July 30th
What is the worst gig on your resume?
We’ve all been desperate for money, especially when just starting out. I remember writing articles about the best way to clean vomit off the carpet and how to get dog poo out of one’s automobile upholstery. I also wrote plenty of boring SEO content with silly keywords and phrases. That’s about as low as I’d sink though.
Oh and there was the time I wrote about various foot ailments for a site selling foot ailments. I got to discuss corns, fungi and hammer toe. Yes, it’s wonderful to be me.
Tell us..what is the worst gig on your resume? Was the money worth it?
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Monday, July 30th, 2007 at 12:50 pm under
Ironically I have a client who I have written letters for. I charge her after the letters are written and she pays me. She asked me to write her two letters for a donation drive she was having for an organization. After writing it she told me that she couldn’t use it. I asked her for more information and rewrote it and now she is saying that she’s not paying because she didn’t use the letters. I told her that I don’t work on a ‘I get paid if you use my work basis.’ She has always been pleased with my work and paid me.
July 30th, 2007 at 1:00 pmObviously I am not going to get the money for this gig and won’t do anything for her anymore unless she pays me upfront–and even then I don’t trust her anymore.
I do so few of these letters for people that I never bothered to sign a contract with them. Even with a contract to go to small claims court is not worth the aggravation and expense.
I guess I just have to live and learn.
By far SEO articles in batches of 50. This is not the *for hire* SEO stuff that big sites hire on for decent pay. This is the penny a word stuff. It was grueling and exhausting-mentally and physically.
It was desperate writing that fed the family. Due to life stuff, I needed money and it paid the grocery bill. Would I do it again? Hopefully, I will not need to but I would if I had to.
I equate it to a fast food job-you do it because you HAVE to. Get out of it as soon as you can but just get it done day by day.
Amelia
July 30th, 2007 at 1:03 pmI had to do 200 articles on Gin Rummy. GIN RUMMY! Do you know what it is like to come up with 500 words on Gin Rummy 200 times?? Yeah, it sucked, lol.
July 30th, 2007 at 1:08 pmI once wrote a print ad for an ambulance company urging people to call them instead of 911. Apparently the government frowns on that. I didn’t get in any trouble but the ambulance company sure took a beating.
July 30th, 2007 at 1:13 pmI believe the worst but yet the best gig I’ve ever done was being a Quality Assurance inspector for a pharmaceutical company. I consider it worst simply because all I did was sign forms that never contributed to my being. And yet it’s the best because that’s where I’ve known so many people that are so important to me now. The job sucked but the people were great.
July 30th, 2007 at 1:24 pmHow do I PICK? There are so many…most of which I think I blocked out to preserve my mental health. ;]
One of my earliest freelance jobs was a gig for a guy who had some absurd number of love poems for his girlfriend that he wanted to turn into a little book for her to give to her when he proposed or something. He hired me to make them good. There wasn’t enough money in the world, I’m telling you. They were the worst garbage I’d ever seen in my life. Truly awful. I wished he’d given me her name so I could tell her not to marry this guy because their kids would be MORONS.
Another one was editing a God-awful poetry book for a guy who insisted that he wanted me to fix the grammar and then berated me extensively for doing exactly what he asked. He actually said, “Are you stupid or something?” I must have been for taking that job.
But by far the worst job I have ever done was editing a ginormous dissertation for a guy who basically plagiarized everything and got mad at me when I wouldn’t write him a new paper, even though I made it very clear that I don’t do other people’s homework before we agreed to work together. And THEN he refused to pay me part of what I was owed, insisting that payment was based on the final page count, not the number of pages that I edited, and that I should be grateful for what I DID get because he could have formatted the pages at 10-pt font with half-inch margins and then I would have been oaid even LESS. Um, excuse me? After all of his craziness, it was worth the $XXX never to have to talk to him again, and I told him so.
kk :]
July 30th, 2007 at 1:39 pmOnce, I wrote a short “test” article for a guy from somewhere in the Middle East (not sure which country). He was going to pay me $10 for the test and then $100 per article if I got the job. He “loved my article,” which was on project management, and then told me he would me the check next week and gave me an address where I was supposed to send MY money. What?? Well, apparently, he was going to send my a check for $1000, and I was supposed to cash it, take my cut, and send it to the next person. Um. No. No thank you. He called me unprofessional and stubborn and I called him a lot of bad words and told him that he could not use my article or contact me again.
Subject-wise, the worst topic I’ve had to do was mortgages…which wouldn’t be that bad, but the order was for over 100 of them. There’s only so much you can write about mortgages and the client was REALLY picky!
July 30th, 2007 at 2:14 pmI haven’t really been working at this long enough to have any crummy job stories…
July 30th, 2007 at 2:33 pmI think my main problem is the ‘almost got’ jobs that i just miss out on, after several emails worth of correspondence leads me into the hope zone!
I did celebrity bios for a while and didn’t want my name on them but the company put my name on the website anyway. I always tried to paint the celebrities in the most positive light. I don’t think I would ever cut it as a gossip columnist.
