This is a guest post from Mark Dykeman of Broadcasting Brain. It takes a brave man to tackle a Moral of the Story post. I told him I’d post this last Tuesday. You’ll notice I am a little late. This is because I am a deeply flawed human being. Thanks for your patience, Mark.

“You canna change the laws of physics, Captain!” I don’t know if Mr. Scott actually said that classic phrase in a Star Trek movie or episode, but I learned that lesson very well during one of my summer jobs. It was a messy, embarrassing, humbling experience. Since this is IttyBiz, and Naomi slipped away for a few minutes, I’m going to share this story with you. Because that’s what IttyBiz is about — embarrassingly personal stories that (should) teach someone a lesson! Continue Reading …

By Naomi Dunford - Apr 24, 2008 in Moral of the Story - 8 Comments
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When I first started blogging — she says, like it was OH SO long ago — I encountered a young man in a niche similar to mine. He expressed an interest in networking with me but frankly, I had bigger fish to fry. I mean, the guy wasn’t even self-hosting, for God’s sake. (OK, let’s be honest. I was very busy trying to become Darren Rowse’s best friend. There. I said it. Can we move on?)

So I sent a cursory email back every time he shot one my way and left it at that. At some point, I ended up subscribed to his newsletter. When this happened, I thought he had put me on the list, although in hindsight I was drinking a lot back then and would’ve put myself on a Porno for Chemical Engineers mailing list and not remembered it in the morning.

I went to unsubscribe from the list and there was some kind of technical screw up. I figured I’d do the nice thing and email him to let him know. Because I’m nice like that. He writes me back in about four seconds saying something to the effect of, “Don’t you want to be on my list anymore, Naomi?” I felt so bad for this poor kid that I told him I was happy to remain on his list and made up some shitty excuse about clicking the wrong button.

Every week or so, I get an email. And every week or so I delete it, thinking I should stop being such a pussy and unsubscribe, for God’s sake. But I was terrified it would screw up again and necessitate another heart-and-dream-crushing email that I never bothered. The emails generally existed to notify his subscriber base that an article submission deadline for something or other was nearing.

Today I got another email. Once again I deleted it. Then I started getting more emails — lots of them — from complete strangers, all congratulating the original sender. (Somebody obviously clicked “reply all” and everybody afterwards followed suit.) When the count reached about ten, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Turns out, the sender of the email won an award I’d never heard of from a site I don’t visit.

Delete.

When the send count reached about 20, I figured there couldn’t be that many people in the world congratulating him over nothing, so I click on the link in the email.

At this point I’m frankly bored.

Blah blah blah. Scan scan scan. Until “…as the nice folks at Fast Company put it: “If you haven’t heard about … Schawbel, you will. Schawbel is a personal branding force of nature.”

To quote the great Jeff Foxworthy, in response to being told that one of his fans qualified for redneck status because he’d had his nipple bitten off by a beaver:

“You have my attention.”

Honey, when Fast Company is talking about you, you have my attention.

Moral of the Story: Watch Who You Snub.

I am about to write an email to Dan Schawbel to apologize for being an ass. He will probably forgive me because he knows the moral to this story already and doesn’t snub people for no good reason. I will ask if I can put an article in his magazine — oh yeah, apparently he has a magazine, another little tidbit I learned from the charming folks at FC — and hope that he’s OK with it.

While I’m crossing my fingers and getting drunk to soothe my shame, read the article and check out his personal branding blog. Maybe if I send him enough traffic it will help to assuage my guilt.

Like hearing how I’ve made an ass out of myself? Try these!

Moral of the Story: Topless Edition (with Photos!)
Moral of the Story: Violent Snuggling Edition
Moral of the Story: Marketing to Alcoholics Edition

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***

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By Naomi Dunford - Apr 16, 2008 in Moral of the Story - 29 Comments
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Here in Canada, we don’t know a whole lot about this whole war thing you’ve got going on in the States. We have some troops in Kandahar and there was a big hullabaloo when our esteemed Prime Minister decided he wasn’t going to fly the Ottawa flags at half mast EVERY DAMN TIME a soldier died. Other than that, we tend to ignore it and discuss more urgent and pressing matters, such as the rising cost of gasoline.

(To give you an idea how seriously Canada takes the war on terror: Canada’s military was recently renamed. It used to be the Canadian Armed Forces. It is now the Canadian Forces. Jamie believes this is because we no longer provide them with guns.)

