What Disaster School Taught Me About Freelancing
In 2003, I became a member of Tucson’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). This program trains ordinary citizens in emergency preparedness and basic disaster response skills like fire suppression, first aid, triage, and incident command.
CERT members are expected to participate in continuing education programs, and that’s why I recently went to school with a bunch of paramedics, firefighters, sheriff’s deputies, SWAT team members, and chaplains. For four days, we studied the various tools and techniques used in Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM).
Now, you may be asking, what is a Critical Incident? And how would a creative professional happen to become involved in such a thing?
Cool in a Catastrophe: How to Tell Your Clients
I hate to be a pessimist, but sooner or later something is going to go wrong — and it’s going to affect your ability to complete a project. It’s happened to me more than once over the years: I’ve gotten sick, lost power and faced other situations that spelled disaster for whatever I was working on.
I still get a little worried when I think about how I’m going to have to tell a client something has gone wrong. I’ve done my best to make sure that I’m ahead on my work, that even a catastrophe can’t delay a project — but I’m also prepared to tell my clients when something goes wrong.
Is Your Business Prepared For a Disaster?
If you were formerly a cubicle dweller, it’s a good bet that someone else was responsible for making sure that the smoke alarms in your building worked, that all staff members knew CPR, and that the company had a business continuity plan in case of disaster. Now that you are on your own, disaster preparedness and all that it entails is yet another task that falls squarely on your shoulders—along with janitorial jobs, stocking jobs, mail room jobs, accounts receivable jobs, and all the other parts that make up your business. Being prepared for a disaster is not as hard as it sounds. Here are some tasks to get you started so that no matter what kind of disaster strikes, you’ll be ready.
