My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompt
Day 159: I’ve Been Called a Liar and a Cheat
As a freelance writer, I always keep an eye open for new opportunities. When I noticed a group on Facebook called ‘Content Writers’ I thought it might be a good idea to join, thinking that there might be writing jobs. I applied and got accepted.
It didn’t take long for the Jax V.M., the moderator, to post the message “just wait ,but can you do me a favor ? Please provide your real picture on your profile ,thanks.”
So far, my profile picture was that of a cat. Sometimes it was Charlotte, sometimes Holly, Halley or Greyson. I changed it regularly.
Jax responded with “you can't get job here if you do that, no one believes in you ,ok,please be responsible if you want to do this kind of work.
Okay, I could understand that, sort of. Personally, I don’t see what a picture has to do with someone’s writing abilities. A picture will reveal if someone is female or male, old or young, beautiful or ordinary, etc. But is any of that important? As a client, I would prefer to see a writing sample rather than someone’s face.
Judging by Jax’s writing, I didn’t have much confidence in her. She didn’t capitalize her sentences. She left a space between the last letter of a word and a comma. She didn’t leave a space between the comma and the first word of a new sentence. And she stated ‘you can't get job here if you do that’ instead of ‘You can’t get a job here if you do that’.
This was not the work of an accomplished writer.
Anyhow, I complied and posted a picture of myself, this picture.
Jax responded with “ i am asking a real picture of you right?”
I didn’t see what the problem was, this was a real picture of me. She replied by posting this picture, taken from Wordpress and said “Ok if you say so that is not copyright”
I responded with “Not sure what you mean by that Jax. Are you saying that I took someone else's photo?" To which the reply was “ it isn't necessary but i do have an instinct ,anyways leave it”
This irked me. This person thought that I had stolen someone else’s photo and pretended this was me! Where did she get off calling me a liar and a cheat? Not in so many words, but that was the gist of it. When I tried once more to assure her that this was indeed me, she responded with “ok if you say so,goodluck” To me, ‘ok if you say so’ is as good as ‘I don’t believe a word of it’.
So looked at Jax’s Facebook profile and … I found a picture of a young girl, little more than a child really. I’m not good at guessing ages, but she looked about 15 – 17. That’s who I was dealing with! A kid! No wonder she acted so immature.
The other members didn’t seem very credible either. One claimed to have studied at Oxford but her writing let me doubt that.
She wrote:
My name is xxx am a content writer with over 5years of experience do check out my gigs
Contact me asap let get it started
Am here let deal
I don’t know at which Oxford this girl studied, but judging by her command of the English language it wasn’t the one in England.
Other writers’ spelling was even worse. They applied to jobs with “R U looking for a writer?” Now, this really rubs me up the wrong way. It’s bad enough that regular people write in abbreviations, but so-called professional writers should know better.
Either way, I decided that this wasn’t the site for and left.
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