Anyway, I’m doing some home business work with Shaun Krisher of Joie de Vie Photography. He’s a photographer who does commercial and wedding photography, and I’m working on an AdWords campaign for him. (If you’ve never done an AdWords campaign, they’re harder than they look. Getting what you want to say said in 90 characters split up in to 25 and 35 character lines, including spaces, is not the easiest thing in the world.)

So Shaun offers a discount to people who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, which is a pretty cool marketing initiative, if you ask me. I’m trying to find a way to incorporate this awesome discount in his AdWords, but it’s kinda hard. Afghanistan has a lot of letters. I thought of using “vets”, but 50% off for vets sounds like a discount for animal doctors. Even if I could clarify that I was referring to the military, it might come across that he only offered the discount to people who were no longer in the forces. Much ruminating ensued. Here’s what I came up with:

Atlanta Wedding Photos
Photojournalism, Candids, Portraits
Iraqi Soldiers, 50% Off

Not awake yet? Read that last line again.

That’s why they pay me the big bucks, people. Luckily I generally run these things by Jamie before I send them out to clients, and he had the good sense to mention that perhaps my message wasn’t getting across.

Moral of the Story: Know Your Market

If you know piss all about the topic at hand, for the love of God ask. I’m sure anybody who knew anybody who had served in the U.S. military could have helped me with this one, and eventually I came up with something that didn’t make it look like Shaun was selling the residents of Guantanamo Bay at a hefty discount, but I could have saved a lot of time if I’d just asked someone.

***

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By Naomi Dunford - Feb 29, 2008 in Moral of the Story - 26 Comments
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Right now, I’m trying to work three home business jobs. Trying, in this context, is a euphemism for failing.

Luckily, all three of those jobs are from home. Luckily, I have a phenomenally supportive husband. Less luckily, Jack has entered that charming toddlerhood stage in which he must be physically attached to me at all times or he might die. Not conducive to working from home.

Earlier today, I was hiding in the kitchen and trying to get some work done. (See: “trying”, above.) I’d been in here for about an hour, and I was able to get a few posts edited and loaded, a few pictures chosen, with little more than a knock at the door I chose to ignore.

All this I could probably handle — people have certainly done more difficult things in the whole of human history. But, as many of you already know, Jamie and I got the bright idea to have another baby.

If you have been pregnant, or have ever known someone who is pregnant, you’ll know that when another human being spends 24 hours out of each and every day violently snuggling with your bladder, you pee. A lot.

I would never be able to open the ancient kitchen door and sneak off to the bathroom without detection. I tried to keep loading posts until I couldn’t do it anymore and was physically tasting pee. I still couldn’t imagine the carnage that would ensue if Jack saw me sneaking off to the bathroom, so that was out. I thought about peeing in the sink but it was full of dishes. I was desperate.

Again, if you know anything about pregnancy, you know that you spend a lot of time peeing in cups. Once a month, then once a fortnight, and finally once a week, throughout your whole pregnancy, you’re peeing in cup after cup after cup. I look at the cups and think very hard about peeing in one of them. After three seconds, I realize this is ridiculous. Not because it’s unhygienic and disgusting, but because there’s not enough room in a cup. I’m pregnant, people. Pregnant ladies make a lot of pee.

I’ll spare you the details of how the situation physically came to be but I’ll tell you this much. I realized that the true glamor of entrepreneurship had sparkled into my life.

I was hiding from my children in the kitchen, squatting under the table between an iMac and a car seat, and peeing into a juice pitcher.

And that’s when my husband walked in.

Moral Of The Story: Plan Ahead

Look at your situation. If there is anything about the circumstances in which you find yourself that could later provoke the thought, “I fucking KNEW that was going to happen!”, act now, not later.

If you like listening to me embarrass myself in front of over 1000 people, check these out:

Moral Of The Story: Topless Edition (With Photos!)
Moral Of The Story: Neocitran Edition
Moral Of The Story: Marketing To Alcoholics Edition (This one got me fanmail that started out, “Dear Wine Box Lady…”)

Like IttyBiz? Click here to subscribe now. I try to humiliate myself as often as I can.

***

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By Naomi Dunford - Feb 12, 2008 in Moral of the Story - 43 Comments
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I was writing this in an email to my good friend, Bill, and I realized that this is the kind of story IttyBiz readers would like. We are discussing my feelings on the topic of semicolons. (If you’re interested, I hate them. A lot. The rage gets unleashed when semicolons come up, and the rage, it is not itty.) Does this have anything to do with home business, you ask? Oh, but it does. Anyway, here’s my email.

