Unreasonable (?) work demands

[UnaCorda]

I have two AIBUs (which is perhaps unreasonable in itself)...

1. AIBU to think that if you set a date by which you want something to be done you shouldn't start sending impatient-sounding reminders until after this date?

2. If you manage freelancers who you know work for several organisations (not a desk job), is it reasonable to expect tasks to be turned round in 24 hours when not an emergency? (Particularly when it takes you fucking ages to provide them with important information they've requested.)

@Pumpkinnose

They are the client, if you’re not happy they can get another freelancer. Remember you’re fully dispensable.

Of course, but these extra jobs are not what I'm being paid to do, they're additional admin which, while necessary (and I have no objection to doing them), should never require emergency action.

It's along the lines of being a psychotherapist, and your manager suddenly asks you to write a set of six-month case studes on all your patients by the following day, knowing that you are working in the consulting room all that day and the following and obviously cannot do admin tasks during that time.

Sometimes it's the client that's dispensable to the freelancer.

sometimes.. it's REALLY rare. Let's be honest, if the freelancer suddenly gets run over by a bus, the client business won't stop, solutions will always be found. You really don't want to push and ensure they are actively looking for alternative in the background whilst chasing you...

2) Sometimes it's the client that's dispensable to the freelancer. Absolutely! Especially at the moment!

I have just shed a client. She was pushing me to break my own covid regs, decrease my turnaround time and charge her less - apparently her business had suffered in all of this!! She was a little surprised when I emailed her and told her I would not be able to accommodate her requirements, giving her a couple of websites where she could find proper replacements for me, awhiilst reminding her that my covid regs were industry standard!

Just this morning she has emailed with an emergency. I am not going to help her.

@HollywoodHandshake

Sometimes it's the client that's dispensable to the freelancer.

sometimes.. it's REALLY rare. Let's be honest, if the freelancer suddenly gets run over by a bus, the client business won't stop, solutions will always be found. You really don't want to push and ensure they are actively looking for alternative in the background whilst chasing you...

In my line of work there are many clients (usually a different one every half an hour), all of whom are eminently dispensible individually (in purely business terms). However in the cases I'm talking about it's the managers of the organisations I work for making the unreasonable requests, not the clients.

This remind me of a saying I was told by a boss.
Poor planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on mine.”
The problem with some clients ( as well as others), is that think s**t rolls downwards and if they deem you lower than them, they assume they can pass over all their hassles to you.
Sadly its a difficult situation but if you are in a position to , I would hold back and give them a more feasible deadline.
In future you may want to advise them XX days to complete a task after the information is provided, so they cant blame you for projects being late.

I think it's fair enough to send out reminders checking everything is on track for completion date. But 24 hours does sound ridiculously short notice. But on the other hand perhaps freelancers prioritise the more aggressive demanding clients so if you don't make demands you go to the bottom of their list.

It would be very unprofessional NOT to check progress and wait until after the deadline to wake up about it once the deadline has pass

It really wouldn’t. Being professional means you employ someone you trust to deliver on time and leave them to get on with it in the knowledge that they’ll meet the deadline or give you an early heads up if it’s not possible for some reason.

My pet hate when I had multiple clients was the one who had two specific days allocated to her and called me during working hours on other days when I was working in another client’s offices. She then got bent out of shape when I couldn’t deal with her there and then.

1. Correct, you should have up until your deadline before they start getting impatient. To help with this I keep in touch with my clients offering them occasional updates. I think they just want to make sure you're doing it, so they don't risk actually reaching their deadline and getting nothing. When you're not physically seeing someone doing the work it can be difficult to leave them to it.

2. If they want it done within 24 hours it's reasonable to ask, but also reasonable for you to ask whether you could have some extra time. If you're not able to complete the work within their deadline they should fine another freelancer.

My boss does this. He gives you something to do, in an unreasonable but doable timeframe (say 3 days) for no reason other than he forgets about things if it's not done instantly, but then when you haven't done it within 24 hours he starts doing it himself. It's really fucking annoying and one of the reasons I want to leave this job but it's well paid and if I stick it out for two more years my mortgage will be paid off and I can give him a big fuck you and go and work in horticulture for a fifth of the pay. He's been given this feedback time and again by people who leave as they can't take it anymore, but he still persists. And gets really angry at them, so you can't raise it while you work there.

@UnaCorda

I have two AIBUs (which is perhaps unreasonable in itself)...

1. AIBU to think that if you set a date by which you want something to be done you shouldn't start sending impatient-sounding reminders until after this date?

2. If you manage freelancers who you know work for several organisations (not a desk job), is it reasonable to expect tasks to be turned round in 24 hours when not an emergency? (Particularly when it takes you fucking ages to provide them with important information they've requested.)

re your AIBU 1.

I personally think no, you shouldn't send reminders but it depends on your boss and how soon they want the work done. I had a complex spreadsheet/table to do based on results of a survey - what with other work I had to do this took me more time than expected and then on Friday (my busiest day of the week) I kept getting interrupted with 'urgent' requests - not helped by my boss ringing me for a 30 minute chat to see where I was with the work but chatting about work too - the impatient reminders were every day and I kept thinking I know I have to do this. In the end my boss finished the work herself which I didn't want her to do but I'm doing 2 people's jobs at once.

2. freelancers - no idea but would say yes. reasonable.

YANBU
at all
Also don't do unpaid work

Ah, I see you're a freelancer. Well in this case probably fine for both. But I wouldn't like constant reminders and check ups on work especially if I was experienced.

