Reviews Of Freelancers

Gary Connolly
Alcomdale, Alberta
bytemee@telusplanet.net

Gary was hired to be the interviewer for a 1-2 hour interview with me.

He came to me by way of Guru & I thought everything was fine.

Part of his job was to review 3-4 files of questions, pull the ones he felt were suited for the interview, add an intro, exit & sales pitches & send it back to me.

What I got back was nothing more than 10 questions that weren’t suited for the interview because there was to be one hour addressing one type of audience, & then other hour addressing another type of audience. He had mixed the 2 audiences together.

I wrote him back & he didn’t seem to understand what I was saying, so I wrote him again.

I didn’t get a response, so 3-4 days later I decided to call him to see what was going on.

He said he had misunderstood me, & I was now happy that things were cleared up & work would move along, as it had already been 1-1 1/2 weeks since he was awarded the project & while there was no extreme rush when I first hired him, I thought we’d be interviewing with one week.  I mean how long does it take to tweak a document & set a date for the interview.

On the phone he claimed that he lost power & internet access & I believed him because of the many storms North America was having. He said this is why he hadn’t e-mailed me. He said he hoped his e-mail would be up & running later that day & he would send me the work/interview file.

4-5 days later once again, nothing from him.

So I PMed (private messaged) him on Guru saying:

” Gary, Michelle here again.

We spoke on the phone like 4-5 days ago & I expected to receive the docs that day or the next, & I still haven’t received anything.

This is starting to be a problem for me. If you are having problems with accessing the net, or you are too busy with other things, then I will have to go with someone else because I can’t await any longer.

It’s been 2 weeks since I decided to award you the project & while there was no immediate rush, I certainly didn’t expect it to take this long just to get the questions in order & pick a date to do the interview.”

His response back the next day was:

“Gee, Michelle … I’m sorry. I thought I had explained that I would have it to you by the weekend and then we were going to do the interview this week on Monday or Tuesday when we talked on Wednesday. I’m teaching class all day today, so if you need to award it to someone else to get it done in a more timely manner, please do, I completely understand your dilemma.

It was nice meeting you and I would be glad to impart any advice or wisdom I might be able to if you or the new person needs any help at all, just let me know.

Sincerely,

Gary”

So now I wasn’t very happy. He had strung me along for 2 weeks & it didn’t seem to me that he cared one way or another that the work wasn’t done, or that I had been kept waiting. Sure he seemed sincere, but sincere doesn’t run a business, getting the work DONE runs a business.

When someone says “sure, go with someone else”, to me that means, I don’t give a damm if the work is done.

Also he didn’t make any sense, if he did say what he claims he said, then why hadn’t I received anything considering it was now Sunday night, the last day of the weekend.

So I wrote back with:

“  Hi Gary,

I don’t remember hearing the weekend, & it’s already Sunday & still no document from you.

I still have to go through & read the doc that you send me to make any changes, so I don’t know how I would have agreed to leaving it until the weekend if we were supposed to do the interview on Monday. That doesn’t even make sense to me.

I’m pretty sure you said you would get it to me in the next day or two.

In fact you even said you had to wait until your e-mail is up & running which you hoped it would be that day, so why would you even say that if you didn’t plan on sending it to me until 5-6 days later?

So I’m not sure what the problem is here, this is the 2nd time there’s been a problem with communication.

So do I hear you saying you don’t want to do the project?”

I didn’t get a response back from him, so when I saw him on Yahoo IM the next day, I IMed him asking what is going on???

He started to sound accommodating until I referenced my last PM in Guru.

I thought he went to go read the PM, so I was waiting & waiting & waiting.

It was clear after 2 hours of waiting this guy was just ignoring me.

He had just wasted my precious time & cost me money because now I had to go find someone else.

I had been about to look for someone else back when he didn’t do the editing of the file properly, but because I spoke to him on the phone & he said all was fine, I believed him & never bothered placing another ad.

NOT a good worker in my opinion & it’s clear he was lying about a few things!