A dog of a job?
So a spaniel applied for a job this week. It’s entirely possible that a chinchilla and a cat applied, too, among others. They might’ve all belonged to hacks. Funny? Well maybe. But let’s be serious for a second. £5,700 a year for a 40-hour week? That’s £2.74 an hour.
A few choice facts for you: the National Minimum Wage is £3.57 an hour for under-18s, £4.83 for 18 to 21-year-olds, and £5.80 an hour for workers aged 22 or older. The National Council for Work Experience is very clear about work experience: you can’t use the term for just anything. National Minimum Wage legislation means UK employers can no longer offer unpaid work experience unless it’s part of a course of study. They do, but they shouldn’t. Accepted wisdom (to which I can’t now find the reference) says it’s OK for up to a month.
A few more facts for you: if you’re doing work experience (say, as an “editorial intern”) the company should make sure you don’t satisfy the workers test. You should not have a contract of employment, a contract to perform work or provide services, set hours where you’re obliged to work (and work you’re obliged to do within those hours), or be rewarded through money or benefits in kind.
If you treat someone as a worker, you are obliged to pay them the National Minimum Wage. Voluntary workers are exempted from the NMW, but only genuine ones who work for charities, fundraising bodies, etc. Not wannabe journalists being taken for a ride.
Although of course there’s a queue of people wanting to work for nothing, like the girl I met who was covering film premieres for a glossy mag’s website. She’d been doing this for free for six months. I offered her some contacts who might pay for her material, and she looked aghast. “But they’re letting me write!” she exclaimed. And the sad thing is, some people won’t understand what’s wrong with that statement.
Not-so-new year’s resolutions
It’s ironic (and I mean real irony, not the fake Alanis Morisette kind) that I read The Renegade Writer’s post on how to work less while spending part of my weekend catching up on work. And ouch, did I recognise myself in that. When I tell people I’m freelance, they say things like: “Wow, I’d never get any work done,” or “You must have trouble motivating yourself.” But that’s not true. It’s switching off that’s difficult, and not just because of the amazing motivational power provided by the rent/council tax/gas bill/my Topshop habit/etc.
Maybe that’s because the kind of person who succeeds as a freelancer is, by very definition, self-motivated. There’s getting the work, whether that’s by building relationships or pitching or what. (Mine comes from a mixture of relationship-building, cold-calling, pitching and word of mouth, I think.) And then there’s doing it. You can’t ask your colleague to help you out, or get your boss to give some of your projects to someone else, because there is no boss, and there is no someone else. You may think you’ll say no once you get overloaded, yet you find yourself saying yes all the same.
Plus there’s nothing like working for yourself to bring out your inner workaholic, nothing like an unstructured day in a room by yourself to make you forget to eat lunch, and nothing like the knowledge that if you’re not working, you’re not being paid, to make it very difficult to stop once you’ve got started. The first time I went away for a few days after going freelance, someone called me out of the blue to offer me work and it took all of my self-control not to cancel my trip. Put it this way: I once emailed an editor to accept a commission, from a field. At a music festival. On another continent.
So I’ve been toying with the idea of joining Joanne Mallon in making some freelance resolutions. I tend to believe in a to-do list, rather than Rules You Must Not Break. Goals not guilt (that sounds like it should be on a T-shirt). Last year, my to-do list went something like this: move to London, write more cinema reviews, get into the London Film Festival, do more shifts at newspapers, and crack a very random selection of outlets ranging from Daily Mail Femail to a design magazine.
I did all of that and a lot else besides. I got to tick off a few items on the general list of things I’d like to do, but can’t bring about myself, including getting a Rotten Tomatoes page and being quoted in The Week (about swine flu, of all things). The one thing I didn’t do was crack the women’s glossies, but to be honest, I didn’t really try.
So my to-do list for the coming year – I know it’s February, but I tend to take stock of everything when the financial year ends in April, and I went freelance in May 2008, so really these are early, not late, honest – would probably include:
- 1. Stop work seeping into leisure time. I keep my weekends pretty much sacred but it’s time I got my evenings back.
- 2. Stop faffing about with busy-work and get things done already. In particular, kick the compulsion to just check Facebook/Twitter/etc one more time. This may help with #1.
- 3. Pitch and crack some glossies. I’ve sent the odd pitch and had a couple of almost-bites but got nowhere, so I need to do my homework and keep at it.
- 4. Allow myself to enjoy my work. I don’t think I do this enough.
