A Template for My Top 5 Awkward Freelance Moments

Copy and paste to you heart's content

Hello, friends! Old and new. I should retreat from the world more often—so many of you were waiting with bated breath for my return. And I am here! Still frazzled from my move. This week’s nuisance involves getting New York State health insurance and an ID because literally every single piece of ID I carry, except for my US passport, expired during the pandemic. Still low-key panicking/grateful for the gigantic workload June has brought. But my July and August are wide open! Still in the throes of a midlife crisis which has me asking, “wait, what am I working towards again?”.

In any case, life has been a bit awkward as I shift and mold and tweak this new version of Ines in New York as a forty-year-old. But that’s ok, because I am a pro at navigating awkward moments. Chalk it up to a lifetime of adapting to different cultures and my parents’ protocolar environment, where social graces were extremely valued. Whatever the reason, I have become quite adept at grinning through cringe-worthy scenarios and these include those times as a freelancer that make me want to crawl under my bed and gather dust with the tumbleweeds of hair I shed. In fact, I basically have a template for them. And now you can too!

Below is the standard copy I use for those emails that leave us with a weird taste in our mouth and a “what the f do I do?” text to the group chat. Copy and paste them wild abandonment. The more you do, the more you realize being polite but upfront is not a cause to be blacklisted. It’s what well-adjusted adults do.