“Oh, I stand by my not-so-casual disregard for the semicolon. It all stems from my tattoo. One morning, a teensy bit hungover, I decided to get my tattoo. (My tattoo, and not a tattoo. It had been in the works for a while. This was not a flight of fancy.) I have four Japanese symbols across my back, gleaned from a Japanese-English dictionary. In case you weren’t aware, Japanese-English dictionaries are printed in 6-point font. Like 6 Sigma, but with less “Sigma” and more “point font”.

Anyway, there I am in the tattoo parlour, all by my lonesome on a rainy Tuesday morning, design in hand. Said design has been photocopied and enlarged to within an inch of its life. It begged for mercy and I didn’t care. I settle in to the chair and raise the back of my shirt. Anthony, my friendly neighborhood tattoo parlor employee, asks where exactly I want the ink.

“Right above the bra line,” I say.

“What bra would that be?” Anthony is amused.

I guess I hadn’t worn one. This was before I nursed three ungrateful children.

Anyway, I was totally embarrassed and in a rush to get out. When we were done, I thanked him profusely and essentially ran like hell.

Upon my return home, I showed my roommate. He had seen the desired design many times, so he knew what he was looking for. I pulled up the back of my shirt, removed the gauze, and showed the new art.

“Dude, is that a fucking semicolon on your back?”

Yes, it would seem that in our haste, nobody took the semicolon from the dictionary entry out of the design and it now lives for eternity on my skin.

Moral of the Story: Always Proofread.

If you’re new here, you don’t know the joy that is Moral Of The Story. You may want to check out:

Moral Of The Story: Problogger Edition
Wherein I almost unleash semicolon style rage on Darren Rowse.

Moral Of The Story: Neocitran Edition
Wherein I figure out why I didn’t do too well as a freelance writer.

Moral Of The Story: Marketing To Alcoholics Edition
The one that made Moral Of The Story famous.

Moral Of The Story: Psycho Blogger Edition (With Bonus!)
This is a guest post from my husband, Jamie. Wherein I interrupt, graphically comparing PLR to child pornography and say a very bad word.

Moral Of The Story: Generally Ashamed Edition
Wherein my customer service skills are put to the test.

After all that, how can you not subscribe?

***

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By Naomi Dunford - Jan 9, 2008 in Moral of the Story - 50 Comments
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One day, I will have my shit together. Today is not that day.

I got an email last night from a potential client. In their email, they asked for the phone number for my home business. It was 3 in the morning. I was in a bad mood. I also might have thought I was emailing someone I know far better than this lovely person who might have paid for my children’s orthodontia. My husband, say. My response?

“It’s on the website.”

That’s it. That’s what I said. That was the full body of my email.

Moral of the Story?

Never listen to anything I say ever again.

***

Overwhelmed? Freaking out? Borderline hysterical? Click here to get your own micro-business marketing plan. It’s not scary, I promise.

By Naomi Dunford - Dec 21, 2007 in Moral of the Story - 18 Comments
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So we at IttyBiz have been following a post and some comment streams between what seems like my fellow home business owners James and Harry at JCM Enterprises and basically the entire free world with an internet connection. This got me to thinking, and because the comment streams were so huge I figured I’d write a post instead. But first, a disclaimer:

WARNING

The preceding and following statements represent the opinion of this blogger alone and are not necessarily those of the entire blogosphere. We take no responsibility for any debate, dispute, argument, fight, falling out, wars, acts of terrorism, or any other negative reaction that may result from these thoughts in any form. (We’re thinking about making this a standard disclaimer for our blog. Maybe we’ll copyright it and sell it to other bloggers. Speaking of income streams…)

So for those who may not have seen this, the bottom line is James took a hard but honest stance on an issue he feels strongly about. (Edited to add: The issue is PLR. At Jarkko’s smart request, here’s an explanation of that. PLR stands for Private Label Rights. By definition, it means I write it, you take credit for it, like ghostwriting. That’s the official meaning. What actually happens is I write it, sell it to a gazillion people and they all pretend it’s theirs. Either that, or I write it 600 ways to breakfast, sell it 600 times as original content, and people spam the bejesus out of the Google front page with a bunch of rewritten articles that say the exact same thing.)

The response to his comment was outrage, and at one point the blogger in question turned off comments. James has apologized for offending anyone WITHOUT retracting his original stance (way to go James!!!!) but the fallout seems to be continuing.

