I Guess I Just Want My $1000...

• Freelance Filter: I've resigned due to timeline pressures, the arrival of another awesome opportunity, and the fact that I'm 8 months pregnant. I've done six weeks of work which have contributed social capital and goodwill to the project, and organizational/planning work which will be of benefit to my replacement. The "contract" we signed was vague and was only really a statement of work, rather than conditions. In my letter of resignation I proposed to keep 20% of the 1st payment for the work done to date. The team that hired me wants all the money back, I think mainly because they're deeply disappointed that I have quit. It's not like I've been sitting on my hands, and my work to date will benefit them. Before I hand over all my work to date and write the cheque to refund the 50%, how should I word my request that they reconsider allowing me to keep a portion of the fee? (Giant background story included, to explain the usual & unusual complications which lead to my departure.) The contract is to create a technical & creative document outlining where this community and their community association wants to go in the coming years vis. their development and planning. The hiring committee consists of community volunteers, who first approached me last July and asked for cv & background, said I was perfect, then fell into silence for two months, after which they decided they needed to open it to a public RFP. I applied, and in my introduction letter I mentioned I was now pregnant and proposed a do-able schedule that involved a quick turnaround in the already long hiring process so I could start immediately. The RFP closed in December, and, knowing I was the best candidate, I pushed them to do the interview as soon as possible. Instead, they fiddled around until late January. Our inside source on the committee told me I was still a shoo-in, and lamented the disorganization & delays of the committee as having been typical of the whole process so far. Eager to get this show on the road, in the interview I asked whether, if they hired me, could we get the contract signed and the work started asap, a committee member mentioned that they were still waiting on documents from two other potential candidates (to the discomfort of everyone else around the table, since my obvious next question was, "I may have misunderstood, but didn't the RFP close on December 15th?"). They were either posturing (ridiculous), or not adhering to the point of a public RFP. Either way, they spent a week "deliberating" and then hired me, as expected all along. It took another week to sign the contract, and then another week again to receive the first cheque (50% of the project total). Every Mefi freelancer will know that you just can't start the work before the cheque hits your hands, especially with volunteer-driven projects, because the delays can (and in this case did) go on and on and sometimes things fall through and you've completely wasted your time. But the delay meant that I didn't officially start work until the first week of February. In late January my grandfather died, and just as the project deposit cheque arrived, my computer crashed and burned and melted, and went into the shop for three weeks, during which time I had no machine. I kept going with the background research and organizing community interviews and preparations for the writing phase, but this period was a professional gong show. When I got back in the saddle full time at the end of February I was definitely worried about the project timeline, and concerned about getting everything done before I give birth in May. As I worked through the contextual and background research, it also became clear that the project was less well-defined than they'd made it seem and I had originally assumed. Yes, giant red flag. I needed to meet with these committee members for individual interviews and each of them have been too busy to do anything but send me repeated "HUGE apologies for the delay, I'm crazy nuts at work right now, let's talk next week" emails for three weeks, if they replied at all. I spoke to our friend on the committee (also too busy to meet) over email and by phone and was like, "Dude, the timeline is in trouble, this project is way more nebulous than originally outlined, I'm working on it and I'm hoping I hit a breakthrough, but we're going to need longer deadlines." Then, I received word that I'd gotten a gigantic arts grant. My usual work is as a photographer, and this is a once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity-sized, career-making, totally unexpected grant. A week later, another envelope arrived to inform us that my husband had also gotten a huge, complementary, for-the-same-work-but-in-a-different-field arts grant. The news changed everything about how we have to spend the rest of the year. This project will take our whole family overseas for several months in the autumn. We're hiring two assistants to help us work on the prep, we're hiring assistants on the ground overseas, etc. Huge. HUGE! We would have been leaping for joy, except for the increasingly snaggly snafu that was this community project, and its bleeding timelines and lack of support structure. I stumbled along for another two weeks on the community project, trying to get things done, trying to nail down the committee members (unsuccessful), doing interviews with stakeholders in the community and preparing the document