Strongly Worded

Under Hostile Fire

So for the past six billion years I've been working on this nightmarish consulting project for a trade association. Basically I'm writing profiles of their 50+ members. I tried to interview many of their PR representatives over the summer, and many of them failed to return my calls and behaved in extraordinarily unprofessional ways. On one occasion, I interviewed a woman and was impressed and pleased by our conversation. She was kind to me. She was pleasant. After I left, she called my client (the trade association) and freaked out because she was so enraged by the premise of the project. I experienced shock and awe at her two-facedness, which made me wonder, who else hates me/this project and isn't saying so?

I shook off this bad experience and continued interviewing. Because I suck, I waited until now to do most of the interview write-ups. What really sucks: interviewees' responses to my drafts. I've been writing and then giving people one week to get back to me with changes. I expected that most people would be happy with what I wrote, that some might send back minor edits.

But no. One guy responded immediately:"I won't sugarcoat this. Your draft is so deeply flawed on so many levels, and I simply do not have time to make the major modifications that would render it institutionally acceptable. Please advise on how our company can be included in the report despite time constraints." And I met with this guy weeks ago! And he was friendly! And his was one of the most interesting and well-written profiles, in my opinion!

It gets worse. This guy then calls a competitor in another city and gives the competitor (who until then had seemed content with what I'd written about his company) the head's up about my utter failure as a writer/interviewer. An hour later I get a call from Company #2's PR department (who ignored my multiple calls over the summer). Suddenly they want to be involved in the revision of the 3-page piece that was mostly culled from their website and is going into a long, boring compilation of profiles that no one will ever read. We're not talking the New York Times.

The thing is, that this type of hostility unnerves me. I brace myself each time I open my trade association email account. What nastiness is headed my way? What disgruntlement awaits? What intolerant person has decided to hate on me for a small error or omission? And worse: I've started to question the quality of my work. I reread the "deeply flawed" piece and I still contend that it's not only nicely written, but that every single fact is traceable to something he or his website said. If there were inaccuracies, blame their webmaster.

But now I'm paranoid that perfectly nice-seeming people are in fact hate-filled, underneath it all. And that rather than making connections, I'm burning bridges.

Posted by Dori at 8:42 AM