Bread and Teaspoons

Good morning (unless it isn't where you are), and welcome to a new feature at Shakesville: Bread and Teaspoons*. (Edit: this week only, feel free to comment with, well, y'know, comments. After that, we'll try and keep it to just directly-relevant comments.)

What's the idea, you're asking? Well, I'm gonna tell you. Consider this one as in honour of the US' Independence Day, in hopes of helping a few more Shakers achieve their own independence, from someone who grew up calling it "the American Rebellion". ;)

It occurred to me a couple of weeks ago that I'd noticed a number of Shakers mentioning that they were struggling to find work, to make ends meet, to keep the teaspoons full. And I bethought me, now Caitie, how could we find a way to make a difference in that? What resource can we put in reach of Shakers wanting to be in a place where they can spare a little to help others?

And the resource I hit on is: us. We're that resource. There are hundreds of us here, maybe thousands, all over the US and Canada, and out into the rest of the world. We work in all kinds of fields, doing all kinds of different things, and most of us tend to be online creatures: we roam the Toobz constantly, and in doing so, encounter many opportunities.

So my plan is to have a weekly post, Mondays, providing a spot for Shakers to network a little with one another, see if we can help each other out some.

Here's how it works: There should be two sorts of comments here.

1) You comment here with any details of work you're seeking: where, what, that sort of thing. You give an e-mail address at which you can be reached - feel free to set up a special e-mail for it, if you don't want to post your regular one for the world to spam - and if another Shaker has a lead, they can contact you directly to pass it along.

A work-seeking comment should include:

• - a short summary of the skillset you're seeking work with;


• - a short summary of your experience


• - where you're looking for work to happen


• - your contact e-mail

Please do NOT include information such as your full name or telephone number, as this is and will remain a public post, and once posted, there's no taking it back (because it'll be spidered by a search engine, not because we don't want you to).

For example, I might post a comment saying:

I'm a professional translator of French, German and Russian, with nearly 17 years of experience. I'm looking for basically any translation job, academic, commercial, personal, genealogical, you name it, with one exception: I do not currently have certification, so if you need a certified translator (usually for legal docs: birth certificates, divorce decrees, wills), you need someone else.

I am also available as a writer or editor, for academic, journalistic, creative, marketing-oriented or any other type of written communication. Basically, if you'll pay me, I'll write or edit it.

You can contact me for business purposes through my business address, translatey.caitie@translateycaitie.com.**

2) The other type of comment could be task offering: if you've got a job you think might suit someone here, consider posting it as a comment. Use the same guidelines as above: give general information here, and specific information when you exchange e-mails. An offered task might look something like this:

I have a doctoral thesis which needs proofing and editing by Thursday, is anyone available? You can reach me at ABDShaker@shakesville.miskatonic.edu.

I'd like to be clear: only offer tasks which you have explicit permission to offer. If you come across something that isn't yours, but think some Shakers might want to know about it, either ask permission of the offerer, or offer it privately to someone whose comment says they might be interested (based on their skillset). For instance, you're on some other site, you see someone asking for, say, help in designing their new website. Don't come here and offer the job as a comment, unless you have that person's explicit permission. What you could do is go through the comments, and send an e-mail to anyone with the right skillset.

So, that's what we'd like to see.

What we do NOT want to see:

• - recommendations/references, even for other Shakers - leave those for the contact phase of your negotiation


• - rates info - again, leave this for the contact phase of your negotiation; we don't want to encourage bidding wars between Shakers


• - illegal employment - whatever we may think of a given law against a certain activity, we don't want to put Shakesville in any awkward spots legally


• - links to job search, agency or other sites - this is meant to be Shaker-to-Shaker, here, not a spamming point for other sites; only link to sites which are yours

So there. Have at it, Shakers, for Bread and Teaspoons!

Important disclaimers: Shakesville makes no endorsement or claim as to the capabilities of anyone commenting to this post, and anyone considering hiring someone should be prepared to treat it like any other business situation: DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE. We're not doing any screening of this, so you'll want to make sure you check references, use safe-payment procedures (e.g., ask for a deposit), all the things you'd do when working with any stranger on the Internet. While this is intended for Shakers in general, remember that there is no real obstacle to being able to comment here, and do the things you need to do to keep yourself safe.

* As might be evident, this is an intentional reference to Bread and Roses, a longtime slogan of the left. In this case, though, my hope is that if we achieve steady bread, we will use it to power our teaspoon use.

** Now, don't go writing to that one yet, because that's not my actual domain name (which I've not got running yet, but should by tomorrow), and I'm only using it as an example (though it happens to be true). The e-mail listed for me under Contributors works just fine for now, if you've got something for me.