What a cheek!

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I just have to write about this and get it off my chest. I do freelance scientific editing work, often to help people whose first language is not English. Last month I had urgent requests to help two Chinese students, each of whom had to submit a thesis and had an urgent deadline looming. One was incredibly polite and apologetic, constantly thanking me for my help and apologising for her poor writing (which was actually not that bad) and for asking for work in a hurry. She was so sorry that she really needed the work doing in less than a week, and so grateful that I did it all in good time. When I sent the invoice she paid it the next day. The other was totally opposite, very brusque and demanding. She sent me her work a bit at a time, bombarded me with emails and calls; she would pester me for advice on a single phrase and then expect an answer within moments, sending me tetchy emails saying that ‘this is not OK!’ when I didn’t reply right away. At one point she even sent me a chapter at 11pm on a Saturday night and told me the deadline was 2am – and yes I did the work because I felt sorry for her. But when I sent the invoice she told me she was going travelling and would deal with it when she came back. Now she is back and guess what? She doesn’t want to pay it. She has sent me an email explaining that since several pieces of work were actually all parts of the same section, I should not charge separately for those, and that she doesn’t think the speed fee is reasonable giving that she warned me in advance that she would need urgent help. She has even gone so far as to write out a totally new invoice that she thinks she should pay and asking me to approve it! Now my normal turnaround time is one week and I think that I am being very generous in only charging her the extra 20% (normally charged for a time of 3 days) when she wanted the work back within 3 hours and that in the middle of a Saturday night – I should have charged at least double! She says that she will need help again later in October but after the last experience I’m not inclined to offer – nor to accept her revised invoice either! What would you do? All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2017.