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Topic: A nightmare freelance job
| Author | Message |
| ConfidentDesigner | Posted – 2/2/2008 1:13:09 PM | show profile Okay, so I get laid off in October along with a bunch of other people from my job of two years at a flaky think-tank/non-profit (whatever. I was relieved to be out of there. It was a very dysfunctional place and still is). I get a severence plan, set myself up with a bunch of freelance contracts and off I go. All sounds good so far, right? Well, let this be a warning to those of you who because of being nervous about your lack of monthly income, don't ever turn down a freelance gig. Be SURE of what you're biting off and make sure, if it's a huge job, arrange to be paid accordingly! Here's my saga-- I agree to take on a little 28-page local freebie newspaper that is basically a vehicle for advertising with some "community news" thrown in for good measure. Again, sounds innocuous enough, right? It had been laid out by someone in Quark for 11 years before I inherited this little monster. It was a MESS when I got it! Completely thrown together, NO style sheets set up, and ads...oh, the ads. Some were actually built right in the Quark document and some were sent to me as "pdfs" which meant that I had to rebuild most of the new ones coming in. There were approximately 150 of them! On top of that, I had to lay out all of the editorial around the all of these hideous ads, design and produce some of the ads for the sales reps, email them out for approval (some 5-6 times!) and lay out the entire rag, pdf all of the final pages, send them to the printer, etc. and all of this had to be done in a week and a half. Here's the REAL slap in the face...all this for $1200!!!!! Was I nuts? Had I truly lost my mind? Where, oh where was my sanity? When all was said and done, I made about $3/hour, lost about 2-3 nights of sleep, and had several near breakdowns...all for $1200. DON'T, I repeat DON'T do this! Investigate like mad and if your gut tells you not to take it, don't take it! Needless to say, I accepted an offer of a nice, full-time, regular 9-5 job yesterday and resigned from doing that little rag forever. Oh, and I did invoice them for the $1200. |
| ConfidentDesigner | Posted – 2/2/2008 1:16:41 PM | show profile Clarification... I must say though that the aforementioned gig was the worst of the freelance work I managed to pick up. The rest of them were great to work with, professional and had decent lead times. They weren't all bad. Live and learn, I always say. |