- 5. Get dressed, eat lunch at a sensible time and stop going to the corner shop wearing a jumper over my pajama top. Oh, you may snigger. But as one of my editors said the other day, getting dressed when you’re self-employed is one of those ideas that are good on paper.
Petition to make the NI system fairer for freelancers
I’ve started this petition because right now, the system is set up something like this:
So, you’re freelance? You can’t get contributory (non-means-tested) Jobseekers Allowance should you need to sign on as you don’t have two years’ of Class 1 NI contribs. It doesn’t count if you had years and years of Class 1 contribs before you went freelance. They now count for nothing. A millionaire who’s just been made redundant and is married to a billionaire? They can have six months of non-means-tested benefits. You? Sorry, computer says no.
You can’t get non-means-tested Jobseekers. If your partner works, you probably can’t get the means-tested kind. You can’t qualify by paying the optional Class 3 top-up as that doesn’t count towards contributory benefits. You can’t opt to pay Class 1, you have to do some casual work and wait to hit the primary threshold (£110 a week, so you’re going to hit it on day 1).
If you pay Class 1 on sporadic casual work, you still can’t get contributory benefits as you don’t have two solid years’ contributions. You also can’t get the money back. So your Class 1 payments go into a black hole labelled “Class 1 NI: qualifies other people for contributory benefits, in your case we’ll just have the cash, thanks.”
HMRC says you should buy income protection insurance, which may be easier said than done (some of us have health problems and are liable to face high premiums). HMRC also doesn’t do enough to explain all this to people. I have been asking freelancers if they understand what benefits they would and would not qualify for. Most of them got it wrong.
As it says on the petition (which only gave me 1,000 characters to explain the whole thing) I think we should be able to get those sporadic Class 1 payments back (or not make them) given they don’t count, and I think we should be able to pay towards contributory benefits, and I think the whole system needs looking at from a sole trader’s point of view.
My MP has also written to Alistair Darling (or at least his office has) so I’ll report back with any response.
The art of pitching (on a plate, please)
Sometimes, students and would-be writers email me asking for advice. I know a lot of hacks who’ve given up answering, not least because so few people say thanks. I try to be vaguely helpful, when I can. But today I got one that said:
“I would love to freelance and was wondering if you had any advice on how to pitch an article successfully?” Which is somewhat broad. It’s like saying: “I would love to cook and was wondering if you had any advice on how to make some food successfully?” So I wrote back and asked them to be a bit more specific.
“I understand it was a very vague request,” they said. “Basically, I just want to know from your experience, what is a good way to pitch an article? And are there any publications/newspapers that are especially open to freelance content? Hope this is better?”
No, it wasn’t. That was an explanation for someone who had failed to grasp what the first email said. It was just as vague.
So I explained that I couldn’t answer without some more detail about what they wanted to do. What kind of article? What kind of publication? (I also mentioned that if you want to pitch freelance ideas, if someone asks you a question then don’t just send the exact same info again.)
They listed some interests and the names of a couple of nationals. Then said:
“I just wanted to know the best way to approach editors and journalists with my ideas in these areas i.e bullet point or short para, what makes a pitch stand out? Would be so grateful if you could give me a few tips! Thanks so much – I hope this has been more specific?”
There is a reason why people charge for this advice. It’s valuable, as is your sanity. I gave up and directed them to some good training courses, like the NUJ’s Pitch and Deal one (not done it but hear it’s recommended) and Olivia and Jo’s ideas and pitching course and explained that it’s all very well thinking about what publications appeal to you, but which publications would find you appealing? It’s not about bullet points vs. a short para, it’s about offering them something they’ll want to buy.
Because really, how on earth am I supposed to answer a question like that? This is why a lot of these “Tell me your secrets!” emails go unanswered – it’s because they ask the wrong questions. In future, I might just write back saying “42″.
A postscript: the person who emailed me read this post and was not delighted. (Which may be because they don’t know what it’s like fielding these kinds of emails all the time.) And I made a point in my reply which I think is worth repeating: anyone who wants to be a journalist needs to develop a thick skin, and you need to be okay with readers and bloggers quoting you on the internet and criticising you – because they will not bother to anonymise you first.
A customer service grumble. Three, actually
Even though I am used to it, rubbish customer service still makes me want to bang my head against the nearest wall.
I got a BT landline for the first time in June 2009. They said they would register me for the TPS and sent me a confirmation email. Since then, it has said on my account that I’m registered via BT Privacy at Home. Occasionally I’d get a junk call and tell them “You’ve rung a TPS number, bog off,” and hang up.
