Every successful freelancer I know works like a maniac. We work long hours, we take advantage of every tiny opportunity that is presented to us, and most importantly, we keep going even when we’re not sure what direction we’re headed in.
The flip side of this is that it’s really easy to get into the habit of taking every job that comes your way; the small ones, the weird ones, and the ones that you think are kind of icky but pay you a lot.
It’s the last category that I want to talk about today; the jobs that are kind of gross to you personally, but that are tempting because of the money involved.
When I first started Cottage Copy, I got a bunch of inquiries about various types of work that were to someone coming from my academic background, pretty distasteful. The inquiries all started innocently enough. Most of them started with some comment about how they liked my blog, found me to be creative and new, and then ironically, launched into the real nature of the work.
- “So, I need a list of speaking topics, and I really do exactly what this person does. I don’t need to give you a whole other list, right? I’ll just send you the site link.”
- “I need newsletter/blog/marketing content, and really, what I do is just like what this company already has on their site. You can just redo it and make it personal, right?”
In an academic context, this isn’t making your life easier. This is frankly, plagiarism. But I also knew that in the world of copywriting, this wasn’t all that uncommon, even if I didn’t feel particularly great about it. And when you’re starting out, money is money. I went ahead and did all those jobs, and felt like a guilty dishonest jerk the entire time.
I got another inquiry a few weeks ago for another job like that, and immediately was faced with that feeling I had all those months ago. “No!”, my head told me, “This is just wrong. You don’t have to do this.” I ended up politely refusing the job, and offering to take a more creative approach if the person wanted it. And then promptly spent a week feeling guilty about turning down money.
When you run a business, the idea of morally wrong can get a little fuzzier when you’re faced with being in the right or paying your rent. And when you’re starting out as a freelancer, you can be in that position for a good few months before you begin to feel safe. We do all this crowing about how our jobs give us the freedom to stand up for ourselves, but really, when you temper that with reality, most people won’t stand up for themselves in a situation that they find a little morally wrong.
So here’s the question I have for you guys today, since I know that you probably have some great stories to share about this: What sort of jobs won’t you take in your business? Where do you draw the line between morally wrong, and just a little uncomfortable? When you’re confronted with something that is morally wrong, do you take it on as a cause or just try and get out of it gracefully?
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