HarrietTubmanPI  - 2012-08-10
He should have just taken them to small claims court.
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The Mothership - 2012-08-10
that doesn't look like a professional setting; looks like a hack sweatshop.
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gmol - 2012-08-10 I love it when the sycophant comes in with the counter video camera, constant looking at his boss for reference.
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FatFatuousNation - 2012-08-10
Here's the (odd and uneventful) part 2: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=10e_1344559460#comment_page=3
Spoiler: awkward time in the elevator, he walks out, they exchange a few insults, no police, fin.
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Riskbreaker - 2012-08-10
They went full Retarded, with a capital R
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jangbones - 2012-08-10
I have no idea if this dude was late or not or whether the equiment worked but in my experience, small companies screw freelancers all the time, usually by taking inordinate amounts of time to pay them.
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Old_Zircon - 2012-08-10 I've known quite a few people over the years who worked for live A/V companies and it's utterly thankless work. I would be shocked if this guy wasn't right.
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FABIO - 2012-08-11 The pink shirt guy sealed the deal that the freelancer was in the right. No decent and reasonable company would promote such a huge shitty twat, nor would management act like that.
The best freelancer advice I ever heard was from someone here: always demand half up front, don't remove the watermark until the last half check clears. Any income you lose from clients refusing those terms is going to be less than the amount shitheads will try to cheat you out of.
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Wonko the Sane - 2012-08-10
One day some HR department will google this guy and he'll lose a job.
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TeenerTot - 2012-08-10
When Egos Collide
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TeenerTot - 2012-08-10 Not for wanting pay. For wanting to tote his camera around to bait the other douchey guy, and posting it on YouTube.
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Anaxagoras - 2012-08-10 Why do you think he did that? Just to satisfy his own ego? No. Video evidence is the best (and possibly only) way to prove the douchey (and possibly illegal) actions of his former employer. Besides, when you're in a dispute, it's recommended by lawyers to videotape all interactions. The only slightly questionable thing the guy did was to post it on youtube, but honestly, I'm not seeing "ego" in that. I'm seeing "Holy shit, look at how much of a douchebag this guy is." And he's right.
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subversive - 2012-08-10
Five stars for the deer-in-headlights look of everyone that looks terrified this guy will start shooting, the hyperventilating manager that can just barely handle the confrontation, and the rows of employees wearing heavy jackets in the apparently unheated office.
"Oh hey there's that asian lady that I used to talk to on the phone all the time" *creepy zoom*
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Dread Pirate Roberts - 2012-08-10
I work as a freelancer myself, and I can tell you first hand: People try to screw you over. They see Freelancers as somehow 'undesirable' workers. Like a lower class that they don't have to deal with.
Example: I recently finished working on a website for one of my clients. I'd been working with him all summer. When he asked for the last invoice, I sent it within five minutes. I had a total number of hours for a full month. He emails me back a few hours later saying "This is a lot more than I expected. I don't feel I have to pay this much."
The reason the number of hours was so high? Because he emailed me every fucking day in short bursts. He'd email me four or five times in a day with different thoughts, contradicting each other half the time. At some point I started putting myself 'on the clock' because he was wasting my fucking time with his jabbering. If I'm gonna sit around and read dozens of emails from you each day, taking an hour or more out of my day just to communicate with you... I'm gonna fucking charge you by the minute. You better believe the cost was high because you were fucking wasting my time with your wishy-washy bullshit. You're not my only client, and I have work to do.
Of course a little explanation and hard lined 'I get paid for my time as well' speech and he gave in. People expect competent work to be done for free these day... especially in my industry. They see all those ludicrous 'freebie' websites where you can build your own and then expect you to do the same. People don't realize that website design/development is a complicated business, it takes time, money, and effort to get a large project (like this one) done. Yet they still want their freewebs-level pay model. I got a house, I have a wife. I can't be wasting my time on clients that don't want to pay me what I need to compensate me for my time/knowledge. Food doesn't buy itself!
