I caught the latest crud going around Houston a couple of weeks ago and after doing the manly thing for a few days I threw in the towel and went to see a doctor. He prescribed a couple of medications, one of which is a triple whammy of a combo drug that makes me very sleepy. So, for the past couple of weeks I've been catnapping at work.
Which is a violation of the company's code of conduct.
Yesterday afternoon I was dismissed for cause, which is okay because I was losing interest in the job anyway. So I called a search marketing firm that has impressed me with their ingenuity and indicated I'd like to talk about a job. Since I wasn't planning to put myself on the market just yet, I decided I'd better get the icky stuff out of the way.
"I'll be blunt," I said. "I was just fired for cause." I explained the situation. Some companies just draw a much firmer line than others, but my now former employer recently dismissed several high level executives across the country for not enforcing company standards. My now former boss called an office meeting a couple of weeks ago (right before I got sick) and basically said, "I am not putting my job on the line for any of you. We will all comply with company standards or people will be dismissed."
So, I was not at all surprised by what happened.
All of which is to say that I now have a window of opportunity to take on some new consulting clients. I am already engaged in one contract but that should be winding down soon. Normally I wouldn't consider using SEOMoz for personal promotion, but I have to pay the bills and because I was working a full-time job the Internet consulting was a secondary revenue source for me.
At this time, I don't anticipate becoming a permanent full-time consultant. I'd rather land a job that will let me do what I love doing with SEO: research, problem-solving, and helping hard-luck cases rank highly. Yes, those are the types of clients I enjoy helping: people who just have nowhere else to go. But you have to understand that if you don't have the budget for serious marketing, you're going to get more help from me for free by reading SEOMoz and other places where I post.
I don't yet have an up-to-date resume, and as far as SEO goes since my experience is as an independent who writes non-disclosure clauses into contracts, my curriculum vitae (portfolio) looks a little sparse. If you don't have a sense of what I can do in search engine placement by now, we probably won't be talking about a contract or job anyway....
I hope to stay in Houston, but I might as well mention that my lease runs out at the end of September and I have not yet renewed, so I'm flexible. In the meantime, I'll be updating some of my ugly Web pages. Xenite's 10-year-anniversary is coming up next March and I want to do a little Spring cleaning.
Oh, yes. I'm not taking the combo drug any more. It's been helpful enough, thank you.
Click Here to read the entire article...
