(Don't) Stand by Me - Recensione dipendente - Editor presso Scribendi

The company does not support their editors. When clients complain, the order is reviewed by their full-time staff. No matter how high your score, no matter how well they esteem your editing, no matter how petty the client's complaints are (including that the client just didn't like a change you made, which they could just choose not to accept in their own revisions), the client is offered a redo or a refund. Frequently, the client requests a different editor for this. Again, no matter how high your review score or what praise was given to your work by the senior editors, if this request is made it will be granted, and you can lose your pay (and your time) for that order. Unfortunately, because all remote editors are contract workers, this is legit, and you have no recourse. I understand that keeping clients happy is how they stay in business--it's part of how all companies stay in business. But there appears to be no point at which the company will stand by the work of their editors, and no point at which the client stops being right--no matter how petty, foolish, or unreasonable they are being in their requests and complaints. The worst part is that clients have figured this out, and they appear to know that complaining enough can get them free services. Clients are not expected to take any measure of responsibility for their own work. You will see some truly abysmal writing in this job, and there appears to be no limit to the expectations placed on you to turn it into something worthy of highest regard (no matter how poorly conceived, constructed, and written it is when it comes to you). At the end of the day, there's only so much you can do without extensively researching and rewriting concepts from scratch (a no-no at Scribendi, and rightly so as that is not editing), but clients expect things to come back to them with no further review or writing necessary on their part, regardless of how dirt-poor the original was. In fact, client complaints often fall under the category of "I don't want to keep this change that the editor made," and rather than simply rejecting that change in the review process (a simple click of a button), they complain and demand a redo or a refund. In short, do not expect clients to be reasonable and do not expect Scribendi to EVER take your side, even when they deem your work "excellent" or a client's complaints invalid.