I and some colleagues were talking about how we wish everyone could see the safety videos that our company was showing us, because I don’t think most people understand how traffic works in a truck. So here’s some things we wish everyone on the road knew.
– we’re not kidding about tailgating. If you’re right behind us on a straight highway? Chances are we have NO IDEA you’re there, which means we can’t anticipate any of your movements. Plus slowing down takes multiple downshifts, so we might start decreasing speed way earlier than you expect.
– We’re not kidding about any of our blind spots. WE CAN’T SEE YOU, GUYS.
– That bit about slowing down taking a while? The same goes for when you’re in front of us. Don’t cut off a truck. Oh god, PLEASE don’t cut off a truck. If you cut me off, I’m not irritated, I’m terrified. For YOU. It can take 7 to 9 seconds for us to stop. DON’T CUT OFF TRUCKS.
– Before you get mad about how slow we’re going on the highway, keep in mind that many companies govern their vehicles so they literally CAN’T go over 60 or 65. This is a good thing, I promise. Because…
– Do you know what happens when a car meets a truck in an accident? The car gets totaled and the truck needs a new coat of paint. You will not win this fight. I know nobody likes getting stuck behind a big dumb truck, but it’s not worth your life.
We are trying our best to protect you from our 80,000 pound death machines. Please help us out.
This information is actually useful. Thanks for posting.
If you’re passing a truck, wait to merge back in front of them until you can see both of their headlights in your rearview. If you merge too close they literally can’t see you
Something interesting I found as an older comment on an older Nerdwriter video; might be good to keep in mind for world building! Would honestly be cool to see more writers do.
Friendly reminder to all working artists or (especially) aspiring artists.
If a client says they can’t afford to pay you but you’ll get good exposure, one of two things is happening:
1. They are lying. They can afford to pay you, but they are choosing not to. They will pay the printer to print the books, they will pay the mail service to deliver them, and you’d better believe they’re going to pay themselves for sending you an email explaining that they can’t afford to pay you. They think you are a sucker, and if you take the job you’ll be telling them they are right.
2. They are not lying. They have zero budget, no audience and no real distribution system. They’ll still be paying the printer and mail service because people who work in those professions don’t work for free just because someone promises them a recommendation. But they aren’t paying themselves, they’re running on an incredibly small margin, and there’s a good chance they won’t exist as a corporate entity in a few years. Publishing your work with them will give you less exposure than putting it on tumblr or Instagram for free would. It will never lead to a paying job.
If a client starts ranting about the “short-sightedness” of artists, or otherwise complains about artists in general in their opening offer to you, run. Run as fast as you would run if a blind date spent the whole of dinner ranting about how horrible your entire gender is. Yes, there are doubtlessly clients who’ve been screwed over by artists in the past, but the ones who complain about artists in general will not respect you, they will not treat you well.
Working for free does not prove that you are passionate about something. It proves that you do not need to be paid for your work. How many doctors went into medicine because they are passionate about saving lives? Do you think any of them are asked to perform heart surgery for free?
No one will ever pay $50 for something if they can get something similar for $5. When you charge next to nothing for art that you’ve worked for hours on, art that required years of training to create, you are telling your client that it is worth next to nothing. They will remember that the next time they want to hire an artist.
People who are looking to exploit artists know that artists are hard on themselves. They know that most artists don’t think their work is good enough to charge top dollar. They know that artists have been told from the first day they started taking their art seriously as a career that they’ll never make any money off it, that it’s not a real job, that it has no value to society. They know how to push artists’ insecurities about their profession in order to convince them that that demanding fair compensation is unrealistic and uncooperative.
If you’re just desperate for a job in the arts, any job in the arts, give yourself a job. Start a webcomic, or give yourself illustration assignments that you post on social media regularly, create work for a gallery show even if you don’t have one yet, or make a book. Give yourself a job. If you’re going to work for free, you may as well be working for yourself, setting your own hours and following your own interests. Having original art with original characters and ideas in your portfolio, and making sure your art is visible online will get the attention of publishers who are actually looking to hire people for good jobs. Drawing a shitty comic for a defunct publisher based on someone else’s shitty ideas will not.
Protect yourself, because no one else will. Protect yourself, because no one else will. There are people lining up around the block to exploit you. Protect yourself because no one else will.
“Give yourself a job. If you’re going to work for free, you may as well be working for yourself.”
Long we have tended our beasts and our fields, built our houses, wrought our tools, or ridden away to help in the wars of Minas Tirith. And that we called the life of Men, the way of the world. We cared little for what lay beyond the borders of our land. Songs we have that tell of these things, but we are forgetting them, teaching them only to children, as a careless custom. And now the songs have come down among us out of strange places, and walk visible under the Sun.
Once upon a time, there was a city ruled by three sister princesses. They were much-loved in their kingdom- the eldest with eyes of brightest blue, the middle with lips of sweetest pink, and the youngest with hair of deepest red. They were incredibly close, acting as each other’s friends and confidantes. They were just, and kind, able to balance the people and keep the peace in their land.
