The needle's on "E"
I spent the weekend writing threatening/begging letters to various clients who owe me money, some going back to work I did in April. Having to do this really pisses me off, particularly as the clients in question are all friends. Non-friends (i.e. purely business contacts) always pay right on the button.
How do you frame a threatening letter to somebody, when you have sat across the dinner table from them four times since writing the invoice in question?
This is not good. I feel that they are abusing our friendship: they know that I will not call in the Mafia to get the money, much as I'd like to. We are talking about six-month-old invoices here.
"Times are hard." I know, my times are hard too.
"We haven't been paid for our work." My contract is with you, not with your clients. Write them a threatening/begging letter.
The whole ugly business does have one slightly amusing aspect. There are, in German as in English, approved forms of speech for expressing all this in such a way as to be both minimally offensive and legally enforceable. I own a book of such standard form letters. It's on a shelf in the office of (can you guess?) the woman who owes me the most money.
posted by Udge @ 13:47
3 Comments:
I used to work freelance as a photo stylist and used to wait months to get paid. Some of these people were pseudo-friends as well. I found having someone call ( i.e., a bookeeper if you have one) or send the bill with a big stamp that says PAST DUE PLEASE REMIT could be helpful . Actually that maybe hard since this was all pre-computer invoicing. I actually had a nice big stamp that said the above.
One client, a photographer and his wife got sort of offended when I sent them a past due bill with the big stamp. They thought I should just have phoned them, I suppose. They probably still didn't pay that bill for a few months anyway, so whatever. I always think it's better not to work for friends anyway. By the way, I'm Smartmom's sister. Also, sorry you are experiencing heartbreak.
Hello Mamainwaiting, thanks for the sympathy. The heartache was meant as political satire, I've rewritten the piece to read more clearly.
I thought it was about the elections, but I wasn't 100% sure... But it's a good piece, and perhaps I was just being a little dense. Yes, a lot of people are feeling heartbreak these days. It is a real tragedy. There's a good email by Michael Moor circulating. I'll email it to you if i can. thanks, mamainwaiting
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