Reviews Of Freelancers

Cody McKeithan
codymckeithan@gmail.com
Nashville, Tennessee

If you need to confirm his phone number, feel free to e-mail me.

Cody applied for our Jr. Editor’s position.

Unfortunately during the time of her application, I was very very busy hiring for several positions including hers, about ready to launch a new product, & dealing with personal things like moving, looking for housing, etc.

I apologized to her that I forgot about her at one point, but unlike some others, she didn’t keep on top of me to get the interview done.

I did manage to IM her once, but she wasn’t around.

I don’t remember telling her to wait until I contacted her again because normally I never do that. (after reviewing what I wrote, I NEVER ONCE told her to wait. She IMed me when I was too tired, I IMed her when she wasn’t around. I expected her to keep on top of IMing me, & she never did.)

I know very well I get swamped with work & need others to jog my memory & I tell everyone this, it’s not like I hide it from people. This is one of the cons to being such a small business, there is no HR department.

So,  the next thing I know 2 weeks later, she’s writing me a nasty e-mail talking about respecting people’s time & about how she shouldn’t have listened to me her waiting for me.

I remember now thinking that this girl really doesn’t want the job. I deal with tons of independent contractors every day, every week, every month.

The ones who want the jobs pester me to no end & I actually respect that. LOL

The ones who except me to chase them or just don’t care fall by the wayside.

Anyway, I wrote her back asking where I stated such a thing & that I am busy & I thought she knew this already because I was pretty sure I had told her this.

The next thing I know, she’s sending me our IMing conversation (editing) & no where does it say I asked her to wait.

She’s also accusing me of playing games & proceeds to tell me I have no respect for others. This of course upset me because nothing could be further from the truth.

I told her she doesn’t know what she’s talking about & to never respond to our company again. I also said I’m glad this transpired now, because otherwise I would have wasted about 4 hours of my time only to probably get this person misunderstanding me & accusing me of things some time down the road.

I get this lovely behavior back…

“Lack of understanding? Behavior? Wasted time????? BITCH, You need to pull your head out of your ass. And don’t waste my fucking cyberspace again”

Thank you Universe for showing me her true colors before going any further. Nastiness BIG TIME.

Despite her behavior, I still feel bad.

It’s soooo unlike me to keep anyone hanging & I care very much for all independent contractors who are sharp, on the ball, skilled, respectful, are skilled at communication & hard working, but once again, my situation just couldn’t be helped. I am only one person doing a million things at once.

Had she contacted me a few more times, I know the interview would have eventually taken place, but she never did & I’m glad it never went through.

Sunmoon08@aol.com

This one has serious anger issues. I don’t even know who he is, all I know is a placed an ad to hire someone & this is what he wrote…

“you are a moron.
i hope your wife is fucking your best friend,
i would”

This is a post I posted to a thread, & I thought it was soo good, I decided to start tips or independent contractors.

——————————

Geeze, I just seem to be hip hoping around on here tonight LOL

I totally get what you are saying & I respect that, but listen to what I have to say being a buyer…

1. I reject 90% of all providers for ONE reason, they DON’T read the hiring ad & follow simple instructions, so to base my rejection behavior on your next decision isn’t fair to me & other buyers who do the same thing.
2. I know I’m rare, but I tell everyone if I’m not interested, & I’ll even tell them why.

I may not be soft & cuddly about it, but I feel it’s better to be straight forward, than to disrespect the person & just disappear. Also I feel it’s a great learning tool a sharp IC can learn from.

The nasty ones don’t care b/c they don’t want to learn from their mistakes, they just blame others.

Some thank me for my kindness, others flame me & it starts a problem.

The ONLY 2 reasons I won’t tell a person I’m not interested is the following:

a) I end up hiring someone & I get sooo caught up in the work (part of a problem being a very small company, I wear many hats), I don’t have the time to notify everyone.

Now this generally only happens when I post a hiring ad on CL, but it’s happened on bidding sites too, & there have been many times when the project has expired & I still don’t have anyone to fill the position.

b) I used to tell everyone via e-mail why I wouldn’t even go to the next stage in the screening process, but now I just delete b/c I no longer have the energy or the time & if they are that disrespectful, then I shouldn’t waste my time.

I am forced to do this here b/c I have to make a decision on some bidding sites. Others just allow you to delete.

If it’s an ethical professional company, don’t think for one minute the hiring process is easy for them.

Just to hire one position costs me

a) around 3-6 hours of typing time via e-mail, the interview, & reading over their initial response. I don’t read resumes, I feel they are a waste of time.
b) another 30-60 minutes checking references
c) screening any samples they may be required to give

So the energy to do all of this, not to mention the time it takes me to do that when I could be doing other tasks is very taxing.

One last thing to keep in mind if you haven’t already figured this out, small companies don’t have an HR department like mid to large companies do, so it’s usually either the owner or an assistant who does the hiring process & that makes it very stressful, b/c technically an experienced person should be handling that one task, & the owner or assistant is juggling that task & all the other work they have to do.

If you ever have doubts, try hiring just one position for about a week.

Put the shoe on the other foot & see how it feels, you may start to have a newfound respect for certain companies : )

Thank you for listening

Michelle

P.S. I liked my response sooo much, I’m going to put it on my blog : )

Heather Conner
hconner@triad.rr.com
Thomasville, North Carolina

If you need to e-mail me to confirm her address, feel free.

This is my opinion regarding my experiences with Heather Conner.

Her behavior was nasty because she didn’t believe in being screened.

She had applied to our bookkeeper’s position back in January of 2008.

