Freelance Musings

Posted November 19, 2011 | 1:05 pm, by nadine

Freelance! Its awesome. I’ve been a freelancer for many a year, and I’ve been in all kinds of good, bad, stupid, horrible, amusing, wonderful scenarios. Some turned out well, and some turned out terrible. Now and then I think about the responsibilities of freelancers and clients. Now and then I write them down as a reminder. 2011 is winding to an end soon, and this felt like a good junction to jot them down again.

As a freelancer, it is your responsibility to your client to:

1. Work with a contract. I’ve learned my lessons over the years, work with a contract. Once and a while, I will still be tempted with a soft spot for someone…don’t listen to that soft spot. Doesn’t matter if they are a friend, or a collegue, large, small, local or multi-national. Always have a contract it will in the end, protect you and your client from potentially nasty situations and misunderstandings.
2. Make sure everything is outlined. I recently started using a projet planner based on common questions from first meetings, and I’ve found people really like it. It takes a lot of the guess work out of deliverables. Take some extra time to go over those items with your client if they have questions, and explain your late fees, kill fees, deliverables, copyright, and payment options. Outline them all. Its your responsibility to have all the odds and ends in writing and to make sure everyone understands what is on the table, and what they are going to get in the end.
3. Be honest about your skill limitations. We’ve all been there, bitten off more than we can handle or chew, whether its out of pride or fear, or maybe you’re just feeling cocky that week. Don’t do the graceful swan dive into stupidity. Speaking from past experience, it really hurts when you hit the ground. If something is out of your area, or ability, point it out that you are not comfortable handling that item, and leave it out of the deliverables.
4. Be upfront about how you like to work, and find out where they are coming from. Different industry backgrounds will have different ways of working. And this can sometimes create large blind spots in communication and expectations. Example: if you don’t work on-site, say so, lest you get a confusing message monday morning along the lines of “Why aren’t you in the office?”
5. Finish things on time. If you don’t have hard deadlines, make some. If you see a rolling deadline, try and reel it in. Be realistic with your deadlines and timelines. If you promise a cake in 20 minutes and the box says bake for 60, It’ll be a pretty shitty cake.

As a client it is your responsibility to your freelancer to:

1. Reply to inquiries in a timely manner. This does not mean, right away (mostly if right away is something like 11pm). But if you’ve hired a freelancer to do something for you, that freelancer is giving you their time, be respectful of that time. Disappearing for long periods of time, being busy but not informing your freelancer, and leaving people on the hook by not having solid ETAs for things is not respectful.
2. Be vocal if you do not understand something. Ask questions, make an outline. Keep your expectations in check. If the outline says PSDs and you think you’re getting HTML you need to clear that up at the start.
3. Pay freelancers in a reasonable amount of time. A reasonable amount of time is cutting a cheque in 30 calendar days or less, or sticking to what has been decided upon and outlined in your payment terms. This is still the single most frustrating thing I hear from freelancers new and old: clients that don’t pay on time. There are a lot of available secure payment options now, to be very late, is to be very rude.
4. Be upfront about what is going on in a project. For example if something outlined is not going to happen, if you are not happy with a project, if you’ve run out of money, if your department has been shut down, or if you want out. There will be kill fees, but in the end its better for all parties to walk away from something in a timely manner, than to sit in limbo.
5. Keep a professional facade when working. Creative industries are built around the idea of being friends. And some people do become quite good friends. But, when you’re working together, having some distance is the best thing, it gives you some perspective when working through hurdles.

Oh and a final note for both parties: Try not to internalize work issues. Its hard. We work in industries that tie the value of who we are into what we do. We all want projects to be successful, but defining where you end and work begins, even if its a soft line, will save you a lot of mental brew-ha in the long run.

Apathy

Posted October 17, 2011 | 10:58 pm, by nadine

I’m sorry, but sometimes its not apathy that causes a problem. Sometimes things just happen. That being said, I’m getting mighty tired of the words “apathy” and “entitlement”. It seems like whenever someone has a gripe, or problems we’re quick to jump on them as being one of those things, or both.

I propose that these two arguments are in and of themselves apathetic and entitled. I feel that they have become convenient blanket arguments to toss around insuring that we won’t have to do any research into the history or context of a situation.

- Lost your job? Guess you didn’t work hard enough.

- Upset your new [insert whatever here] busted…suck it up (i mean its not like you worked for that money that bought that thing…right?).

- Something negative happen to you? Guess it was something you must have done to invite it.

- Feeling a little strung out today because [insert issue that is stressing you out]? You’re just a big baby!

- Got cancer? Well its because you were apathetic and didn’t do enough pre-screening.

Wait…what? Run that last one by me again? Yes that is correct. There is a TED talk out there that actually blames cancer patients for getting cancer, which frankly, boggles my brain…because its wrong, and I’m surprised that we’ve reached that point where we accept blaming something like cancer, on…apathy? REALLY?

Now I’m not saying that apathy and entitlement don’t exist, there are people out there that are apathetic, and feel a sense of entitlement towards a lot of things. I’m also not a fatalist, and think that yes, there are things you do that affect your own life (for example getting drunk and trying to pet a grizzly bear is likely going to leave you with one arm). But remember that there’s also a whole host of crap that you juggle that frankly, has nothing to do with that. Its just shit that happens.

I also think that actual apathetic people are not as wide spread as we think, and that for the most part people work hard, and just want to see some value from that work…and that sometimes shit just doesn’t work out. Or in the case of Meslin over here, that maybe their environment has something to do with it.

So before you go telling someone “oh I guess you didn’t try hard enough…” how about you ask them what happened first? Its funny how often we just forget to ask questions.

And so ends my half-cocked post about apathy.

Say Hi To Local

Posted September 26, 2011 | 10:58 am, by nadine

LOCAL is a new bike design from fuseproject. And its quite the looker! Since I started really getting into cycling last year, I’ve pretty much had an eye on bikes and a thing for bike design. For shopping, hauling, transporting and getting around? Its a pretty nice design, and I’d put it against a car any day.

Also: I approve of orange tires.