Day 48 - Maddest day so far?!

Today started off as just another day in isolation. I went for a short, easy run down by the river. I showered and had breakfast. I answered various student emails and caught up on a few bits and pieces online.

While I had been out on my run, my thoughts had wandered to my, recently finished, Leaving Cert Biology revision booklet. It had been my New Year’s resolution to make such a booklet and, thanks to all this extra time during lockdown, I had finally finished it. I’d almost forgotten about it though, and I starting thinking about what I was going to do with it. I’d probably email it to my cousin Luke, who’s doing the Leaving Cert this year. I’d like to try to sell it to students maybe, but I don’t know where I’d do that. How would teachers react to me trying to sell something to them? By the end of my run, I had decided to post the booklet in the Irish Science Teachers Facebook group, as a start. One or two people there might be interested in buying it.

So, in the morning, I submitted my post about th revision booklet to the group. It didn’t get posted straight away though. This private Facebook group is moderated and all new posts are screened. I figured they wouldn’t allow a post that was openly trying to sell something. So, I continued with my day, preparing homework for tomorrow’s online classes, and so on.

A few hours later, I noticed something strange in my email inbox. PayPal was starting to notify me of payments that had been submitted to me. People had started buying my revision booklet! It was so unexpected. “Peter, I’ve just made almost €50 off this revision booklet!” I was speechless! What an interruption to my afternoon. I had to drop the class preparation that I was in the middle of, and I had to start emailing the booklet out to my new customers. I was slow, at first, as I hadn’t expected there to be such a demand, but I quickly changed a few things to make the process at my end a little bit more efficient.

An hour later, the demand was far exceeding what I could keep up with. “Peter, there’s now €500 in my PayPal account!” I needed to go to the bathroom, but emails and queries and all sorts of messages were keeping me going flat out! A quick bathroom break and I was back. I had made €700 in just two hours. This is crazy!

The rest of the afternoon and evening continued like this. There was a non-stop stream of teachers buying the booklet and, where I had expected people to be annoyed at me asking for money, people were so grateful. I received so many lovely and complimentary messages throughout the day. Teachers are clearly worn out, and running low on digital resources at this stage, so they were loving my booklet. “I wish I had this before,” one said! By the time I finally fell in to bed this evening, I had received over €1000 in payments! At one point, it had gotten so mad that I even considered taking my post down so that no more people could access the link to buy my booklet! Peter tried to talk to me at one point during the day and I replied “can’t talk, I’m trying to run a business here!” “Ok Walter White!” he replied, in reference to the chemistry teacher in the TV programme, who starts making money on the side by making and selling drugs!

A few teachers messaged me over the course of the day asking if I had a chemistry version of this booklet. I told them that I had one in preparation (which I don’t!), so I have my work cut out for me now over this upcoming bank holiday weekend to get this now, much-anticipated chemistry book started and finished!

At 8.30pm this evening, we had our usual Sheehan family quiz, with John as host. Paul won tonight, and all of the rest of us were joint second! It was nice because Suzanne in Australia joined us towards the end of our call, for the first time. I am exhausted now. I didn’t even have time to watch the six o clock news this evening!Read more