In the last few weeks, I've taken on a new client, and it's not in academia at all. I don't want to elaborate on what I'm doing in case my client happens to go a-Googlin', but suffice to say it's a whole different field for me. I'm still deciding whether I like it enough to keep at it. In the meantime, the work comes in small, steady batches, which I like, and the pay is comparable, so we'll see.
Anyhow, I thought things started off pretty well, until I handed in a longish assignment last week and got a call back from my client, pretty much scolding me for messing up in a big, overarching way. I was stunned. Although this is a new type of work for me, it's still editorial in nature, and I know my stuff after all these years. I was so upset that night I could barely sleep. I just couldn't believe I could have so dramatically misunderstood the task at hand, and I felt terrible that the client had to go back in and undo a bunch of stuff I'd done—he'd made sure to tell me that he would have to do that, and no, he didn't want me to redo it.
I half expected them to let me go, but I got another assignment to do over the weekend, and I took pains to do it the way the client said, even though it seemed strange to me.
So then last night an urgent email came to the whole freelance "team" with some updated guidelines. Turns out my instincts were right on the money, and we're supposed to do it exactly the way I'd done it the first time! I practically had to sit on my hands not to reply with a 24-point red "Nyah-Nyah!" To be fair, they'd been somewhat misled by their client as to what was required, but still. It had been easy enough for me to figure out what was the "right" way to proceed.
I forced myself to wait till this morning to reply, and I tried really, really hard not to be smug. A bigger person wouldn't have replied at all, but it turns out that when someone criticizes my work unjustly, I am teensy-weensy and petty and immature.
My husband has been through this type of scenario scores of times with his customers--the doubting, the "scolding," all to have it fly back in their faces at the end. He lets it roll off more these days. But oh, the days and nights of irritable frustration he endured...
Vindication is nice, but if you're like my husband, it would have been been nicer not to have to go that route in the first place. Glad it all worked out for you.
Posted by: mommyralf | June 20, 2007 at 10:48 AM