Car tray and other stupid purchases
Also, writing hacks from Chris O'Brien of Dative
That’s what this My HOH was going to be about: the many idiotic Facebook purchases yours truly has made during the pandemic. Those ranged from goo to clean your keyboard, at least two or three pairs of wireless headphones (finally got that one right); and enough cellphone mounts for several lifetimes. I even purchased a Stupid Car Tray.
Then I saw a post from Chris O’Brien of Dative on the processes he goes through before posting his articles.
Chris is a web designer. So, my first reaction was, “work your own side of the street, fella.” After reading and watching his pointers and app suggestions, it made me want to share with you.
Why?
Well, when you work from home, you often don’t have that second set of eyes to read your work. You can e-mail co-workers or colleagues. Everybody is so busy these days there’s no guarantee of a timely response, or any, depending on the day. So, if writing is not necessarily your thing—even if it is—Chris shares a number of apps you can use to proof your work to make sure it’s both grammatically correct and sounds the way you intend.
Check out Chris’ video:
As a professional writer, yours truly is a big fan of reading things aloud. Of course, for many, it’s what to write and how to write it that’s an issue. Some of us suffer from some pretty serious writer’s block. That’s something we’ll address in a future My HOH. Yet for now, let’s get back to the Stupid Car Tray.
Like any sort of addiction, the first step remains admitting you have the problem:
I read far too many Facebook ads and make far too many purchases based on those ads.
That step done; I have had worse Covid purchases than the Stupid Car Tray. The green screen ranks right up there.
The green screen from MyVirtualBackdrop.com was never comfortable, I had to use a split screen app so my face would appear in the middle of the screen and not so far back. That led to another round of decisions about which calls were green screen-worthy and those that weren’t. Finally, Zoom ended up tweaking the virtual background function, so it didn’t look like your ears and clothing were moving involuntarily.
As for the Stupid Car Tray (affiliate link) I do use it. It’s actually handy in the house to use as a mobile TV tray. The problem with using it as a car tray is that you have to remember to bring it out to the car. Then, if you leave it in the car, you end up wanting it while you are inside.
Yes, you can solve this by purchasing another. That’s where a decision has to be made:
Feed my addiction or address my laziness.
That, My Home Office Hackers, is something that will have to be continued…
What was your dumbest purchase during the pandemic? Please submit your comment below.