Featured Post
Posted by Lizzie on Sep-5-2008
There’s a lot of talk about women’s issues this election cycle. Thanks to Hillary Clinton, and now Sarah Palin, we’re back in the spotlight. In that vein, Congress is pressing for a revote on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which failed to pass previously. McCain has come out again it:
“I am all in favor of pay equity for women, but this kind of legislation, as is typical of what’s being proposed by my friends on the other side of the aisle, opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems,” the expected GOP presidential nominee told reporters. “This is government playing a much, much greater role in the business of a private enterprise system.”
I’ve recently engaged in a half-hearted IT job search - in anticipation of my eventual graduation from the Tech program. There seems to be a little available, but I’ve heard that women are not treated favorably in the IT industry. It would please me, and thousands of other women, tremendously if this actually became law. Would I know that my male counterparts were making more than me? Probably not. But this act would give me recourse should I find out about a pay discrepancy after the fact. As a woman hoping to work in a male-dominated field, I would feel just a little better knowing I had a safety net.
There was some talk that this law isn’t necessary. I beg to differ. I worked with a company (unrelated to the tech field) that cut me a mystery check. When I inquired to what the purpose of the check was, I was told that it was to make up for a pay difference between me and my male counterparts. I had no idea that the men were making that much more per hour than I was, but there was a lawsuit and the settlement agreement was that this company would pay the hourly difference to each female for whatever period of time they agreed to (I think it was 3 months, even though I’d been there for over a year at that point). I left that company not long afterward, but my eyes had been opened. The reasoning for the lower pay was that women are mothers and so are prone to miss work because of their sick children. Men, on the other hand, are more reliable and should be rewarded. Really?
At a time when a major political party has nominated a self-proclaimed “hockey mom” to be vice president, there should be no more “she should get less because she’s a mom”. This woman is seeking a job while parenting 5 children (and potentially helping parent a grandchild) so the reason listed above would apply to her and her pay should be cut significantly. Right? No. Wrong. Her husband will be able to tend to the children while she runs for office and he can tend to the children while she continues to govern Alaska (except that he’s got a full-time job plus an extra job on the side in the summer, but that’s not this issue). It’s only fair that the rest of American women enjoy the same equality in pay as the women who govern them.
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Oct
11
Posted by Lizzie under
work from home,
writing gigs
I sometimes write for Associated Content (AC). I’m not the most prolific writer, for sure. I’ve been there since December of last year and I’ve got 9 articles up (I think). So this last fiasco at AC hasn’t really affected me too much. Still, it’s an interesting development and something that should be watched very carefully.
Apparently when AC updated the Page Views (PVs) the last two weeks they somehow miscalculated. Somewhere along the line they decided to give many Content Producers (CPs) double the amount they actually received. They say they noticed this error when they were getting ready to do bonus pay outs this week. That resulted in many of the most prolific writers on the site losing hundreds of thousands (combined) in page views and who knows how many dollars. Of course, the forums are on fire right now.
There are some allegations of lying. Some CPs feel that AC lied about the snafu to save themselves some big bucks. After all, AC’s PR is getting pretty high so articles published there are in the top two or three pages in search results. That means that more people are going to click on those articles and more CPs are going to get a lot more PVs. And since the PV bonus is based on ad placement and clicks, that’s where the money comes in. The PV bonus is still in beta and so AC says they can take away PVs whenever they feel like it. How convenient that they would take away PVs when CPs start really making money. Of course, no one that is insinuating nefarious dealing at AC can prove it. All they know is that yesterday they had 100,000 page views and today they have 20,000 (not real numbers). That’s money down the drain.
Combine the stripped page views with the fact that AC seems to be going away from upfront payments- and have, in fact, changed their FAQ to state upfront payments aren’t usual - it looks like a lot of really good writers are going to be heading for the hills. Soon AC will be no better than any other PTW site that only pays based on page views and ad clicks (Helium jumps right to mind as an example). I don’t see how that can benefit the company as a whole in the end. They lose the really good CPs to the kiddies writing for pennies. Bah! Who needs it?
Since I’ve been sick I haven’t had much interest in writing articles simply because I have issues keeping focused. The last couple I’ve submitted have be for PV bonus only and haven’t really made squat (though I can say I’ve made more at AC than at Helium doing the same thing). I’m currently looking at other avenues for making money online. I am very disappointed to see AC going down the tubes like this, though. I was really hoping this company would remain legit and offer a steady income for folks like me. I can’t say for sure that AC will go down the drain, but it’s certainly not looking good right now.
