Real-Life Decision Making
Indexing has a lot of perks. It is a job that can be done through a corporation
or on a freelance basis. You get to read and participate in the book production
process. And you can develop a specialty where the types of book you index
suit your particular tastes.
You chose to become a freelance indexer so you would have the freedom to
decide which projects you work on. As such, you work from a home office and
you set your own hours. It's an ideal situation in your mind.
Currently, you are working on a project that is not your first choice of
assignments. However, it came to you when you had no other projects scheduled,
so you accepted it. The project involved indexing a set of medical texts.
There are four volumes in all, and you have worked your way through the
first two. The work is going smoothly and you've just finished a telephone
conversation with the editor confirming that you will have the project finished
by the deadline in two weeks.
Then the phone rings again. The caller is the editor of a large publishing
house that produces mostly chemistry texts. It's a subject that you love,
and you have worked with this particular editor many times in the past.
She has a text that she needs indexed on a very short turnaround time --
she needs it in five days. To sweeten the offer, the editor is allowing a
bonus of half your normal fee in addition to your regular pay, if you can
complete the assignment.
Your first choice is to tell her yes, you'll take the project. The
text is something you would love to have the opportunity to read, and the
extra money would be nice to have. The problem is, you just told your other
editor that you would complete the medical texts project on time.
If you take the assignment to index the chemistry text, it will throw you
behind on the medical text project. Then you will either have to work long
hours or tell the editor for the medical texts that you will not have the
indexes ready on time.
You could work the longer hours, but when you decided to pursue indexing
as a freelance business, you promised your family that you would not become
a workaholic. At least for the next few weeks, you would be just that if you
take the chemistry text to index.
What do you do?