- Joined
- May 20, 2008
- Messages
- 286
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- 16
I'm sure this is a pretty old story, but I'm still pretty new to freelancing. I'm not sure if there's anything to be done or if I just want to talk about this to sympathetic people. Sorry for the longish story.
Anyway, I'm freelancing for a magazine that I really like, which is a good thing. There's no pay, but it could be a great career-booster. I had some mixed feelings about the editor back when we were just chatting and she was explaining how they liked to do things. I asked a quick question and she gave me a really long response that made me feel stupid, but I thought I was just being oversensitive.
Yesterday, though, was a definitely bad experience and I'm not feeling good about working with her.
She'd accepted an article I pitched, an awesome thing. Keep in mind that this is the first time I've actually written for them, so I don't know all the policies.
Anyway, we were setting up the interview with the artist I'm writing about. I guess the artist's publicist gave her my email and the editor's email, so the artist wrote us herself to say hi and see what promotional materials we needed. I replied to the artist, cc'ing my editor, and told her what materials I had and what I still needed and gave her my address.
I was really confused when I got an email back from my editor saying that she was tired of people thinking she's always at her computer, and isn't she allowed to go grocery shopping and make dinner and have a life outside her work, etc. She said something about writers getting impatient and expecting her to be at her desk at all times.
I had no idea how she got that out of what I'd thought was a courteous, professional email. I wrote back and apologized for what must have been a miscommunication and said that of course I hadn't expected her to respond right away and I was sorry if she got that out of my email.
She wrote back and said I shouldn't jump the gun and cause unnecessary emails the way I did. There was no acknowledgement that I'd tried to do the polite, professional thing by responding to the artist, answering her questions promptly (questions my editor couldn't have answered, like what things I already owned), and cc'ing my editor. She'd never set up any protocol for situations like this, so I don't know how I could've been expected to know that I was acting inappropriately. And even if I was, this is the first thing I've written for them, so it's not like I should be expected to know the protocol.
Anyway, I'm feeling really icky about this situation. I want to write for this magazine, but if I'm getting my head bitten off for a mysterious faux pas when setting up my very first interview, that doesn't bode well for things to come. For some reason, I really don't think she was just having a bad day, especially because she didn't lighten up even after I apologized and tried to smooth things over.
I don't know what I'm looking for here, but any thoughts or reactions are welcome.
Thanks for reading this!
Anyway, I'm freelancing for a magazine that I really like, which is a good thing. There's no pay, but it could be a great career-booster. I had some mixed feelings about the editor back when we were just chatting and she was explaining how they liked to do things. I asked a quick question and she gave me a really long response that made me feel stupid, but I thought I was just being oversensitive.
Yesterday, though, was a definitely bad experience and I'm not feeling good about working with her.
She'd accepted an article I pitched, an awesome thing. Keep in mind that this is the first time I've actually written for them, so I don't know all the policies.
Anyway, we were setting up the interview with the artist I'm writing about. I guess the artist's publicist gave her my email and the editor's email, so the artist wrote us herself to say hi and see what promotional materials we needed. I replied to the artist, cc'ing my editor, and told her what materials I had and what I still needed and gave her my address.
I was really confused when I got an email back from my editor saying that she was tired of people thinking she's always at her computer, and isn't she allowed to go grocery shopping and make dinner and have a life outside her work, etc. She said something about writers getting impatient and expecting her to be at her desk at all times.
I had no idea how she got that out of what I'd thought was a courteous, professional email. I wrote back and apologized for what must have been a miscommunication and said that of course I hadn't expected her to respond right away and I was sorry if she got that out of my email.
She wrote back and said I shouldn't jump the gun and cause unnecessary emails the way I did. There was no acknowledgement that I'd tried to do the polite, professional thing by responding to the artist, answering her questions promptly (questions my editor couldn't have answered, like what things I already owned), and cc'ing my editor. She'd never set up any protocol for situations like this, so I don't know how I could've been expected to know that I was acting inappropriately. And even if I was, this is the first thing I've written for them, so it's not like I should be expected to know the protocol.
Anyway, I'm feeling really icky about this situation. I want to write for this magazine, but if I'm getting my head bitten off for a mysterious faux pas when setting up my very first interview, that doesn't bode well for things to come. For some reason, I really don't think she was just having a bad day, especially because she didn't lighten up even after I apologized and tried to smooth things over.
I don't know what I'm looking for here, but any thoughts or reactions are welcome.
Thanks for reading this!