Whine like a baby, now with 500% more drama!

This isn't the first time that a volunteer group has been rude etc to me. I wish I understood why it's bothering me so much this time.
Were it me I’d be bothered by the fact that

1. They asked for additional assurance or guarantee because they didn’t trust me
2. They didn’t take me advice when I told them no other photographer would accept their terms
3. They dumped me unceremoniously when my prediction came true
4. When they lost confidence in the other photographer at the last minute they came back to put me in the position I already told them no professional would accept and they already found out professionals wouldn’t accept

So you did what a professional does and refused.

But for them to treat you like this is terrible, and it should bother you.

All you can do is console yourself that they lost a good photographer, lost a good savings, and at the end of the day they saved you a lot of trouble and work that truly wouldn’t be appreciated.

It’s almost never worth working with difficult clients.

Dodged a bullet in my opinion.
 
"Only make one or two batches of Christmas cookies this year. You don't need the calories and you don't have the time to get crazy."

Meanwhile, 4 batches of cookies in...:facepalm:
(And the egg nog pound cake to do.)
 

GasBandit

Staff member
"Only make one or two batches of Christmas cookies this year. You don't need the calories and you don't have the time to get crazy."

Meanwhile, 4 batches of cookies in...:facepalm:
(And the egg nog pound cake to do.)
Oh man, I've got two different christmas dinners to go to this year. How am I going to reconcile that with fasting for surgery?
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Eat a shitload of veggies before you go to dinner?
Last week I discovered it is literally possible for me to eat so many carrots that I don't lose weight. (My plan was, whenever I felt hungry, I'd eat carrots... well turns out if I let myself get carried away I can eat 3 bags of carrots in a day. No ranch, no PB, nothing... just carrots.) The "fill yourself up with something else" trick doesn't work for me. I have to be empty.

(3 pounds of carrots is about 600 calories. That, plus the two protein shakes and cup of yogurt I had that day for protein/nutrients put me up over 1000, which is too much for me to be losing weight at the rate I need to for the surgery).

(I'm not even gonna tell you what pooping was like after that. Hint: ORANGE)
 
Last week I discovered it is literally possible for me to eat so many carrots that I don't lose weight. (My plan was, whenever I felt hungry, I'd eat carrots... well turns out if I let myself get carried away I can eat 3 bags of carrots in a day. No ranch, no PB, nothing... just carrots.) The "fill yourself up with something else" trick doesn't work for me. I have to be empty.

(3 pounds of carrots is about 600 calories. That, plus the two protein shakes and cup of yogurt I had that day for protein/nutrients put me up over 1000, which is too much for me to be losing weight at the rate I need to for the surgery).

(I'm not even gonna tell you what pooping was like after that. Hint: ORANGE)
That's not pooping, that's Trumping.
 
Last week I discovered it is literally possible for me to eat so many carrots that I don't lose weight. (My plan was, whenever I felt hungry, I'd eat carrots... well turns out if I let myself get carried away I can eat 3 bags of carrots in a day. No ranch, no PB, nothing... just carrots.) The "fill yourself up with something else" trick doesn't work for me. I have to be empty.

(3 pounds of carrots is about 600 calories. That, plus the two protein shakes and cup of yogurt I had that day for protein/nutrients put me up over 1000, which is too much for me to be losing weight at the rate I need to for the surgery).

(I'm not even gonna tell you what pooping was like after that. Hint: ORANGE)
I would have suggested celery. 5 sticks of celery is about equal to one carrot, calorie-wise. But if you can still eat enough to go over your calorie limit...
 
You know it’s going to be a super fun sleepover party when when one of the kids has stolen from your family an hour in and you have to lock down/hide the valuables overnight.

We slept in shifts.

FML.

Thank god it’s over.

PS - The other kids were great.
 
I hope you called said child's parents and sent them home. D:
Our son asked us to give him a second chance, so we did. We slept in shifts though as I said above. We learned more about his behaviour from our kids after he went home and if I’d known all of that last night, I wouldn’t have let him stay.

As it stands now, he’s not welcome in our home again. His father tried to make a few lame excuses and I cut him off mid-bullshit because it was theft plain and simple. Little psycho-brat owes our whole family an apology. If he starts any shit at school, it’s on! My daughter has offered to keep an eye on things with her friends as well.[DOUBLEPOST=1512970620,1512970294][/DOUBLEPOST]Less serious whine: I’ve been having super itchy hands and arms and I’ve been really careful about taking all my allergy meds and being careful about hand washing due to my water issues. I couldn’t figure it out.