Fuck'em. The guy in the video was doing the right thing. If they flew him to fucking Canada, the LEAST they could do was pay his expenses. I'm pretty sure I would've been charging a 'day rate' at least for going, which is what I'm sure he was doing. Basically, you get paid for your time, as I've said. If you get to do the work or not is irrelevant. You take time out of your life to go somewhere like that, you get paid. Plain and simple.
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WHO WANTS DESSERT - 2012-08-10 So did you tell him that you were charging him for e-mails? Because otherwise it sounds like you were being a passive-aggressive shitbird.
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candyheadrobot - 2012-08-10 I won't pretend to know a whole lot about what it means to freelance, but having read up on issues with work-for-hire in comics, I don't see anything wrong with this type of approach. When all you've got is you, to defend yourself against people who'll readily take advantage of you, you'd better come out with guns blazing. On the other hand, it is a little hard to defend "the equipment didn't work", but considering that it was only four hundred something dollars, and roly poly had such good manners, I think I've got good reason to believe that claim.
Also: Why don't people like pink shirt just wear collars, or maybe just walk around on all fours, I could understand their behavior better that way.
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Anaxagoras - 2012-08-10 Charging for time spent isn't "passive-aggressive". It's what he should be doing. When e-mails take up an insignificant amount of time (because the other party is communicating in a professional maner) then it's not worth it to bill for email reading time. But when someone is an indecisive wishy-washy dipshit, then yeah, charging is what he should be doing.
What is it about labor relations that causes otherwise decent people to become drooling morons?
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FABIO - 2012-08-11 Because the fantasy of being a rich successful person being dragged down by the poor is more appealing than accepting the reality of being poor and struggling.
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Dread Pirate Roberts - 2012-08-10
From the LiveLeak comments:
Boss's name is Douglas Estadt. Here's his website: http://estadt.com/
He apparently sold Wallstreet Webcasting in 2012 I wonder why? Because it looks like a piece of shit.
http://www.wsw.com
Awful website and they run their webcasting services through Windows Media Player. In their FAQ, they have a question "Do I need to buy Windows Media Player?"
For fucks sake... use U Stream or something. This company looks like it really is just a sweatshop for journalism students.
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Hooker - 2012-08-10
Now I want to know what resulted from this, since he has video of his former employer admitting he didn't pay him for work he did and video of his former employer restraining him in an elevator.
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FABIO - 2012-08-10
Holy shit this guy sounds exactly like Ulililililia.
Yeah, freelancers get screwed all the time. Check out the "Vendor/Client relationship in real life" video for a good summation.
The fact that the office looks like a piece of shit sweatshop that can't even pay for heat is a red flag too.
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FABIO - 2012-08-10 Wow, I don't think I've ever seen a more punchable toady than Mike. Maybe that killscreen guy from King of Kong?
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FABIO - 2012-08-11 Personal story:
The CFO of an A/V company I worked for balked at the idea of paying for multiple hotel rooms for a 6 person film crew at an event. "I don't understand why they all just can't stay in one room."
This same man frequently expensed "business lunches" with 0+ charges for alcohol alone. Some of these lunches only had 2 people.
The CEO of the same company tried to avoid paying people the full amount by telling them money was tight. So tight, that him and wife just had to let go of their gardener!
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Dread Pirate Roberts - 2012-08-11 Fabio, that reminds me of an Italian restaurant I worked at in my teen years. The owner was bitching all the time about how money was so tight that he *HAD* to pay us minimum wage for skilled work (gourmet pizza in my case at least).
And then he and his wife drive Cadillac Escalades and his wife doesn't work.
Mmmhmmm. Money's tight.
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gmol - 2012-08-11 I heard Ulllila too.
A painter friend of mine who was doing free lance for some Bjork video told me similar tales of freelance...
They just didn't pay him for his work after he was done (something like 0). He had to come back to them again and again, and they finally paid him something like 0 short.
He stopped freelancing after that.
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dairyqueenlatifah - 2012-08-13
Five stars for all the horrible stories posted in these comments.
What a shitty, shitty industry.
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