Well, bogeyface you did get £25 per tip. Some people will suffer far worse humiliation for that.
I have to confess I have written for Chat, Best and Real People - a gig on the magnificent Take a Break always eluded me. If you you don't write in that way, it gets changed anyway and people get pissed off with you and I do have bills to pay.
It's really odd. I don't think people necessarily want to read that kind of copy, though they want to read the stories. But most people who work on them think they do want to read it in that format, and their proof is that every other magazine in that genre is written like that 
. What do I know anyway?
I worked for someone who would itch to change quotes to something mawkish but wanted me to do it so if there was any comeback it would be on me. There's rarely any comeback. You'd be amazed at what people put up with. Or maybe you wouldn't.
Anyway, I was always stubbornly bringing back things that she said were 'unemotional' when they were full of true emotion, they just weren't cliched.
Actually it was really offensive because some people would express the most moving emotions in simple terms and she'd bollocks it up and make them sound stupid.
Making people who've paid me the privilege of sharing their most precious feelings look stupid is just about the only thing that makes me feel bad about my job.
Just one example. I once spoke to a woman whose son had a terrible reaction to E and had stayed by his bedside for days talking to him, telling him off, hoping.
At last, the doctors said he was on the mend and she went to have a wash, all happy and grinning like a loon. He had a heart attack and died while she was in the shower.
A nurse came to find her and she said: 'I saw her face and just knew. That's always been my luck.'
The question was: 'What did she know?'
A: 'That he was dead.'
Q: 'How did she know?'
A: 'She sensed it from the look on the nurse's face.'
Q: How did she feel?
A: Quite disappointed, I imagine.
She'd always say: 'Limited do you think she would say such-and-such?' And I'd say: 'No, because if she'd have wanted to say that, she'd have said it, wouldn't she?' and stick my lower lip out.
I was on a collision course with my P45 until another journalist said: 'Next time say: "I don't know, WomanWithAVoidWhereTheHeartShouldGo, but if you think it would be all right to change the quote, of course I will. Just send me an email, so I get the words right.'
Sorry. That was self-indulgent but I just wanted to get it off my chest.
And it might explain my aversion to 'rushed to hospital' and 'blue-lighted'.
For me, less is more.