My daughter and I are both on antibiotics. Hers is liquid penicillin. What an idiot I am. I was dispensing it for her and getting it on me and not clueing in. I’m damn lucky that hives were all I was dealing with.
 
Were it me I’d be bothered by the fact that

1. They asked for additional assurance or guarantee because they didn’t trust me
2. They didn’t take me advice when I told them no other photographer would accept their terms
3. They dumped me unceremoniously when my prediction came true
4. When they lost confidence in the other photographer at the last minute they came back to put me in the position I already told them no professional would accept and they already found out professionals wouldn’t accept

So you did what a professional does and refused.

But for them to treat you like this is terrible, and it should bother you.

All you can do is console yourself that they lost a good photographer, lost a good savings, and at the end of the day they saved you a lot of trouble and work that truly wouldn’t be appreciated.

It’s almost never worth working with difficult clients.

Dodged a bullet in my opinion.
You’re right. I dodged a bullet for sure. Editing 300 or so portraits to my standards would take me ages. I still have a few Christmas present drawings to finish. They also wanted me to give parents my files rather than printouts. My files are huge and I wouldn’t want to give out crappy low res compressed files. They wouldn’t be high enough quality and I’d feel bad if I disappointed the parents.

I also learned that if the other person can sell their portraits, then I should Be able to as well. As long as I’m willing to put in the hard work to market etc of course.

Their marketing page has pictures of people with harsh lights cutting people’s faces in half with shadows, yellow teeth not edited out, wrinkled fabric backgrounds, no use of flattering camera angles and no blurred backgrounds etc.

Super bitchy of me to point out, I know. I was just super unimpressed by their tantrum over the volunteer event and I had to check them out.
 
You’re right. I dodged a bullet for sure. Editing 300 or so portraits to my standards would take me ages. I still have a few Christmas present drawings to finish. They also wanted me to give parents my files rather than printouts. My files are huge and I wouldn’t want to give out crappy low res compressed files. They wouldn’t be high enough quality and I’d feel bad if I disappointed the parents.

I also learned that if the other person can sell their portraits, then I should Be able to as well. As long as I’m willing to put in the hard work to market etc of course.

Their marketing page has pictures of people with harsh lights cutting people’s faces in half with shadows, yellow teeth not edited out, wrinkled fabric backgrounds, no use of flattering camera angles and no blurred backgrounds etc.

Super bitchy of me to point out, I know. I was just super unimpressed by their tantrum over the volunteer event and I had to check them out.
If there's one thing I have learned, it's that people are suspicious of things that are free. I imagine the school was most concerned about your potential to bail because you were offering your services for free and thus weren't "beholden" to them. It probably came across as a "too good to be true" thing.
 
I wouldn't do that though. I offered my services for free because the school desperately needed the money and a fundraiser like they were holding at best raises maybe $600-800. Why give $200+ of that to the photographer if someone is willing to donate their time?

And $200 is a lowball. The event wanted the photographer there at 7:15am and the event ended at 11:00. Likely there would have been kids needing pictures still and then there's clean up time. They would have been there until noon easily. How much does a pro charge an hour for their services? And that's before editing and then preparing all the digital files to be emailed out to hundreds of people. That part would have taken forever.

You could totally be right though. Maybe that was their worry when they made up a lame thing about my health issues and wanting a back up for me, they were really worried that I'd bail because I wasn't getting paid.

The lesson I have learned is that I'm saying no to that group from the school going forward.

The funny thing was that I was at the school today though photographing one of the teams and finishing up my commitment to them for that. All for free. Because I thought it would be nice for the parents and teachers to have action shots of the kids on the team at the various events.
 
Obviously next time what you need to do is quote the full $800 for the job, but the longer you are treated with respect through the event, the more you discount it when it comes time to invoice.

--Patrick
 
You are not getting a "Windows 8 ASUS gaming laptop" for Christmas. I know you like mine, but you have no need for a gaming laptop when all you play is Minecraft. BTW, that $100 set of 4 Pokemon figurines is also ridiculous. wtf
 
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