For a time, all was well.
And then it wasn’t.
Mother?
Shh.
A neighboring kingdom, jealous of this city’s prosperity and peace, sought to disrupt it. They dragged to its gates hideous war machines, made of magic and steel and human skin. The king, a man of great magical learning and power, demanded the princesses surrender their city to him, and if they did not, he said, he would raze it to the ground.
Mother, I’ve never heard of this story.
Then listen when I tell it to you.
The youngest daughter, when she heard, did up her deep red hair, put on a delicate crown, and clothed herself in a beautiful dress. “I will offer him an alliance,” she told her sisters. “I will give him my hand in marriage for our kingdom’s safety.”
The other sisters wept, understanding the sacrifice that their youngest was making, and held her close until dawn. They saw her off at the castle gates, and watched until she disappeared into the still city.
When the youngest daughter reached the enemy’s camp, she stood tall, and did not show her fear. She spoke kindly to the weary soldiers, curtsied before the cruel sorcerer-king as custom demanded. She was brave, oh, my darling, she was so brave.
And the king spat at her fine words, and spoke the words that drew all the light from out of her, until she went mad with despair. As the sun set on the day, and on the youngest sister, who lay despondent in the middle of the camp, a soldier came upon her, and killed her in a fit of mercy.
But you said that she was brave.
Yes. She was.
When the other sisters heard, the middle sister donned silver armor, borrowed from the guards in the castle, and took up a crossbow. “I go to kill the king,” she said. “I go to avenge our youngest.”
And the eldest held her close, and wept, until she let her go and watched her disappear from sight into the streets.
When the middle sister arrived at the camp, she moved quietly, looking through the tents with eyes and a heart made cold with fury and grief. She reached the king’s tent- asleep, inside was the enemy, and she raised her crossbow to finish the job. And she would have, darling, she would have, had she not seen, hanging from the post of the kings fine bed, her sister’s delicate crown.
The king awoke when she sobbed at the sight of it, and spoke words that caused her to wither and decay where she stood, crumbling to rotted remains inside a suit of armor.
Mother, I don’t like this story.
You must hear it.
The eldest sister heard the news and she did not weep. She drew her courage about her, and set off into the forest to find her and her sister’s mother, who was a powerful witch.
Her mother answered the door and bade her come inside, offering her condolences about her sister’s fates. Once the door had closed, her mother hesitated, then spoke.
“I left you in that castle long ago, and I will give you your answers, and then I will give you your vengeance against the king.”
And so the daughter listened.
Mother, I don’t want to hear this.
Listen, daughter.
Long ago, there had been a queen with great magickal abilities, but she was never able to find a love, so she used those powers to create three daughters.
One, she formed from a bottle of light captured at the sun’s violent surrender to night. It woke last, a child with beautiful red hair, and so it was the youngest.
One, she shaped from a gentle pink anemone, the last in her castle’s courtyard to survive winter’s onslaught. It woke second, a child with curved pink lips, and so it was the middle.
One, she carved from a piece of sapphire the size of her fist, and as she did, she cut her finger with the blade, so it was made with blood, as well. It woke immediately, with bright blue eyes, so it was the eldest.
The sun took her first child home, she told the sapphire-girl. Her body turned to light, and then to nothing, what it always was. The body of her second daughter rotted in the encampment like a flower decayed beyond its lifespan. “All the king can do is turn you back to what you were before,” she told her daughter. “He will turn you back to stone if you are unprotected.”
She gave her daughter a vial full of black liquid. “This will turn your heart forever to sapphire. The king will be unable to change you- but you will never feel again. No blade shall pierce your skin, but no joy or grief will stir within you. You will never be warm, or cold. I offer you not immortality, but a half-life of invincibility.”
The daughter regarded the vial, and uncorked it. She brought it to her lips, but before she drank, she asked her mother, “Why did you leave us?”
And then she swallowed, so she would not care about the response, and she left her mother in her home before she found the answer.
But why did their mother leave them?
Because she knew, daughter, even then, that her eldest child was capable of committing this act, and she was afraid.
The eldest daughter marched to the encampment, and to the kings tent. She was attacked, but nothing drew blood, and so she went forward. The king, upon seeing her, spoke the words that would have crumbled her to so many sapphire shards, but nothing happened.
She pulled out the king’s heart through his armor, and she felt no relief at having killed him.
She felt nothing.
The end.
Mother?
Mother, that can’t be how the story ends.
Mother, that is not how the story ends.
Do you want another ending?
Yes.
Very well, then.
The people saw what their queen had done, and began to fear her. The queen, unable to feel love or even affection, went back to her mother to find a way to make a child that her people would adore, because, without emotion, she saw that that was what they needed.
The child was made of ice over a pond, and her hair was the orange-white color of the fish, still alive in the cold.
And the queen raised her daughter to love the kingdom, to rule well, and to one day overthrow her mother.
wrennette 