More employment weirdness
Last month I did what turned into a one-day gig at what was a promising book packager in the area. Textbooks, but we can't all work in the bestseller market, now can we? It was well situated, and turned out to be a place that had eaten another packager I'd done work for back in the 1990s -- they like me, and I liked them.
Then it turned weird. Seriously weird. The contract, which I had to sign before I literally stepped into the main offices, was the exact opposite of the situation I was presented with. I was to work in-house, using their equipment, their hours, but keep track of the hours myself. The contract stated I was to work off-site, using only my equipment and software (though of their choosing), my hours, and was even able to subcontract the work. When I pointed out that the contract was void by virtue of the situation, but I was more than willing to sign it, the manager in charge of me got quite hostile and started to argue that I was questioning everything, including my hourly rate (which was on page one of the contract). I said I was fine with the rate, but she might want someone in HR or legal to look at the contract, as someone could say it was void. Would she like to show me the offices now? She calmed down a bit, but continued to play hot/cold the rest of the time I was in her presence.
She wasted an hour showing me around for an hour until she tired of me; it was clearly all about her (she'd shown signs of this during the interview), showing off how she was Boss of Everyone, then another hour was with one of her minions (who would be my direct supervisor for the project) going over the textbook project itself and how it needed to be done in Quark. Quark 4.0, by the way.
I was moved from desk to desk, having to download the entire project and install all new fonts every time I was moved. I ended up restarting all my work twice over. The final move took me to a cubicle right across from the front door and the receptionist, so I was on "view" at all times. The computer was a slightly broken down old G3 "bondo blue" running Mac OS-9, a broken office chair, and no light (the overheads are turned off in the main work area where the freelancers are penned). No lights were available, as many cubes of the full-time employees had taken 2-3 lamps to light their areas. It was ... difficult to say the least.
(I spent the next two weeks under a doctor's care for my back, by the way.)
The offices were locked with a keycard. I wasn't given one. In order to leave and come back, I was told I would have to borrow the card from the receptionist. Okay, it was looking even more like a sweatshop than ever, but the manager had made sure to say, over and over while she walked me around introducing me to people that morning, that my time is my own, I was to take my time to make sure the work was done right, to take breaks when I needed to, and to ask if I needed to get to the bathroom that it wasn't an imposition on the receptionist. Silly me, I believed her.
I labored on. I kept being interrupted. I was given no email access, and had no working phone. I had to (in spite of my handicapped back/knee/hip, which they knew about) walk all the way around the cubes to the opposite side of the offices and back again each time I ran into something odd in the book I was setting. Which was often. By the end of the day, my bad knee was the size of a softball and I was limping hard. I could barely walk. Turns out the copy I was to slavishly follow had been edited but not updated, and every time it deviated I had to get permission to type in all the new material, which was every few minutes. Not surprisingly, I got very little done that first day, as I was told not to come in until after 10am, when the manager came in (I noted she left at 2pm).
I took two 4-minute bathroom breaks. I walked down the hall at lunchtime and got an iced tea out of the machines to go with the sandwich I brought; I took 20 minutes off to eat, right there in their little kitchenette, which looked like no one every used it (the table was covered in pirated CDs someone was giving away in the office). That's my day.
Next day, I come in and suddenly I'm whisked away from everyone else, told to go sit in the conference room, and the HR person -- who had not been there the day before -- came in and told me that I was fired for:
1. "Leaving the office every five minutes"
2. Taking too many bathroom breaks ("Going to the bathroom constantly")
3. "Not getting enough work done"
4. "Making constant phone calls"
You just read my complete day, above. None of these things were even close to the truth. Something else was going on, and it was bizarre. She was beyond hostile.
When I told the HR woman that she hadn't been there and clearly something odd was going on as absolutely none of the above was true, she started yelling at me, raising her voice higher and higher to get me to yell back at her, and then started in on, "You said you were a professional, and clearly you're not and you've never done any of this work before ..." at which point I said, "Clearly there's something else going on here and someone doesn't like me for reasons I don't understand; I don't stay where I'm not wanted, I'm a professional and I don't put up with this sort of behavior -- I'm out of here" and walked to the door. She prevented me from leaving by blocking the door and kept right on going, yelling that I couldn't quit since I was fired. "As I'm a freelancer, it doesn't matter," I told her, "I'm leaving your office and you're giving me a copy of my contract. I don't work in sweatshops."