Hopefully they can fix this PV snafu and calm the waters over there- and maybe even make upfront payments usual again. If that doesn’t happen, oh well. The great thing about Ye Ole Internet is that there’s always some way to makes pennies without leaving home. It’s just a matter of pinning it down before the well runs dry.
Technorati Tags: AC , content writing , AC strips pvs
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Oct
09
Posted by Lizzie under
Living with Pain,
health&wellness,
irritations
I finally decided to go to the doctor again after I haven’t been in a while. I just get so sick of the attitudes some doctors have- and I can’t seem to find one without that attitude. But I’ve been feeling really bad so I bit the bullet.
The doctor couldn’t see me, so I was set up with his Nurse Practioner. That was ok with me because I see a NP at the Women’s clinic and that one seems like she might know more than the docs. I expected this one to be the same.
She comes in and says “You’ve been diagnosed with fibromyalgia.” No, I haven’t. The doctor said if we couldn’t find anything else out we’d test for that, but he didn’t diagnose me with it. She seemed confused. The doctor had written that diagnosis in my chart, but hadn’t told me he was diagnosing me with it. That’s what she said anyway. Ok, fine.
I asked her for some pamphlets to take home to give to my husband. He’s very skeptical, I tell her, and even accused me of faking my illness to get out of family dinners. The entire time I was talking to her she was typing away on her laptop. Was she recording my every word? I didn’t know, but it was disconcerting. I like when people look at me so that I know they hear what I’m saying. She seemed disinterested.
“We don’t have information on it. You should go home and look it up on the Internet.”
HUH? Did my healthcare provider just tell me to look up information on a diagnosis she just gave me, rather than tell me herself? Why, yes. That’s exactly what happened. Did she hear what I said about validating all this craziness to my husband? Apparently not. Did she hear when I said I’m frustrated with this crap and doctors annoy me? Nope, must’ve missed that part too. She didn’t even try to appear sympathetic. She just continued to tap, tap, tap on her keyboard.
“What are you doing?” I asked her. Maybe she was unconscious of the fact that she was giving her piece of hardware more attention than her patient. I thought maybe I’d shame her into turning away from that thing. I was wrong.
“I’m trying to figure out how to write this diagnosis. There isn’t a word for it.”
Double HUH? Really? There’s no word for it? Are you KIDDING? Unfortunately, no, she wasn’t kidding. She just told me I have fibromyalgia, but apparently she didn’t know there was a word for such a thing. Please, someone help me make sense of that. I was too tired to even make a fuss about the complete lack of sense this woman was making. I was planning my search for a new doctor as I sat there. Yup, there was no putting it off after this visit.
She tells me she’s going to put me on SSRIs. I say “No”. Then she said something about Cymbalta (I quit that, by the way), I said “Been there, done that. Can’t take it.” Then she went to consult with the doctor. When she came back she had a prescription for Vicodin. Apparently I’d been taking the Tramadol all wrong. Now I was to take the Vicodin whenever I was sick and the Tramadol when the Vicodin didn’t help. Then she told me she was going to set me up with someone who specializes in fibromyalgia. Cool. That works for me. Get me with someone who knows what the hell they’re doing.
I get called into the appointment desk (they have a relatively large staff here and one lady just for doing referrals and that sort of thing). The lady, I’ll call her Pat, is on the phone. She asks me what day I’m available. I tell her. She says “You have to see a counselor first.” A genetic counselor? “No, to get in with the psychiatrist you have to see a counselor first.”
The specialist was a psychiatrist. I was floored. I told Pat that I was only going to get treatment for fibromyalgia. Well, Pat doesn’t even bother to hide her irritation with me. She just kind of snorts and says “They don’t treat that at the mental health clinic.” Really? I would never have guessed! She goes on to tell me that my chart shows that I’m diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder and she doesn’t know where I got fibromyalgia.
“The NP just diagnosed me five minutes ago.” I was too tired to even care. What a bunch of arrogant jerks! Here I was wasting my money to be told lies and be laughed at. I told her not to make the appointment, I’d call and do it myself. Then I left. I could have ranted and raved. But what would have been the point? They would have been validated in their dual diagnosis then and I still wouldn’t have quality care.
When I got home I called my insurance company and they gave me a number for a rheumatologist. I called the rheumatologist to make an appointment and they asked which doctor referred me. I gave them my PCPs name. They didn’t know any different. Right? So, I have an appointment on Thursday with them. They do treat fibromyalgia. And hopefully they take it more seriously.