Basically, here’s a metaphor of what happened:

Them: Hey James, here’s a bunch of resources about how to run a pyramid scheme! You should check them out!

James: Dude, that’s a pyramid scheme. I don’t want to run a pyramid scheme.

Them: HOW DARE YOU say we’re running a pyramid scheme? [screaming and character assassination ensues.]

I’m not saying PLR is a pyramid scheme, so just settle down. You get the point. This is a metaphor.

This led me to think about the actual purpose of a blog. Now I may have missed the point entirely, but to me, the purpose of a blog is to create an online community in which we are free to share our opinions and foster debate and discussion. I understand that to some people, debate is a dirty word that makes them feel uncomfortable, but my experience has been that the average commenter (commentator?) can respond with a contrary opinion in a very mature and non-offensive manner.

I realize that this is just my opinion and that not everyone will agree with me. I also realize that I have no right to tell people how to run their blogs. However, doing things like removing comments from a post seems anti-blog to me. I have no issue with moderating first-time commenters (we all know there are very good reasons for this) as normally the blogger is only confirming that the comment is not spam. They are not erasing contrary opinions from their site.

If you do not respect or want comments then you do not want a blog - you want a website. Or a soapbox.

I believe that James and Harry handled this situation with grace and with a true spirit of open debate. James did the grown-up thing here by apologizing for offending anyone and stressing that he did not mean for his comments to be taken as a personal attack, and kudos to those bloggers who accepted the apology.

I can understand those commenters who personally attacked him and Harry when they felt they themselves were being attacked, but I have absolutely no respect for the ones who continued the attack after an apology was publicly issued. I (perhaps mistakenly) assume that we are all mature enough to be able to make our points without the personal attacks.

Moral of the Story? There’s a big difference between legal and ethical.

By engaging in activities your professional colleagues deem to be unethical, you open yourself up to criticism. If you truly believe what you’re doing is right, defend yourself to the ends of the earth. If you run away like a scared little puppy, it’s probably because you can’t defend yourself. And you can’t defend yourself because you’re in the wrong.

Bonus Moral of the Story. Don’t be a baby.

(Naomi’s busybody note:I have a few things to add. One, generally, when I’m attacked, I let the attacker do his or her thing and burn out. I don’t feel the need to wave my gun around saying, “Don’t YOU attack ME, motherf*cker!!!” Maybe that’s just me.

Secondly, one of my favorite expressions in business is “management by objectives”. When it comes to any type of corporate communication, know what the hell you’re trying to do. If you want to create a group of adoring fans and call it a “community”, fine, turn off your comments. You’ll lose the respect of everyone except your sister and your mother, but whatever.

Third, this whole fiasco was about PLR, also known as article spinning. For those of you who are not freelance writers, this involves taking an article - either one that you wrote or one you got from somewhere else - and basically changing a teensy, weensy bit of it to make it pass Copyscape tests. This is not about using an article or a publication for research. This is about changing “like” to “love” to “enjoy” or similar, every third word or so. Then you do it 600 times and resell it.

Not like any of you care, but I’m with James. According to my definition of legitimate, this ain’t it. It’s not illegal, but neither is taking a really young looking 18-year-old, dressing her up in a school girl outfit, pretending she’s 12, and marketing it as child porn. It’s dirty, but it’s legal. Just like this trumped up version of plagiarism.)

Discuss. I promise I won’t turn off the comments. You could also subscribe to the feed. Then we can duke it out in comments every day of the week.

***

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By Jamie Dunford - Nov 19, 2007 in Moral of the Story - 34 Comments
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So LIZ STRAUSS called me on the phone this evening. (Some people call it “name-dropping”. I call it “adding flavor to the story”.) I told her this story. She said I should blog about it.

Oh yeah, and for the doubters? This SO has to do with home business. Just wait.

Um, when LIZ STRAUSS tells you to blog about something, you should probably blog about it. She knows a little bit about this sort of thing. (Blogging, not the story itself. I’m sure when it comes to the story she’ll wash her hands of it and claim she doesn’t even know me.)

Here’s my story.

I like red wine. A lot. Jamie drinks beer, Jack drinks Ribena, I drink red wine. I also live in Ontario which is convenient because we make a lot of wine here. It’s handy. Nowadays, with the whole “the environment is really important and stuff” kick that’s been going on, wine makers have been packaging their products in Tetrapaks. Tetrapaks, more commonly referred to as juice boxes. Big-ass, grown-up, boozy juice boxes. Yeah, baby. I have tasted their Tetrapak offerings and found them worthy.