Ah, the contract. Seems no one liked my pointing out that the contract was completely different from the work situation, but they weren't going to own up to that. So they just made up shit.
My favorite was that I clearly had never done the work before now. Really? So how did I know to even do the work I finally got done despite the horrific conditions? She couldn't answer that. They'd checked my references after my interview, I know that for a fact. How did I possibly "leave the office every five minutes" without a keycard to get back in? No answer. How could I possibly "make too many phone calls" with no working phone? No answer. Same for the bathroom accusation -- no answer. Why the made-up excuses and outright professional slander? No answer. I pointed out that the next time she wanted to pull this trick, she should come up with some better excuses, as these were insulting to my intelligence. No, I wasn't in a good mood by the time she had finished screaming at me so the entire office could hear her, then stood glowering at me as if I'd slaughtered a baby in front of her, mumbling under her breath, "You said you were a professional..."
I was escorted by her to my desk, I was allowed to take my belongings under her watchful eye, and I was escorted to the door -- as if I were a criminal. I was told I had to wait "in the parking lot" for my husband. Yes, the handicapped person was left to stand in the parking lot.
None of this illegal. All of this beyond bizarre.
It gets weirder, but that's another post for perhaps later today. I saw the same company trolling for more "employees" (they always say "salary" on their listings, but it's for freelancers, just like they treated me) at the Book Builders of Boston website job listings as well as at Media Bistro's job listings. Beware. They're in New England. I can't say more.
Looks like they've protected their asses by making freelancers sign a contract that voids itself by simply existing, then relying on that to protect them from employee/contractor suits through the state. A freelancer would have to sue them personally for breach of contract, instead, or so I've been told by someone at the state level. We shall see. My lawyer is a director of the firm which also represents them; small world. It means the firm can't represent either of us if this goes to court. I doubt that will make the company happy.
They're banking on freelancers not being able to afford to sue them for breach of contract. And they're right.
These people are nasty and know what they're doing.
I can only hope for Karma in This Lifetime, and that it will bite them on the ass.
Between this and my run-in with the printer this week, you can see why I think I'm
CURSED
Then it turned weird. Seriously weird. The contract, which I had to sign before I literally stepped into the main offices, was the exact opposite of the situation I was presented with. I was to work in-house, using their equipment, their hours, but keep track of the hours myself. The contract stated I was to work off-site, using only my equipment and software (though of their choosing), my hours, and was even able to subcontract the work. When I pointed out that the contract was void by virtue of the situation, but I was more than willing to sign it, the manager in charge of me got quite hostile and started to argue that I was questioning everything, including my hourly rate (which was on page one of the contract). I said I was fine with the rate, but she might want someone in HR or legal to look at the contract, as someone could say it was void. Would she like to show me the offices now? She calmed down a bit, but continued to play hot/cold the rest of the time I was in her presence.
She wasted an hour showing me around for an hour until she tired of me; it was clearly all about her (she'd shown signs of this during the interview), showing off how she was Boss of Everyone, then another hour was with one of her minions (who would be my direct supervisor for the project) going over the textbook project itself and how it needed to be done in Quark. Quark 4.0, by the way.
I was moved from desk to desk, having to download the entire project and install all new fonts every time I was moved. I ended up restarting all my work twice over. The final move took me to a cubicle right across from the front door and the receptionist, so I was on "view" at all times. The computer was a slightly broken down old G3 "bondo blue" running Mac OS-9, a broken office chair, and no light (the overheads are turned off in the main work area where the freelancers are penned). No lights were available, as many cubes of the full-time employees had taken 2-3 lamps to light their areas. It was ... difficult to say the least.
(I spent the next two weeks under a doctor's care for my back, by the way.)
The offices were locked with a keycard. I wasn't given one. In order to leave and come back, I was told I would have to borrow the card from the receptionist. Okay, it was looking even more like a sweatshop than ever, but the manager had made sure to say, over and over while she walked me around introducing me to people that morning, that my time is my own, I was to take my time to make sure the work was done right, to take breaks when I needed to, and to ask if I needed to get to the bathroom that it wasn't an imposition on the receptionist. Silly me, I believed her.