Yesterday I checked and found we, er, hadn’t been registered. BT operative number 1 told me you have to renew annually (nope, only if it’s a corporate registration and anyway, this was seven months ago, and there are twelve months in a year) yet also told me he could see I’d only just done it myself (contradicting yourself: great way to win an argument). He kept repeating the nonsense about renewing even when I went onto the TPS website and read out exactly what it said.
I asked him to check with the TPS and – oopsie! – he bounced me through to someone else instead of putting me on hold and – double oopsie! – forgot to put a note on the account so they knew who I’d spoken to.
The next person couldn’t help, and they put me through to someone else, who insisted that they did do it and there must have been some kind of mysterious gremlin, or it’s the fault of the TPS.
The TPS told me it’s not their fault, it must be BT’s. When I suggested they talk to BT to find out what had gone wrong because, y’know, piggy in the middle here is fed up now and it might be happening to other people, they were… reluctant.
When I told the TPS all this had reflected badly on them, they said that wasn’t true, because if you ask someone to buy you a McDonald’s and they don’t, you don’t blame McDonald’s. (I don’t eat McDonald’s, but that’s beside the point.) Actually, it’s more like ordering a pizza, the pizza not turning up and the delivery driver and kitchen each claiming the other’s to blame.
As for BT, I’m disappointed, as we’ve had excellent service up until now.
Then there’s HMRC, who managed to send me two coding notices, for the same casual job, on the same day. When I called to tell them I was extremely confused, they said they were both wrong and they’d have to send a third one.
And the final award for utter feckaboutery goes to my bank, which I am leaving. I am leaving for many reasons, but one of them is so I never have to have another conversation like this:
Me: “I paid my self-assessment tax bill to HMRC the other day and the payment hasn’t arrived. I don’t know if it takes three days or if it should be there now?”
Bank: “So… what is it you want?”
Me: “Erm… I want you to tell me if the payment I made to HMRC for my self-assessment tax bill will take three days to arrive or if it should be there now?”
Bank: “And this is a payment that’s gone out?”
Me (losing will to live): “Yes. I have paid my self-assessment tax bill to HMRC and it hasn’t arrived yet.”
Bank (rudely): “Well, HMRC takes three days.”
Well why they couldn’t tell me that the first time, I don’t know. I was so completely irritated by the whole experience that, being me, I rang to complain. After being bounced to the wrong department once, I got through to customer relations.
I explained that I had rung up to ask how long it would take for my tax bill payment to reach HMRC and the person on the other end just didn’t listen and it was very frustrating because I had made myself really clear.
“Oh dear,” said the customer relations advisor. “They really weren’t listening to you, were they? I could check for you if you like. How do you pay your tax? Straight to the council?”
That sound? That’s me weeping with frustration. Though eBay still wins my vote for the most astonishingly bad service I’ve ever had to deal with.
On not making assumptions
I wrote this ages ago – the 8th of March 2009, to be precise. For some reason I didn’t post it, just left it sitting around in the drafts folder until I found it just now. I think it makes a good point, so here you go.
There’s a piece of advice I would give new journalists (or journalists who want to hear my advice, or anyone else who is remotely interested in the end of this sentence). It’s something I try to always have in mind, but often forget. And it’s very simple.
Just because people read newspapers and magazines, don’t assume they understand what goes into them.
And by that, I mean that even if the person you’re dealing with reads every issue of such-and-such paper or magazine, don’t assume they notice what is inside it and what is not. If you’re dealing with a PR, don’t assume they’ve paid any attention to what format the publication takes, or what news it does or does not cover, or what audience it is aimed at.
If it’s a case study, you need to tread even more carefully. You can never, ever assume that they understand how any of this works. Oh, we all think we know and anticipate and plan for this, but it can still go wrong.
I’ve been doing some first person real life pieces lately. I always make sure people understand what they are agreeing to, whatever avenue has led me to them (friends of friends, for example, or PRs). I want to know that they understand the level of exposure involved, the fact their full name will be used, they may need to have their photograph taken, etc. I don’t want anyone I interview to feel they’ve been persuaded to do something without understanding what’s involved.
But even so, I can find myself in the middle of an interview and have the case study suddenly mention that she’s not quite sure about it being so public, actually (even though she came through a PR who had asked for people happy to discuss the thing publicly). So I explain that her name will go on the piece, as already discussed, and she says: “My first name?” despite having previously agreed to her full name being used. And it transpires that she doesn’t really understand why her name would need to be on it at all.
For me, the question of whether she was willing to be named was one of the most important I’d asked. But she didn’t know that. She had no idea it was important, let alone a dealbreaker. It’s certainly made me think about how I explain things.
