Reviews Of Freelancers

Dini Jasakowski
Idaho

It’s really a shame I felt the need to put Dini on this blog, but after her nasty response to my sincere comments to her, not only was I shocked, but felt others should know how she reacted when I was just being nice.

The fact that Dini took it in a negative way speaks volumes to me about who she really is as a person, as when others make mistakes, they apologize & try to rectify the situation, or at least bow out graciously.

She responded to an ad we had looking for a bookkeeper.

She gave us one tiny part of what we asked for in the hiring ad (which means she didn’t actually read it which again shows that she doesn’t really care about what the company has to say), but left out the rest, so I was kind of disappointed, as she sounded qualified & I said:

“Ahh, too bad you didn’t address all we asked for in our hiring ad.

Wishing you all the best

Michelle ”

It may have not been what Dini sees as being “professional”, but I don’t follow the cold unfeeling ways of mainstream companies, I actually have feelings & I act like a real live human being.

I meant what I said in the nicest of ways, and here was Dini’s NASTY response back…

List your top three strengths and your top three areas for improvement: “**** 1″Telling you that your Email to saying,  Ahh, too bad you didn’t address all we asked for in our hiring ad.(Iis very unprofessional.) Do you know where the delete button is, I did not do as you ask then use it.

Thank you for showing me what kind of person, I do not want to work for.

What three areas for improvement is: 1. Emailing you back !

Then she went on to attack what our hiring ad says which is that we don’t want a resume, we want the applicant to use their own words.

“**( I am proud of my resume) and the cover letter I sent you)**”

So she argues with the company & what they request from applicants & then defends her mistakes blaming us & not being able to take responsibility for her actions.

I do agree with Dani on one very important thing. Thank god she showed us her true character before we wasted our time interviewing her.

Chantelle – Cleaning Lady in Windsor, Ontario
my_dph@yahoo.ca

I hired Chantelle to clean my house. I thought because she worked for Caesar’s Windsor Casino http://www.caesarswindsor.com – that she would be good.

While she was nice, I feel she didn’t do a good job overall.

I would rate her a 5-6 out of 10.

The first problem I had with her was that Chantelle couldn’t follow the simple instructions that I had written up for her & printed out. She had to keep asking me where things were, or if she should do this or that. The whole point of the list was so I wouldn’t have to say anything to her unless it wasn’t listed.

I think when she first arrived she tried hard, but then she stopped trying.

There was still dirt on the living room & kitchen floors floors after she left, I asked her to find windows that had black guck in them & she did the one I recommended, but didn’t look at the others, so I just found one that looks terrible.

I told her to wash the entire bathroom downstairs & after I looked at it, parts looked okay, but other parts didn’t look clean at all to me & the floor had white marks all over it.

I feel like I was ripped off giving her $62 & now I have to hire another cleaning lady to get the work done properly.

Brett Burgett
Frankfort, Ohio
www.burgettmultimedia.com
brettburgett@live.com
brettburgett@gmail.com
http://www.facebook.com/brett.burgett

So while most independent contractors who end up on this blog are put on here because they are nasty, or waste our time, or play games, etc., the odd time I come across one that is very strange & weird.

To me, Brett Burgett is that guy & I wouldn’t have put him on this blog except for the fact that he threatened to out me online just because I wouldn’t hire him LOL (add to this story he tried to take me for money, so yes he crossed over from being strange to nasty.)

Yes people, now companies are being threatened by independent contractors if they don’t hire them.

The story with Brett, is that he came to me via Lime Exchange for our Social Media Expert position. He claimed he had a lot of experience posting articles on directories. I wondered why his hourly rate was so low at $8/hr., but just thought maybe I had come across a great “find”.

Unfortunately that was not the case.

His first mistake which I chalked up to an honest mistake was that he confused me with someone else when I added him on Yahoo.

My name was there, so was our company name, but he was unable to remember who he had been conversing with only hours earlier.

Finally he clued into who I was & I gave him a second chance. (to be clear, I’ve never had anyone I’ve added confuse me with other potential employers, this will be a first.)

I sent him our pre-screening booklet & it was Saturday & I knew he was working, so I expected that he would get it back to us by the deadline mentioned in the booklet, but he didn’t.

Normally if a person isn’t working, they would ask me “Is it alright if I get it back to you on Monday” & being the easy person I am, I would say sure, but Brett gave no indication that he was unable to address the file.

