I’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling

Here’s to my second official bitch-and-moan day! My chum Kathy Kerhli (who taught me the fine art of bitching with style) wrote an interesting post the other day about a client who kept expecting more and more out of her long after he’d stopped paying. I thought to myself “Wow, I’m glad I don’t have to deal with that.” Lo and behold, not two days later, here I sit dealing with the same thing.

It started with an article that appeared in my newsletter. The company wanted reprints. No problem, here’s the price. I got the nod and put together the reprint copy (which includes new layout, adding company logos, etc.). Had a bit of trouble getting the company’s logo inserted (bad graphic files), so it took a little longer. I spent a number of hours on this, which was not going to net me much, but I wanted them to be happy with the print quality.

I sent off the final product yesterday. The note comes back on permissions – can we do this, this and oh, can we print from it? I say yes to all of the above, and add, “Assuming you mean beyond what we’re printing for you.” The note back – “No, we have it from here.”

Uh uh, pal. That’s not what we agreed on. My last (and final) note on this is “Since we don’t charge for the PDF when it is coupled with our printing, I’m attaching the invoice for just the PDF. Thank you!”

I could be a real pain and push this and get the full amount out of him. I have his emails directing me to get a price for printing and to arrange it. If I wanted to get nasty, I would. However, I’m not into nastiness. I’m into fairness and professionalism. Just because someone switched rulebooks midway through the game doesn’t mean I have to go by the new rules.

It’s a lesson in sticking up for yourself and for standing firm. The work I did for this person was directly related to my understanding that it was a paying job, not grunt work so he could effectively “dump” me when he got what he wanted. The corporate version of a player. Give me a break!