I’m Financially Struggling. Here’s Why I Quit A Gig.

Sometimes, it’s not about the paycheck, but about making sure you don’t hurt yourself.

I make no qualms about saying that losing thousands of dollars has made it very hard for me to afford living. Medium has, without a doubt, ruined my finances with its payout changes.

It’s not just Medium, though. My chips are down and it’s affecting my workflow. I’ve even been having a hard time just getting writing gigs. (Seriously, you can hire me. Just ask.)

For those not in the know, my mental health has been suffering because of everything happening around me. I’m not sure how I’ll pay rent and everything else.

I’ve been turning to drinking, and frankly, I’ve cried more tears than I feel comfortable admitting to. I wish I could say otherwise, but I’d rather be open and honest about where I am right now.

I mean, I even got rejected for a minimum wage writing gig despite my resume. Something is really wrong with the current hiring process — but I digress.

What I’m saying is that I’m really not in a position where I can reasonably turn down writing work.

And yet, I just quit a gig today.

It was a gig that I had been working on for the better part of two years.

The gig itself was simple, at least in theory. I just had to research things, make announcements on behalf of a company, trot out the company’s offering, then ask a client for a chat.

I would write the stuff out. I was given a platform where the information was written. I read the info, I spit it out, add a twist, and then it’s slated for content.

Almost every single day, I’d face another piece of criticism.

I like to think that I’m very good at what I do. Obviously, my “flavor” of writing isn’t for everyone, but the truth is that I’ve been able to find my own fan base for a reason. My writing has been on MSN, YourTango, heck, I’ve even been on Mashed.

Admittedly, my writing style is pretty casual. I am of the belief that formal writing sounds pompous and is boring to read. Even professors don’t like reading that egghead stuff, so why so many people feel like they need to sound that starchy is beyond me.

If you’re reading my content, you already know that’s my philosophy. I’m a casual writer because casual works.

Though I consider myself a confident person, the critiques from this guy were messing with me.

I think that the worst issue was that I wasn’t getting concrete, direct, easy-to-follow criticism. I was just always told “the voice isn’t right,” which seems to be a rally cry for almost everyone these days.

With that said, I tried to change it up, but to no avail. At times, the criticism I’d get would contradict the criticism they just gave me two days before. Sometimes, the critique was for just existing according to what he asked me to do.

It even happened with scheduling. I’ve picked up the phone and gotten yelled at for being on schedule. When I was ahead of schedule, it was a matter of the writing quality.

I was working two to three hours a day on these little announcements. It was boring, tedious, and grinding work. I got paid $600 a month for it, which honestly wasn’t enough to justify it. But, I needed the money.

Much like with Medium, the goalposts would move and I’d catch them as I would try. Even so, they were starting to get to me. Every other day, this dude would say:

• “You’re not clear enough about the offer.”
• “I had to reframe this, you’re being too casual.”
• “Your formal writing sounds unemotional. Stop it. Add more emotion.” (Me: I thought saying we were proud about heroic stuff was good enough? Okay? No? Sure.)
• “You need more emotion.”
• “This sounds like AI.”
• “Pay attention to the details.” (Me: I wrote what was on the page. Boss: You should have done more research. Why didn’t you check LinkedIn? Me: Ugh…)

It got to the point where I’d be woken up by messages on my phone, telling me what I did wrong. At like, 2 AM. Or I’d get a phone call while I was out, telling me why I was too casual with this client.

This weekend was the breaking point for me.

I worked Monday through Friday for this guy. This week, I had a total mental breakdown over my writing issues again. It’s a mix between overwork, lagging numbers on Medium, and general stress.

Friday, I drank an entire bottle of whiskey, couldn’t stop crying, and drank until my sides hurt. Saturday was my wedding anniversary weekend. For the sake of my husband and my sanity, I decided to try my hardest to take in the weekend with my partner.

Guess who called up.

Yep. My client.

I could feel my chest pains starting up again as he told me that I wasn’t writing something correctly again. (What’s wild is that he rewrote it to say the exact same thing, almost verbatim.)

I told him it was my anniversary weekend, and oh god, will he please leave me alone so I could not be crying and questioning my worth today of all days? He continued to nitpick. I replied already on the verge of tears, “This is my wedding weekend; I want to relax. Please.”

He huffed and agreed to rewrite it. Something in me just broke and I just couldn’t bear to look at my laptop. I didn’t even care that my main work laptop crashed. I just wanted it gone. I couldn’t even look at my watercolors.

Today, I sat down and tried to force myself to write for him again.

And…I felt my phone buzz.

It was my client again, and he had a request for a conversation over the quality of my writing again. It dealt with me using the wrong word, “not being emotional enough,” and god-knows-what. I looked at the conversation and I felt nothing.

At this point, it dawned on me. Nothing I could do for this man was enough. It did not matter how much I bent over backward. He didn’t want my writing voice. He wanted someone else. Or maybe he didn’t know what he wanted.

I told him that I was about to start writing until I got that message. And I defended my writing, pointing out how much of it was almost identical to the front pages of his clients, and how often his own critiques clashed with one another.

And then I told him that I was not going to do any more writing because it didn’t matter what I said, it was just not enough. So, I quit.

I am fully aware that what I did probably may cost me my rent money next month.

But, honestly, my heart hasn’t been in writing like it used to be. A large portion of my burnout is because I’m dealing with a lot of clients that don’t appreciate me, are happy to pay me pennies on the dollar, and claim I’m replaceable by AI.

I’m not replaceable. AI doesn’t do research. It doesn’t do interviews. It may have a similar conversational tone as my SEO work, but it is not human and it can get you penalized by Google later on.

I’ll be open here. I’ve been losing faith in my work lately. I have a manuscript I feel like it will be overlooked, a self-published book that is collecting dust despite my LGBT group outreach, and the platform crunch has me reeling hard.

Bad as it is right now, I’m not sure how much longer I can handle this lifestyle.

I’m open to other work-from-home opportunities as well as writing gigs that let me be me. As much as I hate my financial situation right now, I recognize that it won’t get better if people push me to blow my brains out. Frankly, I was worried that it would get that way if I kept working for him.

Quitting is my way of giving my mental state chemo. I may have my income tank, but at the very least, that frees up time for me to figure out what my next move is…and I won’t have to deal with people telling me I’m worthless as a writer while I do it.

Click the picture above to check out my Substack.