I gave up on work a few years ago because fuckit, right?
Eventually I went broke, obviously. Which is when I had to come to terms with the fact that if I want to live a dignified and comfortable life, I need to make some sort of money. Because capitalism.
So I started freelancing. Been at it a couple of years now. And the other day I got to use a line that I wish I had used on every one of my previous employers.
Here goes: A client reaches out, wanting some work done. I give him my rates, and we agree to get on a call to discuss details. After the call he tells me they need to have an internal discussion and then they'll make me on offer.
First red flag. That's not how it works. I give you my rate and you pay it or you don't. End of story. But I decided to see how this one played out.
The next day I receive their offer. They'd changed it completely, halving the amount of deliverables they wanted and changing from an hourly rate to a fixed rate. They also told me how long they thought the work would take (second red flag). This essentially cut my hourly rate in half, but they tried to be sneaky about it.
I requested another call because I wanted to tell them no to their face. On the call, with the greetings barely over, they start telling me how urgent the project is (I'm a creative, nothing in my industry is truly urgent), and that they need it first thing on Monday morning.
It's currently Friday, noon. By their estimation, the work would take 20 hours to do. So they were expecting me to pull 2, 10 hour days over the weekend, for a brand new client on our first project together.
That's when I dropped the line.
“Your poor planning is not my emergency. I won't be moving forward with this. Good luck.”
The panic on the other screen was awesome. Mouths agape, collective blood pressure soaring. Lips started flapping with incoherent anger babble. I'm pretty sure a siren started going off somewhere.
Just as they started to regain their wits enough to turn their anger on me, I hung up and blocked them.
Sure, I could've done with some extra bucks for a weekend of work. But I take payments from clients, not their stress.
So here's your reminder that, even if you're no longer an employee, people will still try and treat you as such when money is exchanging hands.
But if you're not an employee, you have the power.