By Marion D.S. Dreyfus
If you didn’t need the work, you wouldn’t be poring through Freelance Daily, would you? But when you have pride in your craft, and in your own perseverance, work ethic and quality of output, it’s important to realize that, no matter how you push or pull the project, you sometimes have to choose to pass it up.
Conditions that determine a big, fat, pink No slip include impossible or dangerous conditions of work, unrealistic deadlines, belligerent employers, psychologically damaging colleagues or supervisors, and payment rates that are far below industry standard.
You not only save yourself the agita and life-curtailing stress that comes with unrealistic projects and the snafus that go along for the ride, but you give yourself the blessing of endorphinic zest when you don’t succumb to the lure of putting yourself under an unappreciative thumb.
Feel you “must” take any work, no matter how appalling the pay or conditions? Consider what you do to others in your field if you can’t think of yourself: You ‘train’ the world to think less of you and your craft every time you accept a substandard job. In so doing, you make it easier for every potential employer to downgrade your skills, and the skills of your colleagues.
Net-net? Don’t hobble yourself—and the universe of other writers or editors—by accepting a demeaning wage or other condition of temporary or permanent employment. You’ll boost your self-esteem, lend yourself to better treatment in the future, and be free of the suppressed rage and resentment that unhappy projects invariably engender. And you won’t need so many vitamin supplements to lift you out of the basement depression that often follows.
Earning a fair recompense is as important for writers and editors, copy readers and proposal managers as it is for manicurists, cable companies and dentists.
Remember: Past is prologue.
Marion D. S. Dreyfus is a journalist, writer/editor, poet, film critic and intrepid world traveler. She is currently in New York City after returning from several semesters teaching at universities in China, and hosting a call-in talk-in radio show.
