Oct. 27, 2005
For a less formalized but more intense discussion of the PITA Factor in writing, drop by Paul Guyot's blog about writing for TV. My experiences involving the PITA Factor pale in comparison.

PITA, if you don't know, stands for pain-in-the-ass.

If you work a real job then the PITA Factor is built in and you're pretty much stuck with it. If, for instance, you've been hired to analyze chromosomes for $25 an hour and your boss decides he needs you to work in the clerical office filing reports, well, unless you're unionized, you suck it up or look for another job. If that's what they want to pay you that kind of money to do, well, okay.

For freelance writers, at least in theory, we have a little more say in the types of work we do. If something ranks high on MARK'S PITA-METER, I can, at least in theory, decline to do it again. That said, high fees or regular work can buy a fair amount of aggravation. A magazine that pays 10 cents a word and causes me a lot of headaches, well, they're not worth the hassles. Someone who pays me 40 cents a word or $40 an hour or higher, higher, higher, well, I can put up with a fair amount.

I'm thinking about this because I took on a new client and it's an editing job and the pay is pretty good and it's likely to be regular. And I was warned that this first issue was going to be rocky, and sure enough, it does seem to be. And there's a part of my brain saying, "The PITA-METER reading is pretty damned high here," and another part saying, "Good pay, regularly scheduled." And I do understand that in these kinds of situations, if you stick with it and can get everybody on the, er, same page, if I can figure out what they want and why they want it, and they can learn to trust me and figure out why I'm doing things the way I'm doing them, then things ought to smooth out significantly.

But at the moment, they waited too long to fill the position, they created too short a deadline and then failed to meet their own deadlines, and they seem to be second-guessing every decision I make. They also threw in a "additional" writing assignment with it for no additional pay and provided me very little support in the process, and it's a profile of a person who clearly didn't give a damn whether he was profiled or not, among other things.

The only thing that's really problematic for me at the moment is the second guessing part. They've restructured lately and created, I believe, an editorial committee, and it looks like everybody's putting their 2 cents in, although not directly. Just a sense of a lot of feedback going on "out there," that's drifting back to me in odd ways. Part of this has to do with a lack of a clear direction, either their failure to articulate one or my failure to demand one. So with that direction lacking, I'm using my best judgement based on five years of experience with another publication and they're second guessing everything I do. It makes me grind my teeth and think, "You hired me to do this, now let me do it."

It requires me to be super organized, overly diplomatic and under intense time pressure. I'm super organized anyway, but one of the advantages of being a freelance writer is I'm not required to often be diplomatic because I'm usually working alone. I'm always under my own time pressures, but this is coming from outside, so it's stressing me out a bit.

Whine, whine, whine. The PITA Factor has hit with other publications. I still need to discuss the fallout from the urinalysis article--a long, ugly story--and this being a decision where I've worked for that publication for a long time, I like the editor, but they don't pay well, and I told the editor, "Look, if you need to fire me just to get this off your back, fine, you're my worst paying client anyway, I don't care." He said, no, no,no, we like your work, you're our best writer...

But I did flat-out tell him I wouldn't be writing that type of article again. PITA Factor--High. And that's not always the case with this publication.

And I used to write regularly for this Canadian publication and the last article I wrote for them was one I was very proud of, and I liked working for them, but it took four months and numerous nagging letters and e-mails to get paid the $185 (US) they owed me, and since they weren't a great paying market, I just haven't pitched them again. If they ask me to write for them I will, but I'm not pursuing them. Not enough money involved for make up for the potential hassle.

So there we have it. Back to work.

Best,
Mark Terry