Comment by dsirijus
12 years ago
Correct. And your job as a freelancer is to do the same thing.
I'm sorry for you feel that way. You can opt-in in making a meaningful and fruitful business relations instead? Shame it's an opt-in, and not opt-out, though. I guess Bible's right on that one.
Producers want to pay as little as possible, for obvious economic reasons. Freelancers want to be paid as much as possible, likewise. If you're not operating under a union or guild contract of some sort (and paying part of your income in dues for the privilege of outsourcing and standardizing your rates and working conditions), then it's up to you to make the best deal you can for your services, and and part of that involves a willingness to walk.
On a couple of occasions I've rejected a job only to be called up several weeks later when the lower-cost provider the producer contracted with didn't perform, and in cases like that I ask for and get my full fee. It's a tough world.
No, I don't agree with that. It's a dog-eat-dog world if you make it. But world is so far and wide that you can bypass all that crap for the most part.
I am not (well, trying not too when I'm zen enough, unlike now with all this ranting) taking up working with anyone who doesn't see our collaboration as pure win-win situation, and will provide me with more than I ask for, and I provide him with more than he bargained for.
Stress-B-Gone, and life become a real page-turner!
That's the ideal way to work, but it doesn't always pan out - and relationships with heightened expectations but no formalities often make for the worst conflicts if they go south.