In the middle of the interview when she stated that her daughter comes first before any work & that is why she isn’t as fast a worker at home than she is in an office setting.

Based on a lot of experience dealing with moms who work online, I took this to mean she would be big trouble down the road.

No professional company wants to hear that their work comes last & the mother will just drop everything the minute her child calls, or that the work is slow & therefore costs more.

If it’s an emergency, of course any parent (mother or father) should go running, but parents who have constant problems with their kids, shouldn’t be working, or should find a company that is very patient with this.

We don’t hire people who have constant problems, we want people who don’t have that much drama in their lives and while maybe Heather was pretty much drama free, the fact that she even brought this up during an interview speaks volumes. I took that to mean she doesn’t care that much about the company & money is the only reason she even works.

We are looking for A+ workers, not C level workers, & to me she represented a HUGE C level worker.

After I told her I didn’t like her comment, she started complaining about why she is being interviewed for only $40/month because the ad clearly states it’s only about 2 hours work.

There is another C level comment, MONEY is the only thing a C level worker cares about.

A bookkeeper is one of the most crucial positions a company can hire for & this Heather is complaining about being screened.

She then went on to say how some CPA hired her within 2 minutes of their interview, so I know that if this CPA did hire her, he/she must have been terrible at their job. Why would any accountant hire a bookkeeper in 2 minutes?

Amazing, why would a bookkeeper have to look for other work if this CPA hired her? They should have tons of work to give her. She knew we are a small company, hence small hours until we start to grow more.

I ended the interview, & that was it until May 15, 2008 when I posted the ad again some place completely different than Craig’s List.

Without even applying, this is the nasty, closed minded, religious, judgmental comments she made to the open message board, because clearly she wants to hurt our company.

Oh & to make it clear, she applied to our bookkeeping position knowing full well the industry we work in, yet she blames us for her decision to respond to the hiring ad.

Another C level behavior, blame the company for everything instead of taking full responsibility for their actions.

In response to her comment & yes I’ll make it brief…

I sleep very well at night because I am NOT doing anything wrong.

I don’t go around online bashing people for no reason at all. In fact, every single one of my posts on my blogs is from someone who contacted me & started being nasty. I have self respect & I let others be who they want to be, so it’s not my goal to go around criticizing & trying to hurt other people.

It’s unfortunate there are a lot of independent contractors out there like this, but Heather Conner is one of the worst we have encountered.

Lastly, Heather Conner lied. NEVER ONCE did we offer her a job as an escort, why would we need to, we don’t run an escort agency. We are an ethical honest company & would NEVER do such a thing.

Heather, please seek some help, it’s clear you have a lot of issues & you are trying to hurt others because of the pain you feel inside.

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“Its not surprising to me at all that you are still hiring for this position after several several months.  With your hiring process the petty little two hours a week that you offer is simply not worth it.  Ya know the sad part is the demeaning nature of it.  You are seeking good professional women that you are planning on “recruiting” into your shameful ways and its really very sinful.  It is not morally right for you to “lure” good natured women to you by advertising for professional desk work and then try to recruit as an “escort” (as you so like to call it) Most women (like myself) earn their money sitting on their rears in front of a desk using their computer skills and minds to make their living - while people like you try to turn our ways by offering money and expecting us to earn it by laying on our backs with legs spread in the air and referring to it as “escorting”  I often wonder (when I see your numerous ads) how you sleep at night and then I realize that people like you surely don’t sleep well.  Maybe you could start to redeem your self by  beginning with a little honesty by placing your ad as an “escort assistant” or what have you rather than trying to lure people that are looking for bookkeeping/accounting work and wasting their valuable time trying to figure out if they are good escort material.

Good Day!”

Rob
rob-mccrea@rogers.com

Swift one this one is, not only can he NOT spell or write proper English, no one said anything about waiting in a car, but understanding English probably isn’t his strong suit either.

He applied to a quick job to take 4-6 pictures of a house & SUV. He was told that one had to live in the area for obvious reasons.

“Hi 20 buks isnt much …LOL maybe 20 buks for each hour spent sitting waiting would be more like it a real PI charges 100 dollars an hour”

Nicholas Brooks
filmgear@rogers.com

I put an ad out for a person who has a digital camera to take a few pictures of a house & car.

I gave them the major intersections so they can run over there quickly & take a picture if everything they needed to take pictures of was there. I figured $20 for a total of 30 minutes driving & taking 5-6 pictures was more than enough, but…

This harassing person had to be snide & write this:

“Its a joke, right?
$20………….wouldn’t even pay for Timmies. ”

Nicholas, get a life & STOP harassing people/companies just because you don’t like what they are offering.

Didn’t your mother ever teach you that if you don’t have something nice to say to someone, DON’T SAY IT????

——————————

Before I even had a chance to post this he was already threatening me.

Company or not (this was for me privately, but so what, so he treats companies nicely & human beings like garbage?), I feel this person is a nasty individual. You can determine yourself what you think.

“What company did I harass? There was none mentioned in your posting, which I have kept. Please be aware of the libel laws regarding the web. I strongly suggest you remove any mention of this matter. And if you have a company, what is your labour worth? $3/hour, I doubt it” Sincerely”

darryl.allen@live.com

Darryl was told that he wouldn’t be considered for our website coder position. We told him this because in the hiring ad we clearly stated we don’t want resumes, we only want people to answer our questions.

When he responded with questions saying he was going to send us his resume, I said clearly you never read our hiring ad, otherwise you’d know we DON’T take resumes, so you are out.

His response very maturely was…

” You’re missing out.

Eat shit & shove it.

Sincerely,

Darryl.”