Obsolete/2006-03-09 Help Wanted

Overview

(2006-03-09) The Hypertwins (Sandy & Nick) have an ongoing need for a Family Communications Manager to facilitate communication between the (socially-awkward, disorganized, and highly phone-phobic) Hypertwins and the (largely phone-based) outside world.

Tasks involving phone calls and "staying on top" of things pile up, and we (a) avoid making the phone calls, (b) get distracted by other things we have to concentrate on (of which there are many) and (c) forget about them, so the job of the Communications Manager (CM) is to take on some of the more difficult-for-us tasks (hopefully relatively easy for the CM) so we can spend more time on things we do better and less on things we do badly.

If you are interested, please contact us.

Basic Duties

• Keep track of an ever-changing handful of tasks involving one-on-one communication and/or significant organization
  • "stay on top of" these tasks to make sure the ball is always in someone else's court (may include reminding Hypertwins of deadlines etc.)
  • report regularly (twice a week seems good) regarding current status of each task, via email
• Make phone calls as needed to accomplish these tasks
• Inform Nick or Sandy ASAP when you run into a roadblock or need a decision
• Check the preferred communications channel (email, IRC, or IM – whichever you are most comfortable with) frequently (at least once a day) for new tasks, updates, changes, etc.

Other Details

• Location: this could be largely a "telecommute"-style job, especially if you have unlimited access to a phone for the needed amount of time.
• Hours: This is a bit uncertain. Best guess is a couple of hours a week to start with, possibly more as you learn the ropes of the stuff we do and are able to take on more. We would prefer to see the job expand gradually, but as yet we're not sure what we'll be able to afford. (This depends on a number of things, including whether or not the time you can save us will allow us to take on more income-generating work, which is what we are hoping will happen... but that's a whole other story.)
• Pay: No idea. As little as possible; we're not exactly suffering from excess cash (rather the opposite)... but we are also well aware of the value of keeping someone around if they do good work and can help us to be more productive. We want someone capable, so we don't want to bid too low, but we don't really know the market.
• Personality: The person in this job will need to be able to interact with reg'lar folks as well as us oddball geeks – so someone with feet (or at least a couple of toes) in both worlds would be ideal. Friendliness, trustworthyness, and reliability are all essential.
• Experience: None specifically required. Being comfortable with computers would be helpful in a number of ways, as they tend to be heavily integrated into our daily lives. Enjoyment of children would also be helpful, as our lives tend to revolve around them (and the vast majority of your task list will in some way involve childcare).
• Skills: Organization and good basic writing skills (since we'll be communicating in writing for the most part) would seem essential. Familiarity with (at least) email essential; other computer skills could be very useful.

Current Tasklist

• Arrange birthday party for Zander (b'day is 3/21, so probably the weekend after that) – this one is starting to get urgent; no arrangements have yet been made and Sandy is rather at a loss for how to start
• Help put together our Childsitter Army
• Arrange childcare (usually for all 3 kids) while Hypertwins travel to various places:
  • The first week of May, we're driving to Indiana to retrieve Mel from college. Will need Friday kid-pickups and at least two overnights, possibly Monday kid-delivery/pickup as well.
  • We're trying yet again to get to England this summer (third attempt) to visit with Nick's dad; will need at least 10 days of child management (drop-offs, pickups, feeding, etc.). It should be possible to coordinate with their grandma Dorothy to handle some of this, e.g. she can overnight them at her house if she's in town that week, and she may be able to do some of the driving, but we want to minimize the amount of work for (and dependence on) her by having sitters/drivers available as much as possible, either to help her out or to step in if she can't do a particular piece of the child management.
  • Nick will need to drive to Athens, GA at some point in the near future (hopefully late April or May) for one overnight during the week; Sandy would like to come along. We'll need kid management for an afternoon/evening, the next morning, and possibly the next afternoon (to allow for delay in returning).
• Nag The Durham Center until they get moving again on Josh's services (see Josh and The System for details)