I made a living as a writer and editor for a small but popular site for the better part of a decade. Unfortunately, when the original owner decided to retire, the new buyer quickly turned out to be hard to work with. He was quick-tempered, sexist, rude to everyone (including our readers, who had previously been loyal supporters), and tended to make split second decisions about financial decisions that should have taken more thought and planning, only to immediately reverse directions and get angry if he didn’t see huge returns inside a few days. He was often uncommunicative, resistant to any idea that wasn’t his own, and blamed everyone else for every failing.
When I woke up one morning to an e-mail saying he was cutting all the writers out, including myself, I was sad but relieved, since my job had become so stressful. I wished him good luck politely and professionally and set about trying to get new work to compensate for, y'know, the sudden loss of income. However, a week later, I started getting e-mails.
Client: Hey! I need you to do some social posting for me about this crowdfunding drive for the site. Everyone knows you, and I need you to get them contributing.
Me: Unfortunately, as I am no longer associated with the site, I don’t feel comfortable acting as its mouthpiece. Good luck with it, though!
Client: Don’t be that way. You know I need help with this sort of thing. I think I have a new buyer, and you’re part of the site.
Me: I’m sorry, but I’m not part of the site any longer. When you stopped paying me, I had to find other work. I don’t work for you or contribute to the site anymore.
Client: Why are you acting like this? It’s just some posts to the site! You can do it in your free time. I thought you cared about it!
Since I had indeed had a lot invested in the site, and admittedly over the years I had become “the face” of the site and people knew me by name, out of courtesy I made a single comment on his big crowdfunding post. I said that though I was no longer part of the site, I wished it (and him) all the best of luck, said I knew it still had amazing potential, even went so far as to say a few nice things about him, thanking him for continuing to employ myself and the other writers after the original sale. He was not pleased.
Client: Well I hope you’re happy. You’ve killed the site. You’ve shot it in the head. I can’t believe you did that. By saying you aren’t part of the site, you’ve destroyed everything. How can you be so selfish?
Me: I'm not part of the site. I don’t work for it or you anymore.
Client: That sale depended on you! Nobody will buy the site if you aren’t part of it anymore! How could you say that?
Me: If you want me to be part of the site again, you’re welcome to rehire me at my original freelance rate of X per article. I am not, however, a product to be bartered with and sold. You had no right to imply I was part of this sale when you knew full well you had cut me out of the site. I have to do what’s best for myself and my family, and that means concentrating on paying work to make a living and cover my bills.
What followed was a nearly incoherent barrage of e-mails, even after I told him that due to his behavior, he could consider the bridge between us burned, and I would not respond to or accept any further correspondence. Before I blocked his address (and his Skype contact), he said I was disgusting, selfish, horrible, and ungrateful. He mocked me for “chasing interviews” to find other work, and so forth, with the prevailing notion being that I was a horrible person for not working for him for free to try to make him more money.
I’ve got another much more enjoyable and rewarding job now, and my only regret is that I didn’t leave sooner. Maybe right back at the beginning when our first Skype conversation after meeting, he “jokingly” told me to “show him my tits”, instead of soldiering on under his behavior for several years.
Welp. Hindsight.
