Enjoying lockdown?

Honestly, it has been no major problem for me. I work from home anyway, don't have many friends in Argentina, and basically dislike living in a city. I go for a run outside most days when there is no lockdown, and I do miss that. However, I have a running machine... which I have just stared at as I put on 4 kilos.

If I was back at home in the UK (I live semi-rural), I would probably be a little worse because the mountains would be calling me. Although, from what I see people in those locations are out walking anyway.

In terms of work, I am earning more than I ever have. I am a freelance writer but luckily I never based my niches in marketing. Companies are reducing their marketing, so I know plenty of freelancers who have lost work. Because I am not really in that field, I have seen a big increase. I have landed my biggest client ever during this lockdown.

Enjoying is a hard word because I am a miserable effer, but yeah, it's going ok.

Good question, Splinter . Strange as it sounds, yes, we are enjoying this time. Having made it to New Orleans as flights shut down all around us (I wrote the saga some time ago, though apparently to no forum readers), we find ourselves in the apartment we keep here, for the longest period in the past 10 years. So of course, there is plenty to be done, with no deadline for getting it all done. Our balcony planters are now filled with herbs instead of flowers, and we are cooking every day. Several afternoons a week, we meet our upstairs neighbors (the only other people on the block who are here in the city) for evening wine in the courtyard, keeping a strict 2m distance. We’re allowed to take walks, so we stroll through the deserted streets every day.

We keep getting notices about repeat flight changes to our Buenos Aires reservations, without any thought that anyone at all has a clue about when flights between the two countries will be resumed, or what the situation in either country will be, when that happens.

Under the Old Order, we’d normally want to have an idea where we’d be a month, 3 months, 6 months from now. Now we are learning to enjoy living in the moment for the first time ever.

Quote from serafina

What do you write about, Semigoodlooking ?

It depends the client to be honest. Insurance and Technology are my niches, but I have some minor niches like online casinos (which ironically I have never played) and business. If I have an idea that's outside the realm of my clients - such as something philisophical or bloggy - I will pitch it to websites that may accept it.

Marketing freelancers would be working with the main purpose of readers answering a call to action. If conversions don't come from that article they write, then it is useless to the client. Those kinds of projects are way down, or at least that's what my contacts are telling me.

Almost none of my clients want articles for conversions. I mean, everybody does at some point, but the purpose of the article is not neccesarily to drive people to another place or to make a sale. That means I have been relatively insulated from the situation.

I also made some big decisions about my career recently and realized I was stuck in a rut. I thought the money I was making doing this was amazing, until I found out people were getting paid much more. For example, the most I had ever been paid for a 500 word article was $50, and it was an exception. My usual is lower than that. People are getting paid much more, so I thought ok let's try asking for more money.

I applied for a job and said $200 per 500 word article. It was with an old client (insurance) and they accepted and sent me 22 articles to do. What's interesting about that is, I am still only in the mid-range of the payment scale. I couldn't believe it, and can't believe I was working for so many years under the assumption $20 was good for an article. I still made decent money, but I had to write a hell of a lot of articles every month.

The ONLY benefit to those lower paid jobs I used to do is I could crap out articles and it wouldn't make much of a difference. So, essentially I would be throwing out 2 articles per hour and barely thinking about it. I can write about my niches in my sleep and any non-niche work I received I would usually have clients who would frankly take average work. It helps I am a stream of thought writer so what leaves my mind goes straight on the page, which helps me to work fast.

Now I am moving towards less work for more money... I think it's a good equation.

I rather enjoyed the lockdown at the start but it's starting to really piss me off now. Couldn't buy a packet of fags anywhere yesterday due to Sunday being a total curfew. We had to go to the countryside place yesterday yes or yes and on the way back got the third degree at the roadblock. It was the first time the missus showed obvious dislike for having to answer their questions and I didn't blame her.

I agreed with the lockdown at the start however I now see its implementation being used as an excuse for something else.

Quote from Splinter

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I'm enjoying the peace and quiet and the lack of lunatic traffic, but that's about all.

The lockdown will reach its six week anniversary soon and I think the hard confinement has now gone far enough for a variety of reasons, not least our sanity, physical health and immune systems.

It's also completely inconsistent. For example, walking to the supermarket which you are allowed to do as often as you like, to a place where where people gather, heightening the risks of infection.

On the other hand, you can't go for a walk where the opportunity of distancing yourself is much better, yet people are allowed to take their dogs for a walk. Wtf?

A curfew is a ridiculous and laughable measure, not to mention the the fucking air raid sirens, both of which smack of suppression and a show of power.

I agree with this. I am doing fine in the situation, but that does not mean I don't see the increasingly haphazard situation. I guess the idea behind the supermarket vs. walking is the supermarket is a relatively controlled environment. They can let in X amount of people and make people stand outside X distance away from each other. That's certainly the case in the Carrefour by me. If walking is allowed, you may have 100,000 people in a barrio who are still not allowed into work who all decide to go to their nearest park for a walk.

That's the argument, I presume. However, it doesn't really account for even with the distancing measures in supermarkets, customers will still be touching every product in the store, only for another customer to come and then touch those same products.

I'm not and never have been anti police. However here they use it as some sort of job creation scheme and it showed yesterday.

The average age of the coppers on the streets and manning the roadblocks is around 18. The young bloke yesterday was pleasant when we stopped as they always are. However instead of believing what the wife said and despite being shown the official paper stating we were allowed to be out and about. He decided to ask questions as to what it was we had been doing out at the countryside place......that's when the wife's patience ran out!!

I've grown to like it.....so much so I miss it on a Sunday.

Quote from Mckenna

Where abouts are you?

If you can hear the zombie siren I can't be far from where you are.

Just been announced the zombie siren will now sound an hour later at 6pm instead of 5pm. Oh WOW!!

Quote from Mckenna

I don't know if we deserve all that freedom.... lol

Given it's currently pissing it down I won't be in any rush to go out anyway.