Hmm, what font to use?

Experts recommend font Times New Roman or Arial in size 12 for business use.  But where it comes to social writing, whether it be an email, a Word document or a blog entry, we can play with fonts to our heart’s content.

Is this kind of creative freedom a pro or a con?  It can be a con.  Here’s why …

A few years ago I worked for an organization who looked after the interests of dentists.  Toward the end of the year a few of us got together to plan the Christmas party and brainstormed a few ideas.  In the end it was decided that Betty and I would be responsible for the design of the invitations, menus and table cards.

Betty set straight to work and seemed very serious about the task at hand.  I saw her typing, deleting, retyping, followed by intently peering at her computer screen.

Every now and then she would print something, look at it while pinching a frown, holding the paper alternatively at arm’s length and close up.  This was followed by more typing, deleting, printing and inspecting.  Things were not going well, I could see it.  Betty was shaking her head, biting her nails and sighing so hard I could hear her all the way in my cubicle. 

I felt guilty.  Betty was giving it her all while I had decided to catch up on my filing before giving my attention to the Christmas project.  I didn’t know that filing was going to take me this long.  I had started at 10:00 and oh dear, now it was 11:15 already.

“So sorry Betty,” I said after I was finally finished.  “I had to do the filing first or I can’t fully concentrate on the Christmas designs.”

“Oh no problem,” Betty waved, slightly irritated.  “I haven’t done anything either.  I’ve been looking at fonts and for the life of me I can’t decide which one to use.”

That’s the problem with fonts, they’re all so pretty and deciding can be difficult.

Look at the following

Kunstler Script for instance … beautiful,, isn’t it?  But it’s so hard to read.

Monotype Corsive, one of my favorites for casual writing.

French Script, it looks so … sophisticated

Informal Roman for when the mood strikes you

Chiller, suitable for Halloween

Lucinda Handwriting, could pass for something hand written

Lucinda Sans Typewriter, for when you long for the typewriting days.

Vladimir Script … hm, sounds Russian

Palatino Linotype, looks good and clean

As for colors … also important.  

For when you’re feeling blue

Red gets the attention

Orange is popular around Halloween

Yellow is so cheerful, isn't it?

Green when you want something different

Turquoise for the romantics among us

Royal blue for the sensible types

Burgundy when feeling a little depressed?

Pink for the girls

Oh so much to chose from.  I think I'm just going to stick to Century Gothic in black.  Or should I?

A few bumps in the road

All beginnings are difficult and my first day of ‘flying’ solo was no different.

For starters I couldn’t get into my computer this morning.  I didn’t have a user name and I didn’t have a password.  I got on the phone and spoke to some I.T. dude who gave me what I needed.

From there I thought it was all systems go, but ahead there was another bump in the road.  When I tried to open my email, I needed a name and a password for that too.  Again I picked up the phone and called the help desk, but this time they couldn’t help me.  However, they would send a specialist to have a look at the problem.  He would be there within the hour.  If you saw a specialist, so did I.

In the meantime yet another problem presented itself ... my computer wasn’t hooked up to any printers.  Under normal circumstances selecting and installing a printer is child’s play, but not in this case.  There were hundreds of printers to choose from and all of them had mysterious codes.

For the third time I called the helpdesk and they promised that the specialist, who was on his way, would be able to help me with the printer problem too.  I waited and waited, but apparently the specialist was needed elsewhere.

As if that wasn’t enough, a fourth problem crept up ... literally ... a spider.  True, it was only a baby spider, but it was pitch black and creepy looking.  I tried to kill it (I didn’t need a specialist for that), but I missed and the tiny spider fell on the floor.  For the next fifteen minutes I was hand my hands and knees, looking for the beast, but it had disappeared. 

A short time later there was another baby spider.  That one I managed to kill, but I freaked out.  If there were two baby spiders, and a spider is known to lay a lot of eggs, how many more spiders were there?  And more importantly, if these were baby spiders ... where was mama spider?

What did I do?  You guessed it, I got on the phone again.  This time I called housekeeping and insisted they come and deal with the problem.  The lady I spoke to was quite honest, she told me it was too late in the day to deal with this problem now, but someone would show up tomorrow morning.   

They better show up and they better do something about it, because I don’t want the company of spiders.

Let’s hope the bumps in the road will be ironed tomorrow.  Let’s hope that I get hooked up with email, with a printer and that mama spider goes and raises her family elsewhere. 

Training complete

My training is complete.  The lady I’m taking over from thought me everything there is to know, and as from tomorrow it’s up to me to get the job done.  Oh dear, let’s hope the company survives it.

I listened to advice until my ears were ringing; peered at the computer screen until I was cross eyed; and I probably have more notes than Tolstoy did when writing “War and Peace”.

I think I’ll be okay though.  I’ve had some hands on training and it doesn’t seem all that complicated.  It was like a switch was turned on today and suddenly everything started making sense. 

Of course, the boss wasn’t there these past three days.  Once she comes back from her out of town trip everything could change.  Who knows what she all going to ask me to do!

Remember the current EA gave me her phone number and email address for when I have a problem?  Poor thing, I might flood her inbox messages and call her while she’s in the shower.

I’m tired though.  Imagine, it’s only 10:30 and I can hardly keep my eyes open.  This from someone who used to sit up until 3:00 a.m.  Of course, I didn’t get up at 5:45 in those days.

So we’re gonna keep this entry short and sweet.  My bed is calling and I’m replying with “I’m coming”.