Freelance work and feeling cheated.

[MoJo5]

Hello all,

In March I went for an interview in a social media company. I was not given the role however I was contacted to be told they thought I was more suitable for freelance work for a different role within the company. This would be work from home. Throughout March and April I trained and completed test reports. I was told they thought I was good and they sent me a contract to employ me. All well I thought. The work started to come in. I was told I would get a 'client' and would do continual reports for this client however while they were in the process of finding a 'client' for me they kept sending me clients to 'cover' for.What's more I was being asked to give these social media reports in at 8am! I had to use their system to look at all social media mentions about the client (remember each time I was asked to cover a new client so had to research extensively each client) and I had 24 hours to edit and write a report about the social media mentions. What took me 10 hours they said should only take me 2 hours and they continued to give me more reports and said I would get quicker. Each time I got very positive feedback. The thing is I never got quicker. IT is a very time consuming job and I was getting up at 4am to finish the reports and often working till 11pm the night before to complete the reports. It was all time consuming and reports on Monday mornings (containing 3 days worth of social media mentions and editing) were not paid anymore. I have 3 children aged 2, 6 and 10 and you can imagine how hard it is to work from home to strict morning deadlines with 3 children at home. As they kept telling me the work would get easier.. and it did.. until they asked me to cover yet another new client .. and in fact I'm sure that this sort of work is impossible in the two hours they believe. I was working very hard up till the end of July and I was feeling really stressed. I kept on because since having my middle child I have found it a struggle to get back to work and even though I find this hard I was overjoyed to be working again, using my brain and I gained tremendous self confidence when I pressed the 'submit' button for my completed report to go to the client. Moreover there is a gap on my C.V and this seemed to fill it nicely.
I had a long holiday arranged many years ago.. for the month of August and I was slightly worried how I would tell the company. Finally I sent them an email to say I had a 'prior commitment' and they agreed and all was okay. However, since I have returned on the 29th August I have not heard from the company. I have sent them an email to tell them I am available for work again and I have tried to phone the office once,only to be told they are in meetings and despite leaving my name no-one has called me back. I can't believe they can just drop me like this after two months of unpaid training and all the work and stress I did to work hard for this company. Is this the nature of freelance work that they don't bother to contact you if they have no work? Or do you think they got someone else while I was away in August? Should I contact them again or should I just leave it and move on and apply for another job. I feel very disappointed and think it is rude of them .. they could at least let me know what the situation is even if they have someone else it is only civil and polite to let me know when it is obvious I have tried to contact the company. Any advice/consolation/comments?

This sounds like a stressful situation.

I freelance and you do come across some clients/potential clients that take the p$$s.

I am guessing they have taken advantage of the fact you were keen for a role you could do around the children and have presented you with work that cannot be done in the paid for hours by they banked on you doing a good job even if it took longer.

It sounds like they are being very unrealistic about what can be done. Especially with a new client/subject area each time.

An experienced freelancer might have said "What you are asking isn't possible in the 2 hours" and given them the choice of increasing the allowed hours or dropping them and trying to find a new client. It is a risk though, a client verus a potential client.

Have you been paid for the work you have done?

Personally I would forget about them and try to find a better opportunity.

I am not sure there is much you can do in terms of redress.

Thanks for your comments Mrs MargoLeadbetter.

"An experienced freelancer might have said "What you are asking isn't possible in the 2 hours" and given them the choice of increasing the allowed hours or dropping them and trying to find a new client. It is a risk though, a client verus a potential client."

I am not an experience freelance but I was aware they were taking the piss and more than once told them that what they were asking in the 2 hours' was not possible. They tried to fob me off mostly saying that they do in house checks and this time was realistic although once I did push (a Monday when I had been covering the end of the hacking trial all weekend) and they paid me marginally more put really it was a piss take.

Quite frankly I feel hurt and angry that all the time I was working for them in such stressful situations (often going to a friend's house (she has no kids) on the Sunday to work (impossible at home with 3 kids on a Sunday) but taking valuable time away from my weekend with the family and not having time to apply for other jobs because I was working so hard for them and now this! And in the grand scale of things for pittance as a few times I had to put my youngest into nursery and I was working for nothing.

I have an MA in Journalism and I'm so down at the moment I feel disillusioned about everyone at the moment.

Sorry I didn't mean to sound patronising if I did. I just wondered how far you pushed back to them. I could understand wanting to make it work, even if not ideal, as interesting roles you can do without childcare/not much childcare are very few and far between.

Talking of wanting it to work....I recall when I started out freelancing travelling half-way across the country at my own expense to meet an ex high class escort who wanted somebody to help her with marketing of her book/dating website. My DH was worried it was a scam or I'd be in danger....it wasn't & I wasn't...but looking back I cannot believe I went to her house! It didn't go anywhere...

Don't let one badly behaved company put you off. There are plenty of decent employers out there. And you gained experience from the work you did for them.

Assuming you are into social media, have you heard about digitalmums.org/ ?

Do you want to work around the kids or are you up for a 9 - 5 etc? What is your ideal job?

Hi thanks,

Still not heard back from the company. I can't believe this.
I am happy to get a job out of the home to be honest. I have found this working from home with kids to be very difficult indeed. 9-5 would suit me 4 days a week. My ideal job would be either in a media relations role networking to gain business for my company (preferably in an international company as I speak Spanish and French) or a writing role where I have to write to deadlines in an office (not from home) as I love writing and if I know I have to do it to deadlines I am much more likely to write). I would love to work in a PR/Media Manager type of roll in a large company as that is what I excel in. But I have been out of the market since I had my son and it is so hard to get back to work.

www.hmrc.gov.uk/employment-status/index.htm

If you worked for only one company and they had considerable control over your workload and deadlines (AND hired your work out to "their" clients), they may have been violating IR35 rules (companies trying to get round paying NI and offering employment benefits).

What do you want? If you've got all your money out of them and believe they have in fact terminated you as an employee (freelance, my foot), you could shop them.

Don't feel bad about not having known, by the way. I once worked "freelance" in a company which probably legally was my employer. However, at least I declared all my earnings, so Her Majesty got her share... while one of my colleagues discovered that they had been pocketing his tax/N.I. deductions, so neither he nor Her Majesty got the money!