Unprofessionalism

Writers can be an incredibly quirky bunch, but occasionally you come across someone SO incredibly ass-backward and unprofessional that you find the entire situation utterly unbelievable. You almost expect hidden cameras to be shown to you at any given moment.

Long story short: A potential client contacted me over a manuscript he’d like to have edited. Eventually the listing closes, and even after saying he wanted to hire me, I hear nothing. I continued to follow-up. In the meantime I take another job, because I am not about to wait for this guy to get his act together. A few days ago he leaves me a new message, asking me to call him. I do, and I leave him a voice mail message. I specifically detailed in the message that he could call me back when he was ready to do so, and I followed it up with another written message. No response. No return phone call. I am not about to call him every hour on the hour until he calls me back. One message is enough. The e-mail message was more than I’d do for most people who have yet to sign on yet.

I come home tonight after a long day and he has re-listed the job. I had suggested that he re-list it, but I also told him I would still take the job and adhere to what we had previously agreed upon as far as what I would do and the original price I’d quoted him. Instead of listening to me, I had to submit an entirely new proposal, but this time I made sure to state that we’d already agreed upon this job and he had never gotten back to me. Why would you even bother asking someone to call you if you’re now accepting offers from other people for the very same job that, several weeks ago, was “mine”? This truly makes no sense and it annoys the crap out of me.

Unless I hear from him within the next few days, I am washing my hands of the situation entirely. I’d rather deal with someone professional than someone who can’t get their shit together.

Little things like this TRULY annoy me. I saw the job re-listed and my jaw nearly hit my laptop keys. I could not believe the stupidity and immaturity of it all. Mind you, he had the option of inviting me into the job, so clearly he can’t even follow simple instructions, which I detailed specifically in my last message to him. I cannot imagine what that manuscript looks like and now, I could not care less. He’d have to pay me triple to touch it.