Here’s the Thing…
May 28, 2008 by Deb Ng
Filed under Freelance Writing
The more I blog, the more I learn I’m not going to please everyone. Lately it seems I’m pleasing everyone less and less. That doesn’t make me enjoy what I do much.
Here’s the thing. I like to make it easy for clients to post gigs, and for you to find gigs. That’s why I do this. I don’t make much money and it doesn’t leave me much time for a life, but it is… or was something that gave me pleasure.
I don’t have too many rules…
For my community I ask for us all to be respectful. That’s it, just be respectful. Be nice to each other, and be nice to the people who single us out to post their jobs here.
There’s a reason clients want to place their ads here rather than Craiglist. It’s because they want quality writers for their gigs. Yet if they’re to read the comments, they see a lot of complaining going on. So what do I do, leave them up and scare away clients or have a free for all and risk having my community labeled as "hostile" as has been done before?
For the jobs I won’t post anything under $10., no term paper mills, no scams, no ad or traffic revenue only gigs, you know the drill. Jodee works darn hard to make sure you have a great big list of leads every day and wades through so much garbage to bring legitimate paying opportunity. Many of these are $10 gigs too.
By all means, discuss wages, talk about what you think is fair and why, but be respectful. When clients are being put down or insulted I have to draw the line. Don’t show up at their door with the pitchforks and torches because it makes people not want to come here with their jobs and it makes them not want to hire members of this community. It’s also giving me, this blog, and this community a very bad reputation and that’s starting to piss me off a little.
So please. Be respectful to all and try to understand where I’m coming from.
Thank you.
Deb
Deb,
To be honest I am tired of reading your complaints about people complaining about some of the jobs. How many times will you tell people to be “respectful?” You keep referring to this as “my community.” It is your blog but do you really think you can control what people write? One thing you could do is to remove the comments section so you won’t have to worry about people posting comments that you feel are not “respectful.” You chose to start this blog. If this blog only makes you happy when people thank you for doing this or praise you for your hard work, then you are allowing strangers to determine your level of happiness. I feel you should take pleasure in offering a service useful to some writers and not care if anyone is pleased with what you are doing. Why do you need external validation? And why do you need to control everything?
@Louise:
I think the issue has nothing to do with Deb personally, but the way her clients are being treated. This is a business essentially, and she has to consider the people who are coming to her to post jobs or else they won’t. That hurts the business. I haven’t seen Deb or Jodee asking for thanks or praise or ‘external validation’ either. I think they’re looking for people to behave as grownups and professionals. But I can see how you might have missed that.
@Louise -
I’m not sure where you got the impression I need “external validation.” Frankly it doesn’t matter how you feel about me. As I said in the post that started it all, I’m not looking for a praisefest or group hugs, I just don’t want clients to feel uncomfortable about posting jobs here. Nor do I want to make the members of this community uncomfortable.
I don’t care if you discuss wages. I don’t care if you feel a particular client doesn’t pay enough. All I ask is if you’re going to discuss a gig, in a post where the client emailed the job, you don’t insult the client – or each other. I really don’t think that’s too much to ask.
As tired as you are of hearing me “complain” I’m equally as tired of having to moderate comments, ask people to be nice, soothe the ruffled feathers of clients who longer want to post gigs here, and deal with emails calling me fat, stupid, and a dictator.
I love the interaction at this blog, but that doesn’t mean I want to see a lot of negativity or hostility. If that’s being controlling, so be it. I don’t ask for praise. I don’t ask for money and I don’t ask for thanks. I don’t even ask for you to show respect towards me. The only think I ask is for everyone here to be nice to each other. I think that’s a reasonable request, don’t you?
Why do grown ups feel they have to resort to calling someone names? It’s not a playground it’s an adult community. I really don’t get it.
Nothing looks or sounds worse than seeing a fully grown adult act like a spiteful child in a playground. How embarrassing.
I love this blog. I visit it daily and truly appreciate the hard work that Deb and Jodee put into this. I’ve found a couple of leads from here and I’m grateful for that.
What’s the point in complaining about a wage you feel is too low? If it’s too low for you, move on. It may be just what someone else is looking for.
Would the people who complain to clients about their rates here, complain to brick & mortar employers about what they are offering for a job? Probably not. They’d just say no thanks and continue to search for something suitable for them. Why can’t it be that way here?
@Beth – that’s exactly it. After my mom was laid off by the bank after seven years with them (jobs went to India deal), she went on a job hunt looking for anything that would pay near the $11 an hour she was making. She applied for unemployment and was told she didn’t qualify because she was old enough for the bank’s pension plan that pays a whopping–said with sarcasm–$600 a month after taxes.)
Knowing she couldn’t live on that, she started looking. Pepsi offered her a job as their front office manager for $7.75 an hour. That’s barely over minimum wage and for a manager at that! She didn’t tell them they were insane. Instead, she said no thanks and moved on.
That’s the thing about the internet: people sitting behind a computer screen feel at liberty to say (type) things they would not normally say to someone’s face.
I cannot imagine most people making the statements to a prospective brick-and-mortar employer that are written back in email to virtual prospective employers.
A good rule of thumb: if you wouldn’t say it to the person’s face – don’t type it in an email or post it on a comment board.