Of idle cats and ironic writers

So, avid readers, your favorite feline got laid off this week. This is the first time in my professional career that I’ve gone under the axe, and so far…I’ve kind of enjoyed it. I’ve been sleeping late, getting housework done, and playing with the kids. It’s felt like a vacation up to this point. Of course, the part of me that likes having insurance and living indoors is a nervous pile of twitching goo, but it’s the smaller part right now.

I knew it was coming – the signs were there – so I was prepared. I’d spent the previous day cleaning out my desk, copying personal files onto a disc, and writing notes so my outstanding responsibilities could be taken care of.

Part of me is relieved. The company I worked for never seemed interested in meeting its full potential. Consequently, we employees couldn’t, either. At least now I have the time to work on getting my own business off the ground.

I joined an online group that brings freelancers and clients together. It’s sort of an eBay-esque arrangement, where businesses post the jobs that they need done, and the members bid on doing them. It’s a good arrangement.

I was looking through the bids on an editing job, and stumbled across one that seemed kind of low. Out of curiosity (you know how we cats are with curiosity), I went to the bidder’s home page.

This is what I found:

Eunikimagination
A writing camileon
Minimum Hourly Rate: $25/hr
Summary
The effective use of words and grammer are my criteria in captivating the mind and complete interest of the targeted readers. As an avid reader, am very critical and strive for perfection. i posses a wealth of knowledge, vocabulary, wild and creative imagination that allows me to customize my writing to your specifications.

I started to send this fellow a note listing all of the mistakes in his profile, but then I thought: “This is my competition. Fuck ‘im.” In the interest of getting a chuckle at his expense, though, I’ll list all of the problems here.

First off – don’t be clever with your name. This isn’t MySpace or some Yahoo chat room, this is a business. If you absolutely cannot resist being cutesy, don’t pick a name where the first bit can be pronounced to infer that you have no genitalia.

You misspelled ‘chameleon’, Mr. Writer.

You misspelled ‘grammar’, Mr. Writer.

You have a subject/verb disagreement right off the bat. “The effective use” is, not “are”. And when you change that, make sure to change "criteria" to 'criterion'. Moron.

You use ‘reader’ twice very close together; it’s awkward.

You dropped the ‘I’ before “am very critical and strive for perfection.” Love irony, don’t you?

You failed to capitalize the first word in the final sentence which, given that it’s the pronoun “I”, is a double party-foul.

You shouldn’t rely on Word’s spell-check to catch your mistakes. ‘Possess’ means to own something. “Posses” is the plural of ‘posse’.

The last sentence is incomplete.

I think $25 an hour is a little too much to be asking, Slick. I wouldn’t hire you to write a fucking grocery list. But by all means, please continue to market yourself amongst the rest of us. You make us look even better.