Service: * * *
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Food: * * *
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Ambience: * * * 1\/2
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Babe Count: * * * *<\/i><\/p>\n
I’ve just met S., the third babe from the internet dating service I’m on. She’s a babe. Matches her photos nicely. “I don’t really like photos,” she says. “I don’t like sitting over photo albums and reminding myself of the past. Boring.”<\/p>\n
We’re at Paputzi’s in Linden, and we’re out in the garden during lunchtime. While it’s not exactly freezing — the winter sun is shining — it’s also not entirely sitting-outside weather. So we’re both bundled up.<\/p>\n
S. is very cute, and has a young teenage daughter, and seems to have her head screwed on right. She’s done a copywriting course, and is busy working out how to use that to move to a new level of income. <\/p>\n
She asks me how to become a freelance copywriter, seeing as that’s what I did for a good portion of my life. I tell her the basics. “First, work out how much money you think you need a month. Then divide that amount by roughly 22 working days. Then divide that by 8 hours per day. That gives you a rough hourly rate to base your charging estimates on.” I whip out my palmtop computer, and I do the maths.<\/p>\n
“How much do you charge per hour now?” I ask.<\/p>\n
“Well… it’s not for copywriting work. It’s more for admin stuff. If it’s for a friend, I’ll charge R60 per hour. And if they’re horrible, I’ll charge R120.”<\/p>\n
“Hmmmm,” I say. “How much do you think your hourly rate is if you want to make R30 grand a month, working eight hours a day, five days a week?”<\/p>\n
“Probably a lot!” she says, shying away from the number.<\/p>\n
“Nah… it’s only R170 per hour. That’s just fifty bucks more than your highest rate. I challenge you to get out of your comfort zone and start charging R220 per hour.”<\/p>\n
“Nobody will pay me that!!!” she says. “And I need the income!”<\/p>\n
“Yeah, but what are you earning now? Is it enough to give you and your daughter the life you need?”<\/p>\n
She ponders. “No,” she says. “I’d like more.”<\/p>\n
“What’ll you spend R30 grand a month on?” I ask, helping her make it concrete.<\/p>\n
“Well, a better school, for one.” And her list grows.<\/p>\n
“Okay,” I say. “Can you see that you’re cheating yourself AND your daughter out of these things by charging so little? You’re effectively keeping yourself in a low earning bracket. And you’ve GOT to revisit this idea of charging friends less. You need to charge your worth. That’s why the challenge!”<\/p>\n
“I’m not ready to start charging R220 per hour. But I’ll think about it.”<\/p>\n
I go to the toilet. It’s incredibly twee. The male side is labelled “Pa”. And the female side is “Putzi’s”. Paputzi’s, gettit??? Sheesh. No little diagram of a man under “Pa”, though. And anyway, the door’s locked. Someone’s hogging the pissoir. So after a minute or so of obeying the rules, I think, “Gah! I’m going into the women’s side! So I do. And it’s very quaint.<\/p>\n
When I come back, I notice that S. is wearing some exceedingly slinky looking panties. The hem has ridden out of her jeans. It’s one of those black mesh see-through numbers, almost a g-string, but not quite. Very enticing.<\/p>\n
It’s very clear that this woman isn’t just the sensible head-screwed-on-right-responsible-mother she likes to show the world.<\/p>\n
But by the time one o’clock comes round, we haven’t really talked about each other much at all, and she has to go and give her daughter a lift. We’ll definitely need another date. I want to find out about her taste for gothic and heavy metal music. And explore her taste in underwear. <\/p>\n