Ok, now I'm pissed.

I didn't mention this before- or maybe I did- but I was contacted by someone who wanted to sponsor me to come into their place and do some training. We had two meetings- one in which I presented a fair amount of material. I was altogether really excited because I thought this was a great opportunity to work at a bigger company, get my name out there... so I even agreed to try to trim my presentation from 4 hours to 3 hours, because they thought 3 hours would be too long.

The problem came with how I would be paid. Apparently nobody was REALLY listening when I said my rates, so they had it all screwed up. Then my contact there told me that I had to talk to the woman who was in charge of finances, because once I straightened them out on my rates, they didn't like them. I called her twice in one week, both times was told she was in a meeting, and left my name and number. Meanwhile the clock was ticking on whether this meeting was happening or not. I wanted to know, otherwise I could do something else with my time. Finally fed up, I called my original contact and told her that my messages hadn't been returned. She informed me that the financial girl was "really busy" and had to return my call on Monday. This was really irritating since in our initial meeting, they told me they were having an open house this (last) weekend, during which they could promote my session.

Only, because no one returned my calls, nothing was settled before the open house. So I didn't get any kind of marketing or promotion at the open house... I was supposed to wait till Monday. Which is today. When I get an email proposing to cut my rate in half, and then I would get half of that. Basically, I'm saying they want to pay me 1/4 of what I normally would get. I am so pissed. Yes, I already beat my pillow- but I may have to do it some more.

I am so insulted and irritated... I feel like I have been waiting for these people and then they try to screw me over at the last minute. Not to mention this is my life's work, I'm really good at what I do, and everyone who's worked with me has agreed I am well worth it (and it is actually very common for people to tell me I am undercharging!)

So... I know I have to work out a bit more of this anger and then I can respond. I don't want to fly off the handle or anything. I doubt they will ever give me what I want, but I have a tendency to just say "forget it" and cut people off in a mean way... so I don't want to act too rashly.

Kind of a damage control for myself...

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