“Lady, if you have to ask, I can’t tell you”
To be a journalist is to be misunderstood. It’s the same in plenty of professions, I’m sure, thanks to all the misconceptions and stereotypes out there. But I’m a journalist, so I’m going to grumble about people misunderstanding freelance journalism (hey, grumbling makes me better at my job after all).
I think it’s cute when people ask: “Do you have an agent or just send off features?” So I explain that I send ideas, because I’m not going to research and write a feature only to discover that nobody wants it, or someone wants it done a different way. (It would be like Argos sending you the contents of its shop, instead of the catalogue.) The reaction is usually a mixture of blankness and incomprehension. It’s nice when I tell a friend I’m writing a feature for X or Y and they say: “Oh, is that a regular thing then?” when it’s been hard enough to crack them with one pitch. It was very sweet when a mate looked aghast at the revelation that editors don’t always say yes and may not even reply.
It’s sort of amusing when people insist I must suffer from writer’s block. I tend not to bother trying to explain that, actually, I suffer from waffling interviewee block, difficult PR block and having to chase unpaid invoices block. I have tried, but they just say that, no, I must suffer from it, and then they waffle on about how they do too and I stop listening (sorry, but it’s the truth). I know they don’t want to hear me say I don’t suffer from writer’s block because, as one of my first editors rightly told me, it’s really a lack of self-discipline, and anyway once you’ve had a few staff jobs and had to write things with people demanding to know if you’ve finished/piling on other work, you learn that writer’s block is a luxury. And once you’ve freelanced for about five minutes, you’ll also know it doesn’t pay the bills.
I can smile and grit my teeth when people helpfully tell me I should write my feature differently (hmm, think I’ll stick to following the brief). I find it hilarious when they insist I should speak to their friend who’d be perfect for my piece, and the friend doesn’t get back to me for two weeks, and they’re shocked to hear I’ve written it, filed and moved on.
I was only mildly irritated when, while working for a four-weekly DVD mag and close to meltdown trying to meet an early deadline because of Christmas, someone said: “What, so you just watch films and write about them? What’s stressful about that?” because, well, it’s not like I perform heart surgery or fight fires.
I laughed my head off when a friend asked how much I could get for interviewing his band if/when they get signed. “A few hundred, maybe,” I said, and he asked, deadly serious: “Of thousands?” I think it’s sweet that, whenever I write for newspapers, my dad rings me up to check I had “permission to quote all those people”. And we’re not talking investigative stuff here. Even when I point out that my case studies have been photographed, or that the experts I spoke to clearly have something to plug and hardly mind being quoted, he still wants to make sure. And whenever I have a piece in a paper he asks: “Now, how did the Guardian/Express/whoever know to call you?” I’ve explained about pitching, but he just doesn’t get it. And that’s really sweet.
But you know what? It’s not funny or sweet when someone asks what I am working on, and I tell them about a customer mag I do bits of writing and editing for several times a year, and they say, looking baffled and amused: “Oh, right. Why do they need you to do that? You’d think they could write their own magazine, wouldn’t you?”
Right. Yes. Because the job I do doesn’t require any talent, skill or expertise, and it’s something you can just knock off in half a lunchbreak. Yes, they could write their own magazine. And I could cut my own hair, milk my own cow, sew myself a new pair of jeans, perform surgery on myself, and act as my own defence counsel when I arrest myself for throttling people who find my job so hilariously pointless.
Bad quality, good freelancer
Freelancing has taught me that some of the personality traits I’d class as negative can actually make you* a better freelancer. That’s the peculiar thing about freelance journalism: it turns the personality types required for some roles right on their heads.
Procrastination.
“Journalists need deadlines,” an editor said to me once. “Otherwise you won’t write the thing, you’ll just look out of the window.” He was right. A lot of freelancers leave things to the last minute, faffing around until they’re right up against it. It’s not unusual to see comments such as: “I need to file in an hour and I’m on Facebook/Twitter instead, why do I do it to myself?!”
But actually, the ability to do a good job, and do it quickly, under pressure, is vital. It means you can cope with short-notice commissions and pressurised shifts. Spending less time on your work means using up less of your time (which is money) to earn the same fee. The freelancers I know who procrastinate in this way do end up doing a good job, so perhaps what they’re really doing is taking the amount of time they need… and no more. They’d probably be less stressed if they didn’t leave things until the last minute, but they’ve got more disposable time as a result.
