As a contractor, I felt that I was never given an accurate picture of what my deliverables were for the company, other than a target number of articles to hit each month. "Coaching" to correct deficiencies often felt more negative than positive, and only made me question my ability as a writer, instead of encouraging me to do better. It got to a point where I would stress after hitting the submit button, that my article would have to undergo numerous additional revisions before publication, and therefore I would not be able to move onto other articles and increase my productivity.
I'll admit that most of this was perhaps my failure to adapt to the life of a freelance writer, but I also felt like my particular bureau had favorites among their stable of writers, and if you weren't among the handful of favorites, it was harder to get your stuff published in a timely manner. Furthermore, comparisons to the "favorites" seemed to do the opposite of building a strong bureau, instead pitting each writer against the others in a battle for top favorite.
