Client Doesn’t “Feel Like Paying” Editor For The Work, They Have A Perfect Clapback
The famed sci-fi writer Harlan Ellison said society undervalues creative work because of the economics of scale: there are too many writers (but the same applies to many more professions) who don’t believe they should be paid every time they do something. Companies and clients know this and get used to getting work from people for next to nothing. So when someone wise actually asks for their true worth, they are compared to and turned away for those who are too scared, too naive, or too inexperienced to demand better pay.
Image credits: Ryan Clark (not the actual photo)
Just a few days ago, video editor and Reddit user u/nitiddesigns got to experience this first-hand. An opportunistic lady messaged them about a clip that needed polishing and gave just a 45-minute deadline, but when she heard it would cost her 20 euros (about 23 US dollars), the woman lost her mind and went on a rant, throwing around words like “exploitation” in a desperate attempt to strengthen her losing case. Luckily, u/nitiddesigns kept their cool and handled the situation like a pro. But don’t just take my word for it, continue scrolling and read their exchange yourself. Trust me, there are plenty of juicy details I haven’t even mentioned!
Image credits: nitiddesigns
u/nitiddesigns usually does photo editing and graphic design work, including logos, advertising, signage, etc. but recently the Reddit has branched out into basic video editing as they found there was a market for it. “I’m a first-year college student so I’m pretty far from a professional in this field, and mainly do it as a part-time job, however, I’ve been working in the graphic design industry for over 6 years, so I’ve got quite a lot of experience under my belt!” they told Bored Panda.
The creative industry is a very polarizing one. On one of its sides, there’s splendor, rich donors, and record-breaking art auctions. On the other, you have creators who earn little to nothing, often even losing money and financing their efforts with second jobs.
As u/nitiddesigns’s story shows, whenever there’s a subjective element to price, someone is bound to try and abuse it.
“For every 5 clients I do work for, I usually have at least one of them who raises some issues like the ones seen in the post,” u/nitiddesigns explained. “Usually they’ll be turned away by my price and will look to bargain for it.”
“Many of the comments [under my story] pointed out to me that my prices are much lower than what they’d usually expect, which may be why I’m attracting the kinds of clients who want to haggle for it. Just last week, I had one client, let’s call him Jimmy, who wanted me to design a YouTube banner for his daughter for free because it was ‘her birthday and she’d be sad if she didn’t get one.’ It seems that there’ll always be people who are looking for stuff for a lower price, which is normal, but there’s a difference between chancing your arm and outright begging.”
Author Len Cristobal thinks these offers sometimes come from “distance”:
“People rarely see artists, their sleeves rolled up and hunched over a desk, studying various elements of design, principles, software, methods, materials, trends, histories, and relevant industries in order to hone their craft, find opportunities where their skill set is needed, and produce sensible artwork,” she wrote. “There are people who believe that artists deserve low pay because their work does not require technical skills — as if art is produced solely by impulse, vanity, or some internal dissonance.”
But they might also have something to do with human nature. Not just our crooked understanding of each other. Psychologist and decision researcher Eva Krockow, Ph.D., said people experience a pleasant high after receiving a freebie in an expensive world where we frequently have to pay even for visiting a public toilet.
“After reflecting on it for a while, I’ve realized that I’ll never be able to completely avoid clients like these while working in a people-oriented industry,” u/nitiddesigns added. “While the vast majority of them waste my time, energy, and money, I have to hand it to the unnamed businesswoman, dealing with her was quite entertaining, I’m not able to deal justice like that very often, so I was quite happy to get the last laugh. Despite clients like this, I really love my job, and the majority of the people I work with, I’m always looking for new people to work with, although I usually prefer it when they pay me!”
People who read the conversation loved the way everything played out
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20 Euros is only about 23 usd. The lady made such a huge deal out of such a small amount! She should have just paid, jeez.
Well, I get that it was easy work. Still. You don’t just get paid for the work you do but also what you are worth. My FIL has an IT company and his usual rate is 180 an hour. Short notice even more. Here it was on demand, short notice, and a shitty attitude. Below 100 I wouldnt even get out of bed.
This project may have been "easy" for the artist, but it's only "easy" because she has practiced and spent so much time and energy learning and honing her skills, and bought the right software and hardware. It's "easy" only because she knows what she's doing. I have no idea how to stitch videos together, and only know how to add music and text to videos and pictures on my phone because it came with the phone and I've been fooling around with it since then, and am still lost on how to do the rest. I agree with you about all of it, you are so right!
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If I were this video editor I would have noped out of that whole transaction because how many damned red flags do you need to know you're dealing with a complete narcissist and criminal scumbag??? Sure the scumbag walked away with nothing but the editor lost some free time so it's a net loss in my opinion.
Charging just 20 euro for a 10 min video is why freelancers can't make a living these days. You can't compete with people who charge so little if you have bills, kids, and try to retire before you die.
Freelance work just isn't worth it any more, especially when you bid on work. People assume that site building, content writing, any editing etc etc must be easy and aren't prepared to pay anything near a livable amount.
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Just a quick look tells me 20 Euros is less than they'd pay for decent video editing software, and is a real bargain for being able to hand the project over to someone who already has the software and the skill to use it.
https://www.buzzmaven.com/old-engineer-hammer-2/ "Total $5,000: Hammer = $5; Knowing where to hit the machine with hammer = $4995"
My dad always told me that story growing up, but with a screw. One screw costs pennies, but knowing which part of the machine needs a new screw (and what kind of screw you need) is what you get paid thousands for.
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That is the upbeat music that I would put to it.
