Believe in yourself...

After more than a decade of freelance writing, I've come across all kinds of clients or potential clients. But before I go into these, let me get a chip off my shoulder. It still baffles me that organisations (some, not all) are prepared to throw away hundreds of thousands of Ringgit on glitzy, gimmicky events and promotions but will pay peanuts for writing and design work on their publications, brochures and pamphlets. Yet these are what the public will hold and read, and form an impression of the organisation. A shoddily-designed brochure, with text that's badly written and grammatically wrong, says a lot about what the organisation is - and isn't.

Alhamdulillah, I'm able to walk away from such organisations. It's not that I'm being arrogant but I find it demeaning to work for people who don't value or appreciate what I do. There have been a couple of times when I discovered too late the attitude of people whom I had to work with. One was a government agency. I was asked to attend a preliminary meeting at the director's office. When I was shown in, he was propped up in his chair reading a newspaper. Did he have the courtesy to put the newspaper down and greet me? Nope, he carried on reading as if I wasn't there.

After some time, he put down the newspaper, grunted a hello and called in his assistant. We then talked about the project at hand and the director asked me to attend a meeting with his colleagues, during which he intimated that I was to also act as some sort of secretary and take notes of the proceedings. I politely informed him that that wasn't what I understood my role to be and, taking a deep breath, I said that I didn't think I was the right person for the job. I thanked him and left.

The second situation involved a government ministry. The agency for the project had taken me on as writer and I went along with its design staff to an initial meeting to discuss the requirements. Imagine my surprise when we walked into a large conference room with 20 people or so who, we were told, were heads of departments (HODs) of the ministry. I was then informed that all my writing would be reviewed and commented upon by all these HODs! You guessed right if you concluded that I withdrew from the project - it's hard enough to get three people to share the same views, but 20? I just didn't want to waste my time.

I'm freelancing because I want to enjoy what I'm doing. If I'm not going to, then I'd rather not do it. The project can be a creatively difficult one and it can take some time, researching, interviewing and talking to many people - that's okay as long as the client respects me as a professional in my field, trusts me to deliver what I do best, i.e. write, and appreciates the work that goes into it.

And it's heartening that this has been the case for most of my clients, whose CEOs have the courtesy to even walk me to the lift, whose project teams comprise an average of three people empowered to direct the project, and whose managements have got better things to do with their time than to want to follow me every step of the way.

So my advice to would-be freelancers - believe in yourself and what you do, and walk away from clients who don't.