How much work will you take on?

This headline might give some people pause about hiring me someday, but I've realized that there are some lines in my work life that I won't cross. 

I am proud to work full-time for UB and their needs are the top of my list of things to do, but luckily for me there is an end to the work day.  I still check social and things like that but that's not necessarily "work" in the grand scheme of things. I like to help people. 

So, my freelance life starts after 6pm during the week and takes over on the weekends. I usually have a couple of clients to manage and so I have fun things to work on all the time.  I also do a lot of volunteering.  Even though I'm busy, I always respond to client queries.  You never know how something new can fit into the current list of projects and sometimes I learn something that helps everyone. 

Recently I was asked to take an editing test for a potential client.  I really liked the idea of the work, it was going to be a lot of captioning of legal files and I am really good at captioning.  However, I've never worked for any legal firms and I have no clue about the formatting they wanted. They sent very few instructions and expected me to figure it out. It dawned on me about an hour into this formatting challenge that if they were not interested in helping me succeed then I didn't need to work for them. I asked one question and was told I had all the information I needed. Since I did not, I won't be working for them in the future. 

Another potential client asked me to draft some blog posts for them and asked for images to accompany the text. When I asked how to add alt text to their CMS, they told me not worry about it. I sent them a link to the WCAG standards and removed myself from consideration.  I won't support any website not interested in accessibility.

So, my original question. How much work will you take on? I'll take on any project that won't harm my current clients, that won't exhaust me so that I can't do my regular job, and where I can learn as I go and have training or support if needed. 

Flexibility in the work space

One of the hardest lessons to learn as a freelancer is how to juggle the ebb and flow of available work. This dynamic sometimes pushes freelancers to seek more work during a quiet time than they can handle during the busy times.

It is also hard to tell when a freelance gig has reached its end-of-life. Sometimes I've pulled the plug and other times the client pulled the plug, but the nature of contract work is that it will end. And no matter how much you like the work, the project is over. 

This is why continuously updating your skills and staying connected helps you in the marketplace. How do you keep expanding your freelance circle? 

More Adobe Acrobat fun

 Working on remediating some PDF files and have been frustrated by random elements that the accessibility checker finds in the final review.

I know that these elements are not in the visible file, but they are often artifacts from the production process.

I found a shortcut today on the Adobe help site. Sharing for my own notes and to help this pop up for more people. 

Here is the key part:

"To try this out, do this:

• launch the Preflight tool (cmd-shift-X, or go to Edit->Preflight, or search for it in the Tools view
• switch to the "PDF Standards" library (pull-down menu in the middle at the top of the Preflight window)
• again, in the Preflight window, switch to the "Fixups" list (click on the wrench icon)
• in the search field in the Preflight window, enter 'artifact'
• an item with the name "Mark all non-structure elements as artifact" will be shown
• click on the "Fix" button in the lower right to execute the fixup (again: make sure to work on a copy of your precious original PDF, or during execution of the fixup, save to a different file name and/or different folder)

Once completed, all elements should either be part of the tagging structure, or be marked as artifact (background element)