Anyway, we’re in the liquor store about a week ago and I’m trying to decide what to get. Jamie suggested we get a box of wine.

Let me press hold on this story and let you know that while I will happily drink wine from a Tetrapak, I draw the line at boxes. My mother used to buy white wine in a box and store it on top of the fridge. Warm. I drank it one time. Not cool.

So I look at him like he’s insane and he says it’s the same wine we always buy and it’s way cheaper than buying a bottle, plus we won’t have to go back to the store later. Well, I’m nothing if not cheap and lazy so a box of wine it was.

Flash forward a few days.

We’d drunk the wine. It was lovely. Completely without incident. Jamie’s on his way out and he asks if we need more wine. I don’t know how much is left and because I’m cheap I’m going to check before dropping another forty bucks.

Have you ever tried to see how much wine is left in a box? The thing about boxes is that they’re not clear. They’re pretty opaque, actually. Nobody but Superman can look at a box of wine and know how much is in it. Shaking the box doesn’t work either because the wine is stored in a bag and you can’t hear the swishing.

Let me tell you, I am nothing if not resourceful. There’s no damn way any more wine is entering this apartment until I’m absolutely certain the wine that’s already here is done. I notice that the hole in the top of the box that acts as a handle is about the size of my hand. I figure I’ll just stick my hand in to see how far down the wine went.

You know where this is going.

Jack is in the stroller. Jamie has his coat on. I’m standing in the hallway with my hand wedged in a box of wine and I can’t get it out.

The baby is screaming for milk which I cannot get him because I only have ONE FREAKING HAND. My husband has stopped breathing he’s laughing so hard. And I come to the cold realization that my hand is not coming out of that box.

Have you ever tried to cut your hand out of a box of wine before? They use really thick cardboard, the kind you can’t cut through with regular scissors. You need something serious to cut a box. Like a box cutter. You know, those things the terrorists use to kill people on airplanes? And my hand is so far in the box that the place the blade would hit would be right around the veins in my wrist.

The actual story of getting the box off my hand isn’t very funny so I won’t give you details. (If you ever find yourself in this situation, consider a bread knife. That’s all I’m saying.) Just do me a favor and try to imagine what it feels like knowing you may actually have to take your 14-month-old to the emergency room with you while you have your hand removed from a box of wine. Imagine that for a sec.

“So what the hell are you getting at?” you ask.

There are many morals to this story. Don’t be cheap comes to mind. Don’t be lazy, maybe. Don’t be greedy works too. These are true and wise but they’re not what you’re here for. I’ve chosen a different — and completely topically relevant — moral.

Moral of the Story: Marketing Begins In Product Development.

When you are building your product, think about the stupidest person you’ve ever met. That person is your customer. Think about what problems they could have with your product.

When you are a wine producer, you want your customers to be well aware of how much wine they have on hand at all times. (Please pardon the pun.) You do not want them at home, trying to bust a move on their wife, setting up candles and massage oils and doing whatever people without kids do, just to find out they’re out of wine.

(Since I know you’re wondering, yes, I did just throw the offending box into recycling. Yes, I realized you shouldn’t recycle cardboard and plastic in the same box. And yes, when I separated them and realized there was still wine left in the bag, I drank it.)

If you liked this post, you might also like Moral of the Story: Problogger Edition or Moral of the Story: NeoCitran Edition.

If you like those too, you should subscribe to the feed. You can feel better every day knowing you’re not as dumb as I am.

***

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By Naomi Dunford - Nov 3, 2007 in Moral of the Story - 31 Comments
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Tonight, everyone in my house is sick. I took a NeoCitran. It makes me really, really dumb. I instituted a rule long ago that if I have NeoCitran in my system, I am not allowed to send anything to anyone more than an hour after I take it, because God only knows what I’d say. I figured I should get off my butt and write a blog post before my lucid time ran out. Thinking about conditions under which you should not send things, this reminds me of another story, possibly even more embarrassing than the one you might have read about in Moral of the Story: Problogger Edition.

There was a time, not so long ago, when I decided I needed to pick up some more freelance writing work to finance my home business. I checked out my handy feedreader, where I get my freelancing gig lists from Anne Wayman, Deborah Ng, and Jennifer Mattern. Normally I just look at them woefully, thinking how great it would be if I had the time to apply for some of the jobs. This time, though, I was on a mission.

[Aside to freelance writers - do you get those lists? If not, you should. There’s money to be made there, people.]