It wasn’t really an awful gig - the company was good to work for and they always paid. It was just my least favorite topic I’ve ever been paid to write on.
July 30th, 2007 at 3:16 pmI had to write 24 x 500 word articles about 12 different types of synthetic rubber. It was one of the most gruelling things I’ve ever had to write about. I had to write 31 articles about computer drivers last week and come to think of it that wasn’t all that fun either. Come to think of it, I write a lot of rubbish, lol…..
July 30th, 2007 at 5:24 pmIt pays the bills and I can get pretty creative with it sometimes
Oh yeah, I have a regular gig about colon cleansing and all things bowel related. I’ve become a subject matter expert on a rather dirty subject, lol.
July 30th, 2007 at 5:24 pmThe worst gig ever? In 2002, I was coming up with *funny* ideas for Howard Stern as a Howard Stern Show intern. It hasn’t done a thing for my résumé, especially when the carpet cleaner marketers look at it. So, I’ve since stricken it from my résumé altogether.:)
July 30th, 2007 at 5:59 pmWell, my worst gig was probably my best paying gig…but it was the full-time job I just quit to become a freelancer full time. I quit because the hour-long commute (one way) to another state just wasn’t feasible for a young couple wanting to start a family…soon. And there’s too much politics in corporate America, but I digress.
So I wrote content for and proofed websites for the medical, dental and spa/salon industries. Literally, I have written about every medical and dental specialty out there (we had about 3,000 clients). But the worst had to be a site on colon and rectal surgery…no easy way to write a bio about a doctor who specializes in fecal incontinence, is there? Ugh!
July 31st, 2007 at 12:12 amMy worst gig wasn’t a writing job. I’ve enjoyed all my writing and editing work. The worst was being a dancing monkey in a Chinese school.
July 31st, 2007 at 2:28 am100 children’s stories. $130. Seriously. It was my first freelance gig ever and it was for an African-based company that was designing some new curriculum with a “Connect-the-dots” style to help African kids learn to read and write English words. I am now able to put on my resume that I “wrote an ESL curriculum for young African students.”
July 31st, 2007 at 6:35 amI think it would be writing promotional descriptions for natural health products. Some of them were treatments for scabies and thrush sores. YUCK! Was the money worth it? I’m not sure yet. It was my first copywriting job, so we’ll see if it helps me out in the future.
July 31st, 2007 at 7:28 amWhile it was actually extremely entertaining and a great story, this gig was not something that I will post on my resume or in my portfolio. I wrote a homosexual porn story along with a couple of dozen articles about oral sex, prostate stimulation, female ejaculation, and the like. Let’s just say that I had no sex drive after I was finished.
July 31st, 2007 at 10:04 amMy worst-ever writing job was not freelance — it was a full-time writing job. We were supposed to be technical writers, but we were constantly having to field projects such as stuffing and stamping envelopes for mailings for the clubs and organizations our boss personally belonged to.
The worst thing that ever happened to me is described “anonymously” here. It’s not really that anonymous, though, since they would know if they read it that it’s me. I’m actually thinking I’ll go public and post my experiences with the company on my personal blog, so check back occasionally!
July 31st, 2007 at 10:26 amWhen I was in publishing, I worked for a woman who made Anna Wintour look like Carol Brady. She was rude, brash, and just plain mean. She would call me at 7:00 AM on a Sunday for silly reasons, I think just to remind me she was my boss. She didn’t trust anyone and would constantly call between our offices to ask who I was talking to or what I was typing. Every night when I left the office she would go through all my drawers and cabinets and all the papers on and around my desk. The next morning everything would have a little post it on it with comments. She even went through the trash and leave post its on stuff found in the garbage. What a nightmare.
She wanted me to walk her dogs, pick up her dry cleaning and return her disgusting hair extensions. She was forever going out and getting drunk and I had to make sure the cab driver got her home ok.
That was the job that drove me out of publishing and into the boring world of accounting - which is another horror story.
July 31st, 2007 at 10:36 amBy the way- that was me, Deb.
July 31st, 2007 at 10:36 amOne of my first content writing jobs was 50 keyword articles about poker. I have never gambled and know very little about poker. Lots of research for little money, and I did not enjoy the assignment. The job paid $8 per article, so of course it wasn’t worth it, but I was broke and inexperienced and didn’t know where to find better opportunities then.
July 31st, 2007 at 11:40 amtee hee, yesterday I wrote a short How To for a very well known company on cleaning up after a pet tiger. Yeah it took me 5 minutes and paid me 10 bucks so there :)!
August 13th, 2007 at 9:00 pmMy worst was a waving job. Yep. Waving at the curb of a flower place. Boring! Writing so far nothing grueling. If a topic bores me to ramming my head on my monitor, I need to look elsewhere. If something is too technical I won’t last so I don’t pick those kind of topics knowing that. Writing has been great. All that information just waiting to be found!
August 28th, 2007 at 7:17 am