I labored on. I kept being interrupted. I was given no email access, and had no working phone. I had to (in spite of my handicapped back/knee/hip, which they knew about) walk all the way around the cubes to the opposite side of the offices and back again each time I ran into something odd in the book I was setting. Which was often. By the end of the day, my bad knee was the size of a softball and I was limping hard. I could barely walk. Turns out the copy I was to slavishly follow had been edited but not updated, and every time it deviated I had to get permission to type in all the new material, which was every few minutes. Not surprisingly, I got very little done that first day, as I was told not to come in until after 10am, when the manager came in (I noted she left at 2pm).
I took two 4-minute bathroom breaks. I walked down the hall at lunchtime and got an iced tea out of the machines to go with the sandwich I brought; I took 20 minutes off to eat, right there in their little kitchenette, which looked like no one every used it (the table was covered in pirated CDs someone was giving away in the office). That's my day.
Next day, I come in and suddenly I'm whisked away from everyone else, told to go sit in the conference room, and the HR person -- who had not been there the day before -- came in and told me that I was fired for:
1. "Leaving the office every five minutes"
2. Taking too many bathroom breaks ("Going to the bathroom constantly")
3. "Not getting enough work done"
4. "Making constant phone calls"
You just read my complete day, above. None of these things were even close to the truth. Something else was going on, and it was bizarre. She was beyond hostile.
When I told the HR woman that she hadn't been there and clearly something odd was going on as absolutely none of the above was true, she started yelling at me, raising her voice higher and higher to get me to yell back at her, and then started in on, "You said you were a professional, and clearly you're not and you've never done any of this work before ..." at which point I said, "Clearly there's something else going on here and someone doesn't like me for reasons I don't understand; I don't stay where I'm not wanted, I'm a professional and I don't put up with this sort of behavior -- I'm out of here" and walked to the door. She prevented me from leaving by blocking the door and kept right on going, yelling that I couldn't quit since I was fired. "As I'm a freelancer, it doesn't matter," I told her, "I'm leaving your office and you're giving me a copy of my contract. I don't work in sweatshops."
Ah, the contract. Seems no one liked my pointing out that the contract was completely different from the work situation, but they weren't going to own up to that. So they just made up shit.
My favorite was that I clearly had never done the work before now. Really? So how did I know to even do the work I finally got done despite the horrific conditions? She couldn't answer that. They'd checked my references after my interview, I know that for a fact. How did I possibly "leave the office every five minutes" without a keycard to get back in? No answer. How could I possibly "make too many phone calls" with no working phone? No answer. Same for the bathroom accusation -- no answer. Why the made-up excuses and outright professional slander? No answer. I pointed out that the next time she wanted to pull this trick, she should come up with some better excuses, as these were insulting to my intelligence. No, I wasn't in a good mood by the time she had finished screaming at me so the entire office could hear her, then stood glowering at me as if I'd slaughtered a baby in front of her, mumbling under her breath, "You said you were a professional..."
I was escorted by her to my desk, I was allowed to take my belongings under her watchful eye, and I was escorted to the door -- as if I were a criminal. I was told I had to wait "in the parking lot" for my husband. Yes, the handicapped person was left to stand in the parking lot.
None of this illegal. All of this beyond bizarre.
It gets weirder, but that's another post for perhaps later today. I saw the same company trolling for more "employees" (they always say "salary" on their listings, but it's for freelancers, just like they treated me) at the Book Builders of Boston website job listings as well as at Media Bistro's job listings. Beware. They're in New England. I can't say more.
Looks like they've protected their asses by making freelancers sign a contract that voids itself by simply existing, then relying on that to protect them from employee/contractor suits through the state. A freelancer would have to sue them personally for breach of contract, instead, or so I've been told by someone at the state level. We shall see. My lawyer is a director of the firm which also represents them; small world. It means the firm can't represent either of us if this goes to court. I doubt that will make the company happy.
They're banking on freelancers not being able to afford to sue them for breach of contract. And they're right.
These people are nasty and know what they're doing.
I can only hope for Karma in This Lifetime, and that it will bite them on the ass.
Between this and my run-in with the printer this week, you can see why I think I'm
CURSED