Anyway, where was I? Right, my mission. I decided that I was going for a big and fast boost in income, and I applied for everything. I mean everything. My resume was everywhere. I figured I was golden.

Keep in mind, while I’m not exactly Aaron Wall, my resume is pretty good, and when I apply for jobs, I usually get a few bites at least. This time, I got nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. I was up in the wee hours of the night, applying for job after job, and I didn’t even get a “thanks, but no thanks.”

Flash forward a few weeks, during which time I got busy with marketing stuff and the whole thing was out of my head. Somebody asked me to take a look at their resume, and I figured I’d print out mine as an example. This is what came out of my printer.

Naomi Dunford
Naomi Dunford
Naomi Dunford
Naomi Dunford
Naomi Dunford
Naomi Dunford
Naomi Dunford
Naomi Dunford
Naomi Dunford
Naomi Dunford
Naomi Dunford
Naomi Dunford

Am I joking? No, I am not. Turns out that a few months before, when I was playing around with stationery fonts, I forgot to save my file. Word decided it to save it for me. And what does Word do when you don’t title your file? It titles your file for you, generally using the first few words of your text. So the file got called Naomi Dunford. Just like my resume, but in a different folder.

Imagine for a second that you are hiring a freelancer. Imagine you got a pretty good query letter, good enough to open up the resume. And imagine you got a Word document that said nothing but the writer’s name, over and over, fifteen times. (You know what? Stop imagining that. It’s painful.)

Moral of the Story? Be like Santa. Check it twice.

I have been doing this for ten years. I’m not generally known for missing typos. I’ve gotten complacent. I don’t know what all I applied for back then, but if you got one of my resumes, I hope you had a good laugh. Somebody had to.

***

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By Naomi Dunford - Oct 12, 2007 in Moral of the Story - 17 Comments
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If you’d like to enter to win our $500 Jump Start Marketing package, please click here.

(Note: The picture that you see on your right is of Darren’s baby, Xavier, which I got off Problogger. As far as a photo credit goes, I assume Darren took it. This photo has nothing whatsoever to do with the topic of this post. I just really like pictures of babies.)

When I first decided to start this blog, being the marketing superstar that I am, I decided that I should launch with a contest. About halfway through the planning phases, my trusty Bloglines reader showed me that Darren at Problogger was launching his own birthday giveaway and was looking for sponsors. Well, color me stoked, I’m in. I lovingly crafted my Suck Up To Darren email and fired it off. I knew he was going to be swamped and he said it would take a while to get back to people, so I didn’t hold my breath for a quick response.

I’ll spare you the boring details of what followed, which was basically a whole bunch of nothing, with me hyperventilating about Darren’s lack of response for several days. It was ugly and unflattering and you should probably feel sorry for my husband.

Eventually, Darren published a post saying that the sponsors had been chosen and that the whole shebang was being handled by Lara at Anubis Marketing. I wasn’t on the list.

For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, I run a marketing company. Apparently, so does Lara. Take a moment and imagine how quickly my general hysteria turned into the formation of conspiracy theories. She’s out to get me. The e-mails were directly routed to her and she didn’t even pass them along to Darren. I’m getting totally screwed over. Nobody wants to help the little guy. Everybody hates the home business. There was weeping. There were proclamations. I’m blushing right now, as I type.

Flash forward several hours. I am trying to write an e-mail to Darren that won’t make me come off as a total spaz. It’s not going well. Jamie comes up behind me and looks at my monitor. “More spam?”

“Huh?”

“Spam. You know, $2000 blah, blah, blah.”

For the record, no, I don’t know. “This is the e-mail I sent to Darren,” I said.

“Then why the hell did you put a dollar sign in the subject line? That’s the first thing spammers do.”

First, I said a very bad word. Second, I took a deep breath. Third, I picked up the phone and introduced myself to Lara. She was a hundred and fifty levels of awesome. She told me she hadn’t gotten my original e-mails. (Gee, I wonder why.) We hooked something up. It all worked out in the end.

The Moral of the Story? Think before you click.

Oh, how badly this could have gone. Words cannot express the embarrassment I could be feeling right now. I could have gone off on a tangent and freaked out in an e-mail. Worse, I could have done the same thing in comments and made myself look like a moron. I could have done nothing and seethed for seven years.

Think before you type, people. Go for a jog. Go for a nap. Go for a drink. Whatever. Just never, ever, ever click send when you’re angry.

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By Naomi Dunford - Oct 8, 2007 in Moral of the Story - 10 Comments
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