I'd never treat a freelancer like that. With a freelancer you are paying more per hour than if you had staff and you need to use their time most wisely of all your 'resources'. Which means not wasting their time asking for updates - find a freelancer you trust, plan and communicate what you need, and let them get on with it!

1. Depends on timescales. If it's under a week from commission/briefing to deadline, then no. If it's more than a week, I would expect a (very brief) update so I could keep track of everything and assign more resources if needed.

1. How are you charging? I have worked with freelancers who make it clear up front that they have a standard rate and a 'rush' rate. If work is needed at less than x hours/days notice, they charge the rush rate.

*Sometimes it's the client that's dispensable to the freelancer.

sometimes.. it's REALLY rare. Let's be honest, if the freelancer suddenly gets run over by a bus, the client business won't stop, solutions will always be found. You really don't want to push and ensure they are actively looking for alternative in the background whilst chasing you...*

Not rare at all in my field. Good freelancers are fought over, paid VERY highly and can take their pick of clients. Understanding that we need to be flexible in order to work with the best people is essential as there is always far more work available than freelance resource.

1. If I have a date to work to I would tend to give an update on progress anyway. I wouldn't be happy with an impatient-sounding reminder before the due date, but would be fine with a friendly 'how are you doing' sort of email in advance. It's not everybody's style, but it stops the freelancer getting panicky, which can be counter-productive.

2. Yes, just ask them how busy they are and if they have the time to fit it in quickly. I would be fine with 24 hours, depending on the task and how long it would take. You need to brief a freelancer properly and give them relevant information so they don't need to take up your time asking questions.

I struggle a bit with people who keep phoning to ask if there have been any developments with what I'm working on. There are only so many ways of saying politely "If there had been developments I would have told you".

1) AIBU to think that if you set a date by which you want something to be done you shouldn't start sending impatient-sounding reminders until after this date?
Depends if you are expected to send drafts before the final product or to confirm that the project is running on time.

2) If you manage freelancers who you know work for several organisations (not a desk job), is it reasonable to expect tasks to be turned round in 24 hours when not an emergency? (Particularly when it takes you fucking ages to provide them with important information they've requested.)
Why not if they think it can be done? If you can't you just respond that it's too tight and ask if they can wait another day.

That's the whole point of being freelance you negotiate.

If people want progress updates then they should say so when the details of what is to be done are being arranged.
I used to work in an industry where people would do something (which needed prior signing off) and then bring to my team to sign off. Regularly. Often they would have full-blown temper tantrums because we had a set of procedures and protocols that had to be met, and because they'd already done the thing WITHOUT permission, it then meant a whole load of other stuff had to be covered.

@dontdisturbmenow

1) AIBU to think that if you set a date by which you want something to be done you shouldn't start sending impatient-sounding reminders until after this date? Depends if you are expected to send drafts before the final product or to confirm that the project is running on time.

2) If you manage freelancers who you know work for several organisations (not a desk job), is it reasonable to expect tasks to be turned round in 24 hours when not an emergency? (Particularly when it takes you fucking ages to provide them with important information they've requested.)
Why not if they think it can be done? If you can't you just respond that it's too tight and ask if they can wait another day.

That's the whole point of being freelance you negotiate.

1. No, not expected to do this (my work isn't project-based).

2. I did do that, but I was annoyed by the expectation (and by the patronising tone of the email, complete with date by which task was required written in red as if I'm a moron who can't read).

There's a good chance that, as they deal with multiple freelancers, that there is at least one that has failed to keep to timescales more than once - or covered it up/capitalised on a deadline only being verbal rather than on email. But they've needed to keep them for some reason, such as specialist skills they haven't been able to replace so far.

As a result, rather than risk the more unreliable one taking exception and disappearing/whatever, they're sending everybody the same pointed emails so that Mr or Ms Flaky knows exactly what's required and that they expect to know if there's a problem long before it all goes tits up at the last minute.

I often spend my working day trying to get essential information out of people so I can get the important things done. If I don't remind them when I need something by at least twice beforehand, I know from experience that it won't come until afterwards. I have scraped in literally at the very last second thanks to this happening before, but unlike other colleagues who feel as though they might die of embarassment if they say 'No, you haven't given me enough time for this', I will say well in advance when I need something by (reducing the timescale to allow for their tardiness), remind them just before and on the day itself. And when they still drop stuff in stupidly short timescales, I do say 'This came too late to be able to....'. Which has no repercussions for me, as I have a paper trail showing when I said I'd need something by, plus polite reminders making it very clear at a glance what the deadlines were.

TL;dr Just because you're reliable, that doesn't mean that the others are. And to blindly trust everybody to be as reliable as you would be something they would be very strongly criticised for - and their lack of reminders and chasing would be taken as proof of their incompetence.

Do they send reminders because experience tells them the task won't be done on time?

Possibly, although usually they're asking several colleagues to do the same task (i.e. provide the same set of information). I'm pretty efficient. The reminder today was specific to me, just because the administrator was writing to me anyway: along the lines of, "Please hurry up and give me this information I've asked for," when it's not due for another two days.

No-one on MN can judge this because you haven't provide enough information. How long do the tasks take usually? How long is "fucking ages"?

Tasks are supplementary to the main content of my work (i.e. usually administrative). This one was quite time-consuming (I did it today and it probably took about three hours altogether).

Fucking ages was over a week to give me a fairly straightforward piece of information I needed before seeing a client. I had to ask for the information four times, before I was eventually told something that turned out to be nonsense.

TL;dr Just because you're reliable, that doesn't mean that the others are. And to blindly trust everybody to be as reliable as you would be something they would be very strongly criticised for - and their lack of reminders and chasing would be taken as proof of their incompetence.

You make a good point.

YANBU