In the file we state if you don’t work on weekends you need to have it back to us by Monday, otherwise you have 2 or 4 hours from the time you receive it.

I also knew he was working because if he hadn’t been, he wouldn’t have been around to IM with me in the first place.

So after more than 24 hours had passed & we didn’t get any contact from Brett, I declined his bid on Lime Exchange & went about my day interviewing other potential candidates.

Then while interviewing someone via the phone, Brett suddenly IMs me.

He apologizes, & hopes he can rectify the situation. Turns out he was busy with a deadline for another employer, so I was correct, he had been working. Problem is, Brett didn’t communicate that to me, so there was already indications that his communication skills were below average for what we expect.

I went to check the hours he had given us in the online application he filled out & low & behold, another mistake, he hadn’t given us any hours. He just said he’s around when his clients need him. Brett, no one can be around 24/7.

So I was this close to giving him another chance (this would have been my second time) when all of a sudden Brett tells me he’s sending me the doc, he just has to sign & initial the pages. I’m like sinc Why are you doing that?

It clearly states in the document that you should only sign & initial if you are hired. Brett hadn’t even been interviewed yet, nor had he addressed the questions within the document.

So I told him this isn’t working out for me since he clearly hadn’t read the entire document over because had he read it, he would have known that he shouldn’t be signing anything.

First he tries to tell me that the document does say that & he copies & pastes it to me, so I sit there wasting my time bringing the document up & I copy & past where it says, “you only do this when you are hired.” (when will I ever learn not to doubt myself when these moronic independent contractors say something totally out in left field that I know is not right.)

So the conversation goes back & forth with Brett trying to justify what he said by him being proactive. He can’t understand what is wrong with him being “prepared”.

I had to laugh because this isn’t about being proactive, this is about analyzing whether Brett even understands what is going on. Oh & remember I said that he was the first ever to confuse me with someone else on Yahoo? Well he had TWO firsts… This was the first time anyone has told me they were going to sign & initial the document before even sending me their answers, being interviewed, or even being offered a position.

THEN he tells me he sent the document back to me already with the questions answered. Instead of telling me when he sent them, I had to pull teeth to get the answer from him.

He “claimed” that he sent it 5 minutes ago.

I thought maybe he sent them the day before & I just never got them. The conversation was so screwed up, I couldn’t grasp what this guy was saying.

It’s now an hour later & still no document, so Brett lied.

Then he writes this paragraph that made absolutely no sense to me & I was starting to get very very frustrated. I think Brett was drunk actually now that I think about it, or on some drugs, unless this is how he normally talks, because I have no clue. Most people don’t hurt my brain when they talk, but Brett has exhausted me…

“Well the miscommunication would be that you would send a pre-screening packet with questions to be answered along with pages you want to be initialed and signed along with a NDA after an interview. So it is that big of a mis-communication that I am being prepared so that if there is an offer of employment I have the documents in hand ready to send.”

Finally after reading it 2 times & getting dizzy, I told him nicely that this isn’t working for me. I wished him all the best.

That’s when he threatened me with…

“O.K. Michelle. I will be sure to do more research on your company and blog to ALL freelance contractors that I am being denied a chance of employment for being prepared and trying to show initiative”

Man, this guy is one of the strangest workers I’ve ever come across.

So he’s been reported to Lime Exchange now for threatening me.

WAIT, the story gets better LOL, look what he’s IMing me now & this is like 30-45 minutes after he threatened me & I haven’t said a word back to him…

“Since you have decided not to continue with the hiring process, I will have to bill you for my time as an independant contractor for reading and filling out your pre-screening work. You will receive an invoice for my time wihich is a total of 2 hours at a rate of $25 per hour.”

So suddenly his hourly rate went from $8/hr. upto $25/hr. for reading over a company’s pre-screening document.

This guy is totally insane LOL

Of course I had to block him & update the ticket to Lime Exchange because this really is borderline harassment now.

I don’t know, these crazy independent contractors just get better & better.

Michelle

Adding more, he has now tried to send me a pay pal invoice for work he NEVER did & Brett is threating me even more.

“All invoice are to be paid within 48 hours of receipt. If invoice is not paid the I will report you to my local labor board, the internal revenue service, and begin court proceedings for the unpaid invoice.”

One more communication from him, I will be calling the police. I will NOT tolerate this kind of abuse!

