Unsolicited Interest in Me as a Writer

Yesterday I got a message from someone here at work whom I didn’t know. I’d seen her name on e-mails that are distributed building-wide, so I knew the name, but I could not put a face to that name. She’s a PR person.

In the subject line of the message was “please call me -7###.” So I did. She asked me if I sit in the corner office in the new annex. I assured her that was me, and she asked if I had time to come to her office. She said she’s not supposed to be talking to a contractor (I am a contractor; she is a federal employee) so doesn’t want to come to my office, which has a window to the hall through which any passer-by could see us chatting.

I had no idea what this was about, but I told her, “Sure, I can come to your office.” She gave her room location, and I was off. I did make a quick stop in the bathroom to make sure my braces were food free as I was eating left-over pizza when I called her. The brackets weren’t too bad as I’d only taken a couple bites as yet. A quick swish of water around my mouth was good.

I walked in her office, and she asked me to close the door. She said that she read the articles posted to my office window, the one that looks out to the hallway, and thought, “This is someone who can write.” How flattering! The articles are the ones syndicated to four weeklies in southwest Ohio and posted to my other blog, www.OurNationsTreasure.blogspot.com.

I still didn’t know where this was going. If she wanted to purchase rights to the articles to publish in EPA literature? If she wanted to hire me on a freelance basis to write for the EPA. What?

What she wanted was to find out if I were interested in becoming a fed. Of course I was! The pay! The benefits! I’d be nuts not to want to move from contractor to fed. She told me that several writing positions are to be posted soon, and she didn’t know if they would be for “all eyes” or just for feds, but she told me she’d make sure I was aware of them.

How nice, huh? What a boost to my ego too. I hope they come up soon.