Cactus Communications reviews

For the degree of work that Cactus wants on these manuscripts, at the rate being paid, you're making far less than minimum wage by the time you finish an assignment—nowhere near industry standard, which helps bring down rates for freelance copyeditors everywhere. Cactus advertises itself as paying up to $4,000 a month, but I simply don't see how that's possible. I'm a longtime medical editor with a lot of experience in editing the work of non–native English-speakers, and I genuinely enjoyed the work, but I found the nitpicking by Cactus supervisors crazy-making. (Your pay is predicated on your quality rating, so even when you get great reviews from authors, it's in Cactus' best interest to find things wrong with your work and knock down your pay.) You will find yourself veering between having no work and having to tell Cactus to dial it back and stop inundating you with copy. The time difference with India can cause problems if you're needing help with some issue. I do not recommend working here unless you desperately need experience in medical/technical editing before moving on to a better-paying gig.

There are so many. 1. First of all, the staff are terrible at getting back to you in response to queries, unless it's about an ongoing job (and therefore will impact them directly). Several times I've had to chase up to four times and wait three weeks to get a response to a simple email query. 2. The quality rating system is ridiculously inconsistent and unfair. For example, you could turn in a 5,000-word job in which the only feedback is '"world view" should have been "worldview,"' and your rating will drop from a 4 to a 3, even though the rest of the document is perfect. The tone taken by the reviewers is also very patronizing at times, considering that the editors they are rating are professionals who do this for a living. 3. As others have said, the quality they want is unrealistic given the pay rates – this is not a suitable job for slow or beginner-level editors. I've been working for Cactus for years now and when I asked them for an increase they flat-out refused, even though my process manager has told me multiple times that I'm one of their top editors. 4. I'm based in the States, and by the time I get up and log on all the work has pretty much already been taken. I'll wake up to around 50 emails per day from Cactus (25 work offers, 25 emails to say another editor has accepted the work), all of which I'll have to sift through and eventually delete, and then I won't get assigned anything at all during the day. I've raised this issue with management numerous times and (after taking several weeks to get back to me, of course), they send a token response that doesn't address the problem at all. 5. When they want you to do something for them (e.g. send them pages of personal info so they can tender for a new contract), they expect a response within the same day. That would be fine if this communication extended both ways, but it just doesn't. 6. Their "unavailability calendar" doesn't always result in work not being assigned. It's incredibly frustrating to get emails all day about work when you've updated the system to say that you are not available. Overall, I don't think Cactus fully realize that their editors are human beings, and they seem to have very little interest in making the work-assignment or the quality rating systems fair. I wouldn't usually take to an online rating website to vent this, but since I have raised all of these issues with Cactus directly it seems reasonable to provide my honest feedback in this case.