Now you know why I have this blog because companies should NOT have to put up with these dysfunctional creates who roam the Internet looking for work & then cause such grief.

10-14-09 – Brett is trying to extort money from us now continuously sending bogus Pay Pal invoices along with threats.

Then tonight at 11:50 pm EST, he had some guy call our number leaving shaky messages again attempting to try & extort money from us when Brett not only did NO work for us, but has cost us money.

That person’s number is 740-466-8748

Brett is still harassing us. This is what he said in his NEW Pay Pal invoice…

“Your deadline is now past due. However I will give you this one last day to contact me regarding this matter. After today interest and legal fees will be compounded on a weekly basis and added to this invoice.”

What should companies look for when hiring an independent contractor?

And we must preface by saying that we don’t think AT ALL, that one should look for any different traits when hiring an independent contractor vs. hiring an employee. It’s just semantics about what the worker is called.

Here is our point of view on the complete package we look for when hiring an independent contractor.

Most workers think only their skill is what companies look for & maybe that’s the only thing some companies care about, but not the companies that want to build long lasting relationship & not have problems with the worker down the road.

So here is what we look for:

1. Above average skill.Normally we would say average skill, but because we find that so many workers these days are so unskilled & unintelligent, so in order to get any quality work done, we have to ask for above average skill.It is unfortunate that today most workers either don’t know that they aren’t skilled, or just lie to get the job, but I wonder if we took a poll of who thought they were skilled (but weren’t) & who honestly knew they weren’t that skilled & admitted it, which side would be larger.Also, we would love to assume that people who have a lot of experience are more skilled, but sadly we have learned that is not the case.

   A company can hire someone who is young, very sharp, learns fast & gets the job, vs. hiring someone who’s had 30 years in the workforce & still does a mediocre job.

2. Intelligence – aren’t talking post secondary
   We feel that the intelligence level of the average human has gone down in the past 20 years.

   While we can’t be certain since we weren’t around back in the 30’s-50’s, we just get the feeling that it takes twice as long for us to find someone who is intelligent enough to do even the most basic of tasks.

3. Quality – We look for people who care about quality, not people who just want to get the job done fast to get it out of the way. Since these days very few things are of quality, it can be a challenge to find workers who care about quality.
4. Above average online communication skills – even communication skills via the phoneNow perhaps it has something to do with writing because that’s how we communicate with 95% of our staff, but we find it very hard to communicate with people who want to work online.You can see this in almost every area online. People don’t like to read (reading is a dying art), so they ask questions that were already answered, or ignore what’s right in front of their face.Workers skip answering questions in an e-mail, are hard to understand when they write, or they aren’t able to read & understand our communication.

   Even proper paragraph structure can be a challenge, many people who are looking for work online write walls of text, or don’t use proper punctuation, so we can’t even understand what they are saying & have to guess.

   And editing? How many people actually edit what they write before they send it off?

   Bottom line is, we have learned that online communication is a skill not a lot of people have.

   Included in the above average communication skills includes honesty, & people who don’t ignore your e-mails. Since we find that people will ignore your e-mail if they just don’t want to deal with the e-mail. This is of course not just rude & disrespectful, but a sign of passive aggression.

   And they will lie as well.

5. A great work ethic – people who love to work & give every task their all.They are called A+ workers & they are few & far between.Most workers nowadays (unlike back in the 1940’s, 50’s, etc.) have a poor work ethic.You can see it in almost every store you walk into. The staff is all huddled together socializing, while customers are trying to get their attention. How many times have you gone shopping now & while the cashier is checking your items through, she is talking to her c0-workers. Talk about RUDE!

   Don’t think it’s any different online. It’s even worse because they can hide behind their monitor.

   I’ve even seen workers talk behind the customers backs, & are only there to “take” money from the company, NEVER to give anything back to the company.

   We applaud all A+ workers out there. Kudos to you for being such dedicated people.

6. Does the worker get the job done in a fast & efficient manner?That is very important.Do they sit & yap on the phone all the time or string along the task just so it appears that they are working when really they aren’t?Remember, time is money.
7. And last – is that worker there to help the company, or are they there to cause more stress & work for the company.Do they actually care about the success of the company, or just taking a paycheck for showing up to work?

So there are the attributes we look for when hiring independent contractors to work for our company.

We hope this helped you.

Michelle