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Looking at the time stamps it took about 15 minutes from receiving the final instruction to delivering the finished link. It's not clear what his quoted €15 covers - per hour, per request, a guesstimate for half an hour's work? Assuming it's not the first two, that puts him pro rata at €30/hour. €20 at 45 minutes notice is well within normal ballpark rates, even accounting for the rush premium.
No time for a contract, so 100% payment up front. How much is her job worth to her? Priced at least an order of magnitude too low, as well, imho.
Exactly. As soon as she complained about the price I would have been demanding payment up front. This was super predictable, but the designer seems to be really young, so they just don't have the experience to know yet.
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chucklef*cks™ when they use child labour and child plagiarism be like
Yeah, after 25 years of singing in a quartet I never get over people who want to know if they can pay less than our listed show price. I always tell them yes and assure them that I'll just cut that percentage of the notes and words out of the songs. I've even encountered one or two requesters who wanted to know if the price was lower if I brought three people instead of four.
£20? My video editor charges me £175 for editing a 4 minute video. And that's cheap!
In a computer repair. Shops charge 45$-75$ to just look at it for 1 hour standard shop rate after that I do 20 to look 20 an hour after that.
This song rings very true. F**k people who expect people to work for free. https://youtu.be/NGR20B2cEBQ
Maybe if it was so important to your job you will pay the price? I'm guessing they waited until the last minute and now it's a hurry! The designer probably knew they wouldn't pay, this the lockout. I bet it was already locked when it was sent. If not, for her to come right back and say she wasn't paying was really stupid.
20 euro? That is wild. I would charge $100s if not 1,000s. I have s friends who does video. He charges $500 daily rate. Which seems cheap
To be fair, my husband and I are raising 4 children. 2 may very well grow to be arseholes DESPITE our parenting. Sometimes people suck for no good reason.
Load More Replies... Summary: Trump and his attorneys discuss him not paying for services rendered.
I love when entitled demanding people get smacked down. Well done, sir.
20 Euros is only about 23 usd. The lady made such a huge deal out of such a small amount! She should have just paid, jeez.
Well, I get that it was easy work. Still. You don’t just get paid for the work you do but also what you are worth. My FIL has an IT company and his usual rate is 180 an hour. Short notice even more. Here it was on demand, short notice, and a shitty attitude. Below 100 I wouldnt even get out of bed.
This project may have been "easy" for the artist, but it's only "easy" because she has practiced and spent so much time and energy learning and honing her skills, and bought the right software and hardware. It's "easy" only because she knows what she's doing. I have no idea how to stitch videos together, and only know how to add music and text to videos and pictures on my phone because it came with the phone and I've been fooling around with it since then, and am still lost on how to do the rest. I agree with you about all of it, you are so right!
Load More Replies... If I were this video editor I would have noped out of that whole transaction because how many damned red flags do you need to know you're dealing with a complete narcissist and criminal scumbag??? Sure the scumbag walked away with nothing but the editor lost some free time so it's a net loss in my opinion.
Charging just 20 euro for a 10 min video is why freelancers can't make a living these days. You can't compete with people who charge so little if you have bills, kids, and try to retire before you die.
Freelance work just isn't worth it any more, especially when you bid on work. People assume that site building, content writing, any editing etc etc must be easy and aren't prepared to pay anything near a livable amount.
Load More Replies... Just a quick look tells me 20 Euros is less than they'd pay for decent video editing software, and is a real bargain for being able to hand the project over to someone who already has the software and the skill to use it.
https://www.buzzmaven.com/old-engineer-hammer-2/ "Total $5,000: Hammer = $5; Knowing where to hit the machine with hammer = $4995"
My dad always told me that story growing up, but with a screw. One screw costs pennies, but knowing which part of the machine needs a new screw (and what kind of screw you need) is what you get paid thousands for.
Load More Replies... That is the upbeat music that I would put to it.
Load More Replies... Looking at the time stamps it took about 15 minutes from receiving the final instruction to delivering the finished link. It's not clear what his quoted €15 covers - per hour, per request, a guesstimate for half an hour's work? Assuming it's not the first two, that puts him pro rata at €30/hour. €20 at 45 minutes notice is well within normal ballpark rates, even accounting for the rush premium.
No time for a contract, so 100% payment up front. How much is her job worth to her? Priced at least an order of magnitude too low, as well, imho.
Exactly. As soon as she complained about the price I would have been demanding payment up front. This was super predictable, but the designer seems to be really young, so they just don't have the experience to know yet.
Load More Replies... chucklef*cks™ when they use child labour and child plagiarism be like
Yeah, after 25 years of singing in a quartet I never get over people who want to know if they can pay less than our listed show price. I always tell them yes and assure them that I'll just cut that percentage of the notes and words out of the songs. I've even encountered one or two requesters who wanted to know if the price was lower if I brought three people instead of four.
£20? My video editor charges me £175 for editing a 4 minute video. And that's cheap!
In a computer repair. Shops charge 45$-75$ to just look at it for 1 hour standard shop rate after that I do 20 to look 20 an hour after that.
This song rings very true. F**k people who expect people to work for free. https://youtu.be/NGR20B2cEBQ
Maybe if it was so important to your job you will pay the price? I'm guessing they waited until the last minute and now it's a hurry! The designer probably knew they wouldn't pay, this the lockout. I bet it was already locked when it was sent. If not, for her to come right back and say she wasn't paying was really stupid.
20 euro? That is wild. I would charge $100s if not 1,000s. I have s friends who does video. He charges $500 daily rate. Which seems cheap
To be fair, my husband and I are raising 4 children. 2 may very well grow to be arseholes DESPITE our parenting. Sometimes people suck for no good reason.
Load More Replies... Summary: Trump and his attorneys discuss him not paying for services rendered.
I love when entitled demanding people get smacked down. Well done, sir.
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