Pumpkin's Rant of the Day - My First Non-Paying Client

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Hello lovely people. I hope you are all well. I was rather annoyed yesterday about a few things. First of all, I was told that my granddaughter wouldn't be granted time off school to attend my wedding because, according to the letter, a 'family holiday' is not an exceptional circumstance. This is despite my step-daughter having already been assured that it wouldn't be a problem. Granddaughter will only be 4 when the time comes, which is under statutory school age here, meaning that it is only really a matter of courtesy to have asked the school and given notice. I know that C was concerned about getting penalised for taking Baby1 out of school anyway. As I said to her, though, the worst they can do is mark an unauthorised absence. C was worried about getting a fine - which would be a total of £120 - so I said I'd pay that for her as it would be cheaper than rearranging the wedding, and I'm not getting married without all of my special people there. There were a couple of other things that were annoying but, mostly, my own fault for not checking information. The problem mentioned in my title is in relation to my writing work. There are clients for whom I have worked for free - by choice. This one, though, I had suspicions from the start that she had no intention of paying for the work. After an exchange of emails, attempting to garner more information as to what the client actually wanted, I completed an 800-word article. I sent it but in the wrong format. Client asked to re-send it in another format - fair enough. I did that. I didn't hear from the client after that. As most clients are good at communication, I wasn't sure how long to leave it before making contact again with this one. I thought that 4 weeks after the deadline was appropriate to send an invoice. I sent the invoice, along with a polite email along the lines of 'I assume that you are happy with the article and that you do not require any further work from me.' The response I received was a much less polite email, basically claiming that I didn't send the final article. She asked what article I was referring to - which was odd, considering that I'd sent the email as a response to the thread that contained the article. She claimed that I had sent a zip file with a virus on it. First of all, it seems odd that she didn't mention it had a virus when she first received it. Second, it came from a brand new laptop with brand new security, and her article was the first thing I did on that laptop. She said she asked me to re-send in a different format and that she didn't hear from me again. First problem there, of course, is that I did re-send it. Second, she saw all of the other emails in the thread. Third, we exchanged enough emails that it was clear I was a prompt responder. Fourth, surely you would chase up someone if you are waiting for work that had not been received. She said that she had to get someone else to work from scratch, at short notice, in order to meet the deadline. Apart from the fact that she had the draft of my article even if she claims not to have had the final version, I chose the deadline when I would have the article done. I don't know what her deadline was. Anyway, I had an inkling that this client had no intention of paying. The only thing that surprised me was that she claimed not to have received the article at all. I expected her to say, due to how vague she was with her request, that I hadn't written what she wanted. Well, now I have a client who owes me £80. That might not seem much to some but it's beside the point. If the client chose to use someone else's work, that's her prerogative. She doesn't (or shouldn't) get to pick and choose which ones she pays. I've still done the work as requested. I've spent my time completing it, and I delivered it on time. I came in to work somewhat grumpy this morning. I am, however, going to write another post - a positive post - about the things that have brightened my mood today. Please feel free to add your own rants in the comments here.