It was uncomfortable, but ultimately, it was a good thing because I finally learned to pay attention to my instincts. I remember the very first time they called me, it was in the afternoon, and I was on a walk with a friend. I answered, and the person was whispering – because she was in the middle of a meeting! When I hung up my friend said, “That sounded promising!” and I said, “I don’t know. I guess we’ll see.” I knew right then. There’s no way now that I would agree to work with them after a call like that!

WOW, that really is crazy! I just can’t understand the thought process a group like that goes through. It was a small job, small amount. Just pay and be done, right?

What a joke. I’m sorry to hear you went through that.

They ghosted! It was so crazy. Every time they contacted me, they acted like I was interrupting them. My main contact would schedule conference calls, then not show up. I wrote a whole 700-word piece and they said, “Nah, this isn’t what we wanted, try again.” And, like a fool, I re-wrote it from a different angle. They said, again, it was no good. I suggested we just wrap it up and they go ahead and pay me, and they never replied again, nor answered calls. I sent all sorts of emails, and quoted our contract, and tried contacting their accounting department directly. I think I even contacted their CEO. It was a fairly large and well-known company, too. So I guess they didn’t really argue the price (which was very low, I know now) — they even accidentally added me to an email chain where they were discussing working with another writer who was charging them $20,000 for a series of blog posts! — they just pretended I no longer existed.

That happened to me a few times, Dava. Thankfully, the clients I’ve worked with in the last decade aren’t that way. But those lower-priced jobs are nerve-wracking for that reason.

Did they argue the price? Just curious. So many at that price point have for me.

Since then, I’ve paid closer attention to the signals and trusted my gut feeling much more. It was an expensive, miserable lesson (and it wasn’t the first time I’d experienced it, just the worst one), but now my client roster is full of people who seem to understand the proper dynamic between vendor and company.

As always, excellent post and very timely.