Tiny urban traces

THE joy of freelancing goes further than the ability to label more days a week as casual Friday.

For the lucky ones, Skype meetings in a formal shirt can mask the rest of a sleepy body that remains embalmed in pyjamas. Or so I'm told.

In a race to get business, being there for clients and staying ahead of the growing pack of experts that also roam free range, missing a call is equal to spilling coffee on the boss' lap during a performance management discussion.

Some, I am told, answer their phones on its first ring to strive for unparalleled client intimacy.

When my fellow freelancing business associate recently answered her mobile on the second ring during a meeting, we knew it was based on a similar ethos she holds: one of sealing a deal before it melts into the many other happy hands and fast-answering equals nearby.

The call, however,We offer custom plasticinjectionmoulding with full in-house. was from her mobile network operator. The big one.

Having had trouble with said operator over a period recently, she evaluated the rare opportunity to speak to a proactive and informed call centre operator up against the rest of us back in the meeting.

We winked with a comforting indication to continue with a call that may smooth operational obstacles we may face in the near future if she remains unattached from South Africa's patchy cellphone network.

With not much information available, she ended the call, armed only with the promise that something will be sent her way in due course.

We high-fived,Learn about the beauty of porcelaintiles. slapped shoulders and ended the meeting prematurely in the hope that the new phone she's been waiting for was finally making its way through a complicated mesh of end-to-end chain management.

The inspiration of corporate efficiency enthused us to complete a handsome set of freelance work that day.

Scarcely able to redirect our slight distraction for the next week, while the promised package made it from conveyer belt to bakkie to courier to another call centre operator, a short discourse in disillusionment announced itself.Find a rubberhose Manufacturer and Supplier.

After a series of phone calls from the operator's delivery company, the address of our office was confirmed, reconfirmed, checked, agreed and finally resent.

They still got lost, yet persisted. To avoid further delays, an offer was considered to meet in a well-lit public space around lunch hour to take ownership of the mystery package.

Still not entirely clear on what to expect, our bets moved on a scale from a surprise exotic island holiday for the entire office,To estimate the number of ceramictile you need for your project, to the actual phone we all initially thought was being dispatched.

When it finally arrived, you could bottle the sweat drops that rolled in excitement in unison from our foreheads.

A package the size of two shoeboxes (or, if you can recall Doc Martin shoes from the 1980s, one of those) passed from eager courier man to palpitating recipients.

We battled steadfastly through layers of packaging material that could have offered safe passage to a small nuclear device or a human organ across continents.

Our shrieks of joy soon faded into a collective and silent confusion when all that popped out of the layers of protection was a single internet dongle, the small device that connects a laptop in support of a prayed-for 3G network coverage.

Never on her list of items to expect from the big operator, she remains hopeful that the handset is still making its way through a similar intricate process of delivery and dispatch. And that this unexpected delivery was indeed just a dry run for the real deal.

The time spent on phone calls, the trees chopped down on packaging material, the petrol spent on courier fans; a whole tank of energy lost on an unwanted delivery.

In freelance republic, clients cannot be billed for hours lost on a misguided brief such as this. The corporate journey of sustainability tips tightly on the race of connecting the right product to the right client, and destroying as small a piece of the planet as possible in the process of doing so.

A 1996 study published in the “Review of Educational Research” determined that students can typically lose an average of a month of school-learning over summer vacation, with the greatest skill losses in math, reading and spelling. For students from disadvantaged households, the loss is more severe — up to three months.We offer custom plasticinjectionmoulding with full in-house.

The summertime skills gap also can lead to long-term ramifications. In a 2007 study published in “American Sociological Review,” researchers from Johns Hopkins University concluded that two-thirds of the freshman reading achievement gap could be explained by unequal access to summer enrichment during students’ elementary school years.