's anything wrong with being a secretary, if that's what you like
doing.)
Now, of
course, we are in the computer age, and while my typing has improved
a lot, I really regret that I can't type as fast as I think. For one
thing it sure would make updating here a lot faster, and it would also
make the free lance work go faster so I could get back to other things
I prefer doing.
My mother
was a fabulous typist on one of those ancient, clunky Underwoods. She
even won a medal in a state typing contest in Louisiana when she was
in high school. What it got her was office work during the depression
and early war years, which probably wasn't so bad for the times. In
a way it eventually also got her a husband which in context of the times,
was pretty much a goal then, I guess, whether or not we approve of that
today. Later in life, it also got her the privilege of typing her children's'
term papers. Well, she mostly typed her sons' term papers since her
daughter had to take typing but her sons did not.
She also
won a cooking medal. Another skill she put to good use.
But, she
also won an English contest of some sort, and a college scholarship,
which she did not use. And when she was feeling particularly bad, put
upon or taken advantage of she would always remind everyone about how
much she had sacrificed to be a wife and mother.
Sad.