I’ve read online that you should take materials to your doctor to help educate them. That a lot of doctor’s aren’t well read on fibromyalgia and may still think it’s a throw-away diagnosis. We as patients should inform them and teach them. I disagree completely. If my doctor tells me that I have an ailment, then my doctor should know what the hell he/she is talking about regarding that ailment. I shouldn’t have to go home and “look it up on the Internet” and then give them what I found. I pay the doctor to do this. I pay a lot of money. My insurance just jumped through the roof in June and I fully expect the doctor to be knowledgeable regarding these things. I think that if a doctor doesn’t know enough about a diagnosis to give the proper information then that doctor shouldn’t be diagnosing. He should be referring.
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Oct
04
Posted by Lizzie under
irritations,
work from home
Updated below.
I was trying to do that pay per post thing. I found a couple of different companies that offer that, so I signed up and signed up and signed up. Then I was rejected, rejected, rejected. One place didn’t bother to reject me, they just ignore me. 
Well, of course I was rejected. Chipped Polish is a baby in the blogosphere. A new beginning so to speak. No one has linked to us yet. Duh! I have another blog that has a lot more history (3 years worth!) and linkage, but I can’t bear to monetize that one. It’s very different and my readers there like it that way. So, I’ll just scratch that idea for now and go back to what I was doing before I had that bright idea.
“You are not worthy!”
I did manage to do some bloghopping the other day, looking for potential new neighbors. I have discovered that things in the money-for-blogging corner of the blogosphere are a mite different than what I’m used to. And it’s a little disconcerting, to say the least.
For instance, I ran across a blog with no comments and a very short blogroll. I was a little surprised by that because I found this blog on one of the sites that rejected me. Anyway, read the content and it was a little “meh”, so I decided to hop through to one of the blogs on her links list. At the bottom of the list was a link to instructions on how to get on her links list. Of course, I followed it. I need a little help here, can’t you see. Then my little bubble popped and that was when I really decided that blogging strictly for cash was not for me.
This blogger announced that she had a PR 5 blog, which was almost the top of the Google shebang. She then went on to say that if one had a blog that was a PR 3 or better then please contact her for inclusion on her humble links list. But if one had a blog below PR 3 don’t even bother linking her because she did not want her link seen on such a low-level blog.
WTF?
So, what would happen if someone with a new blog- like me, perhaps - were to link to her? I have no idea. But I’m 100% sure she didn’t get her PR from getting linked to for content. My other blog (non-monetized, free from ads, blah blah blah) is small, but it has a decent link score. And it gets plenty of comments. I’m sure, though, if I were a member of a particular site where it was customary to link to other members, that site would be a lot bigger. It’s not, though, because I don’t want it to be. That does sound arrogant of me, doesn’t it? I’m not ashamed, though. There used to be time in the blogosphere where links were exchanged out of courtesy and where bloggers helped their younger, less fortunate comrades get up higher in the ranks. That’s still true for portions, I suppose. That attitude, plus excellent content, helped those bloggers get higher rankings/authority/linkage. Imagine if a few of the more prominent bloggers refused to link to anyone in the beginning, or more aptly, if they didn’t have the content to draw in the readers and still refused. Ha!
Content is KING!
I have learned from the good bloggers what is most important and why being a snob gets you nowhere. For niche blogs (which this started as, but has failed miserably at) it’s important to have information that others want and in a way they can absorb. It’s not hard to copy content ideas from those guys. The harder part is taking it and putting your own mark on it. If you aren’t writing about website optimization, then find something that you’re passionate about and write about that. If I, as a passerby, fall asleep while reading what you wrote, then the Big Guys would probably suggest you rethink what you’re writing about. Yes?
I guess if you’re posting just to meet the requirements for a pay per post thing, it doesn’t really matter what your content is, as long as your PR is high. But can that really be satisfying? Isn’t it important to have organic links and regular visitors? I used to think that it was and sadly still do. I don’t think I can write without thought of pulling someone in so that they want to come back. I’m old school like that. I can’t ever imagine telling someone who’s writing I may enjoy that I won’t link to them because their PR isn’t high enough. There’s something really wrong with that attitude.
And so I have to rethink my goals here. I don’t ever want to become the kind of blogger that snubs her nose at the “lesser mortals” because of their page rank.
Update:
I want to make it clear that I did not request a link from the above mentioned blogger. I was taken aback because the blogger specifically requested that no blogs with less than a Page Rank of 3 link to that blog. It was that request that I found arrogant and snobbish- and I stand by that opinion.
I’d also like to note that my other blog has some links, but has no Page Rank. Also, that blog does link to this one. Why that is important I’m not sure, but I thought I’d clear up that misunderstanding too. I am not begging for links nor do I feel entitled to anything. I know that I have to work hard and plan to do so. This post was an observation I made as a newbie to this particular area of the blogosphere. My opinion regarding that observation hasn’t changed with this update. (Oct.13, 2007)
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