If you’re a freelancer wondering what your duties are to your client, or if you’re a client wondering just what you can expect of your freelancer, listen up. Beyond the obvious – delivering asked-for writing within the specified time frame – I’m here to tell you that one job that is NOT part of the freelance package is availability.
Clients, look – we try to be accessible within reason. But expecting a writer (or any contract worker, for that matter) to be at your constant beck-and-call is absurd. Nay, it’s treating a freelancer like an employee. And unless you feel like picking up our benefits and vacation time, don’t do it. So while we may have instant messaging or email or a cell phone at our disposal, it is not license to expect us to be instantly available within your working hours. You are a client, not a boss. Remember that. While we’ll do everything within our power to answer your questions quickly, we cannot (and frankly, will not) devote all our time to just you. That is, unless you want to hire us full time. Then we’re yours to do your bidding alone.
Writers, listen up – if you’re stressing yourself because your client is giving you grief about not being available at all times, or if you’re actually sitting there with that chat window open while you try to eat dinner, stop it. You’re setting an ugly, impossible precedent.
Also, this matter of time off. We are allowed it. We can take the afternoon off to go to the dentist. We can take a week to get away from the computer (and again, the cell phone is off limits unless we have arranged a phone conversation during that week off). Boundaries must be in place. Otherwise, all bets are off, meaning freelancers are also able to call clients during their vacations and ask them to work.
Ours is a business, not a whim. Both sides of the equation need to respect that fact in order to allow for peaceful coexistence.
Now, I’m off this afternoon. Wanna make something of it?
What drives me nuts are the interview sources who want me to do the interviews late in the evening or on weekends. I quit work at 5:30, and nearly every evening, I have plans that get me out of the house. There are a lot of sources who think I should reschedule my time to accommodate theirs. I refuse. You have to set limits or go crazy.
Exactly, Sue. I understand if a client is in California, and there are a few extenuating circumstances, but as a general rule, it has to be within normal working hours or we’d be driven nuts.