I’m not saying they thrive under pressure. I agree this is probably a myth: people tell themselves they work well under pressure, but that’s because they leave themselves a small amount of time and then have to work well in it. There was a great piece on this in the Observer (I think) a while back, but I can’t seem to find the link. But the people who do things at the last minute do them more quickly, and that’s not such a bad skill. When I work in offices (newspapers, copywriting agencies and suchlike) people often comment on how quickly I work. I once intentionally slowed down as I was making an in-house staff member look bad (which is a big no-no).
And you know what? If someone asks me to write a feature in one day, including tracking down and interviewing case studies, I’ll say yes. For example, when this piece for the Guardian was commissioned I had no interviewees lined up and didn’t even have much up-to-date information. I got the commission at around 4pm and filed just after 7pm the next day. That’s a grand total of one working day spent on information gathering, finding case studies, interviewing, writing and tweaking.
The key is to switch things around, so you do the work first and then faff afterwards. But really, whose time management is better? The person who spends ages on a piece of work, or the person who can do it in one day flat?
Grumbling.
When did you last read a first-person feature about someone who’s completely happy with their life, had a perfectly happy childhood, has no emotional issues, likes their body and is in brilliant health? Let’s face it, you’d want to punch them. Conflict is the essence of drama – and of good feature-writing. For every positive, there’s going to be a negative. Why? Because who’d read a magazine or newspaper features section packed full of perfect people boasting about their brilliant lives? Readers want triumph over tragedy, not smugness. They want to admire how the person overcame this or that trauma, read about their weird health problems, or feel secretly relieved they haven’t gone through the same thing.
So if you haven’t got anything to moan about, then you’ve got much less to write about. Real-life horrors, hang-ups and health issues are prime freelance currency. I’ve sold features on my weird health issues, my ex failing to pay a joint bill, my annoyance over Facebook relationship statuses, the fact I hate going on holiday with friends, my complete lack of confidence in the kitchen, being bullied at school, having swine flu (which got quoted in The Week) and my annoyance at having a January birthday, among many other things. Fact: finding things to moan about helps pay my rent.
And you can add nosiness (you don’t find things to write about by not asking nosy questions or eavesdropping at every possible opportunity) and a butterfly mind (concentration is great and all, but so is the ability to do lots of things at once), too. So tell me: what other character flaws make you a better freelancer?
*I say you, because obviously I am efficient and well-organised at all times. I am especially not writing this blog post while procrastinating from doing actual work.
Manners cost nothing
I haven’t blogged in ages. Tut tut. But this post on lazy writers at The Renegade Writer has me nodding in agreement, along with plenty of my freelance colleagues, I’d warrant.
It’s not that I mind helping other people, it’s that so few of them ever say thank you. And they’re fools, because it’s a small world and most people have longish memories – long enough to remember who it was that asked for contacts or advice or help and never said thank you.
Like the guy from sixth-form college who popped up asking for “all your contacts”. Then he asked me to critique a pitch and when I said he needed an angle because he’d only talked about a subject area (and had insulted the editor in the process), he got in a strop.
Or the former schoolmate who emailed for advice about freelance rates and other stuff. I replied. She never said thanks, even when I sent a second mail to check she got the first one. A year later she emailed asking me to find her some work. I said no, due to her lack of manners, as she never said thanks when I took a lot of time to answer her questions. She told me I was “being weird”. But the thing is, I’m not. I don’t think it’s too much to expect a basic thanks for taking the time to help or advise somebody. When someone gives me a contact or helps me out, I do say thanks, because I appreciate their help and don’t want to seem like a lazy idiot with an overblown sense of entitlement.
That’s why I think it’s worth noting that this unemployed graduate, who has been the target of much snark, emailed to thank me for commenting on his article. And I gave him some advice. And he said thank you again. Sadly, actually having some manners puts him in a minority (I’m not being evil, any freelancer will tell you this). But at least that minority exists.
Of who, whom and Michael Rosen
Write You Are… has been terribly neglected due to various things including the writer falling in love, taking an extended Christmas break, being quite busy and being rubbish at updating this blog, basically. And now? I’m back with a grammar fight.
This feature was published with the headline “Signed, sealed, delivered: by who?”
Then a reader complained that it should be whom, not who. “Just because you may think you’re editing for techies, geeks and nerds does not excuse poor English grammar.”
So they changed it and added a correction to the online version: “This article was amended on Friday 9 January 2008. The headline, ‘Signed, sealed, delivered: by who?’ was grammatically incorrect. This has been corrected.”
Now Michael Rosen has complained about it being changed.
I’m amused. And no, I didn’t write the headline myself.
