Summary

The author was motivated to improve their writing and pursue a career in writing after receiving harsh criticism from their CEO about their report's language quality.

Abstract

The author, working remotely for a medical marijuana card company, was tasked with researching ways to increase organic traffic and writing a report to reduce marketing costs. Despite initial approval from their manager, the CEO publicly criticized the author's writing skills, leading to a loss of confidence and eventual termination after the author requested more challenging tasks. This experience caused the author to become anxious about their writing, remove their previous Medium articles, and avoid certain job roles. However, it also inspired a commitment to consistent writing and learning, transforming the author's perspective and leading to personal growth in writing.

Opinions

The author initially felt confident in their English proficiency but was deeply hurt by the CEO's negative feedback.
The author felt that proper review by their manager could have prevented the situation.
The author's self-doubt was exacerbated by their boss and manager correcting their grammatical errors frequently.
The author found inspiration in an article about the power of consistency and began to view writing as a skill that could be mastered through practice.
Despite lingering fears, the author has embraced writing as a hobby and is committed to improving through consistent practice.
The author acknowledges that the CEO's criticism, although harsh, may have been the catalyst for their new

A Hurtful Comment Motivated Me To Become A Writer

I got a remote job in the third quarter of 2019, in a company that provided medical marijuana cards. The company hired me as a customer service representative, but after the onboarding process, they assigned me to work with the manager of the marketing department.

It was a fairly large team comprising mostly the founder, managers, virtual assistants, medical practitioners, and also representatives of some organizations we worked with to offer this service.

It was busy working there. We mostly communicated through Google Hangouts.

They assigned tasks through Asana, and we used G-suite mainly for documents and whatnot.

The CEO assigned me a task to research ways to increase organic traffic, then write a report—We intended to cut down on the marketing budget.

I will then send the report to my manager for a quick look. If he says all is good, I’ll forward it to the boss.

I began the task, compiled the report, and forwarded it to my manager.

He seemed pretty satisfied with the report and told me to send it to the CEO.

A few days later, I saw an eternal message on the group from the CEO.

I will never forget it.

He started with how impressed with the information I shared on improving the business. Then he shattered my esteem in the company’s group chat.

He said my vocabulary was terrible and asked if I have ever worked in an organization.

He said I was never to handle outbound communications anymore, and I should be assigned menial tasks that didn’t require writing as it seems there was no chance I’d ever improve.

It devastated me. I texted my manager and asked him if he went through the report; he admitted he only skimmed through as he had a lot on his plate.

English is my first language, I was confident about the fact that I spoke and wrote fluently, so seeing all he wrote hurt me deeply.

I had shot myself in the foot by being in such a haste to submit the report.

If I had gone through the report, passed it through Grammarly, I am sure things might have turned out differently.

I became anxious about everything I sent to the group. My boss at the time and my manager now took it upon themselves to correct every grammatical blunder I seemed to make, making me wonder if I even knew the English language at all.

Eventually, they fired me after one month, because I asked my manager to assign me more challenging tasks as the ones they assigned me didn’t make it seem I was contributing to the growth of the company at all.

I got a message from the CEO, saying my skills didn’t meet their requirements anymore and he wished me all the best!

All I asked was more challenging tasks.

I became anxious about every message I wrote to another person, whether it was email or text. I’d find myself re-reading every word and making sure it was perfect.

I took down every article I had ever written on Medium since 2018. I just thought they were a load of horseshit.

I avoided jobs that will involve customer service or copywriting.

I stumbled on one article on the power of consistency in Medium. The writer mentioned how habitually doing something made you a master at it.

That changed my life!

Since then, I read everything I find interesting, learning each writer’s style. I even answer questions on Quora to improve my writing.

And also got back to writing on Medium. What have I got to lose? I know with consistent writing I’d become eventually good it at!

Practice makes perfect.

Final Thoughts.

I have not entirely gotten over my fears of writing; I have many drafts that I might just never publish.

Maybe what my former boss said to me that day was to prepare me for a career in writing, and I guess that could be a silver lining.

If he didn’t say those things to me, I might just have satisfied at my level of writing. I would not have picked writing as a hobby.

I will keep writing and writing until I become perfect, or close enough.

Thank you for reading this far!