. That's what you're going to think when I tell you what I did this morning.
I woke up, wide awake, at 3 a.m., worrying that the quota/target my soon-to-be boss lined out for me was unrealistic and undoable.
When we talked on the phone yesterday, he said he was looking for 3 to 4 news briefs written each hour. It's a start-up and he can't afford to pay much now. They are just getting ready to launch. He originally offered me $20 an hour but agreed to $25 an hour but said the higher rate would hinge on my ability to write closer to 4 briefs an hour, not 3.
Well, we didnt' spend too much time on that, but after I hung up, I started thinking of how difficult it would be to write a news brief, following the very specific format he described, in 15 minutes, every hour of every day.
I might be able to churn out 4 an hour on occasion, but to do so consistently is unlikely. Part of writing each brief involves reading breaking news stories online, and just reading and absorbing their key messages would take 10 minutes easily, let alone writing intelligently and persusasively on a particular angle and posting it online using their software.
I want to position myself for success, not failure, and I take my commitments seriously. So rather than stress about this the rest of the weekend, I decided to write him a longish email saying just what I've said here (and more). I realized I was taking a big risk in possibly pissing him off and jeopardizing the job offer I just got yesterday. Or maybe making him think I was difficult to work with.
I got a reply back in maybe 5 minutes. He must've been checking for messges when I sent it. He wrote back briefly, saying don't worry, get some sleep, things will work out just fine, let's take it a day at a time.
I felt so relieved. He seems like a really understanding guy and I am feeling more confident that he will be someone I respect and enjoy working with.
In the meantime, I am halfway through the at-home editing test given to me my big accounting firm seeking a technical writer. The first half had maybe 5 pages of extremely dense copy riddled with all sorts of grammar, punctuation and organizational problems. It took me over 3 hours just to get through that!!
Talking myself out of a job before I even start?
March 5th, 2011 at 03:38 pm
March 5th, 2011 at 04:26 pm 1299342377
March 5th, 2011 at 04:54 pm 1299344068
March 5th, 2011 at 08:14 pm 1299356073
March 6th, 2011 at 12:46 pm 1299415569
March 6th, 2011 at 12:59 pm 1299416398
This is why, in my job search, i mostly haven't bothered exploring the possibility of writing for so many of these hub pages sites and so on....when they pay $10 or $20 for a story, they know that kind of pay wouldn't attract a professional writer but they really don't care about quality, it's all about quantity.