framework, increasingly exhausted from the pregnancy and stressed about the timeline problems and the communication problems with the committee members I needed to speak to. Hoping for that breakthrough that could make the timeline possible. Increasingly fearing that I was not going to get everything done. Worried about the pressures this project's delays could/would put on my arts grant project work after the birth (the timelines were now stretching past the birth and on into June and July, by projections), although the arts grant work is very obviously the more important career priority, particularly long-term. Then, last week, I had a big Braxton-Hicks contraction that knocked me on my ass (literally). It was the evening of our daughter's fourth birthday. I experienced an epiphany: get out of this community contract immediately. I was the right person for the contract, but at the wrong time. In the interview we established the need for the committee members to be available as support and resource people to the project and they said yes yes yes OF COURSE yes. But the reality is that the committee members are volunteers with their own jobs and lives and their timelines are obviously not going to get easier. Ultimately, they hired me because they'd been trying to get this document produced in-house for two years and it just wasn't happening, and they finally got funding to hire a contractor to write it up. The hope was obviously to hand off the responsibility and let the writer whip it all into a final product they themselves couldn't precisely define at the outset. Because of our friendship with the one committee member and his repeated assurances that he was going to be there, under the official radar, for consultation and support 24/7 (not panning out); and because we'd been discussing and dancing along towards me being the writer on this project for nearly six months before I actually got the contract, I was not thinking as clearly about the red flags and shaky preconditions in this project as I would usually about my writing contracts with external groups. When I tendered my resignation the committee member friend was shocked and incredibly hurt. I was going to be his "in" to being able to influence the document (not directly possible as a committee member). Although he is the prominent member of the group, he didn't notify the committee of my resignation and so a few days later I received another "sorry I've been so busy, let's meet next week" email from another committee member and in response I sent my resignation to the whole committee. Other than a "thanks a lot, you made me look bad" email from the committee member friend, there were two days of silence during which I assume the committee was discussing next steps. Then I received a call from one of the other committee members to arrange pick up of the substantial background documentation and a refund cheque from me. And she notified me that the committee was unanimous in believing that I need to return the entire amount, without keeping a fee for my work to date. So here's my thing: I need out of this project. These committee members know they delayed the start of this project for months and then frittered away valuable time in January. My letter of resignation does not assign blame and states a) that I received the giant arts grant which will dominate my work priority time after I give birth (originally considered "spill-over" time in which I would complete their project if it wasn't done before I gave birth), and b) that I had a contraction last week which made me re-evaluate my work on the project given the unexpectedly less-organized nature of the final product than originally assumed in the RFP and interview process. I am willing to absorb most of the blame for my departure in order to extricate myself from the project and avoid wasting any more of my and their time. Sure, it's easy to fault me: I'm pregnant, I shoulda known it would impact my stamina and headspace (inevitable, unstated, not-nice non-feminist angle). My grandfather's death & the related family chaos is not their fault. My computer problems are not their fault. The fact that I received a big grant that will consume my post-partum period and workflow is not their fault. True, true, true. That they farted around for five months after originally approaching me won't be considered. That they couldn't/didn't make themselves available to me despite repeated requests will have a lot of excellent individual explanations. They will not want to take the lack of accurate project goals and outcomes into account - as people in unrelated fields, the committee members will certainly decide that it's the contractor's job to figure things out. My one potential ally on that committee has already said, "I hate you." So he obviously isn't speaking up on my behalf. I really 'get' the self-righteous anger they've probably whipped up about this wrench I've thrown into their schedule, and the inconvenience I will have caused by making them hire someone else. However, like I say, I have done a certain amount of work on the project to date. I feel that should be worth something (although the contract does not outline anything regarding a 'kill fee' or anything like this kind of situation). I would have taken other work for that period if I'd known the project would be so different than anticipated. The background documents arrived in bags and are now organized in files and accordion folders, notated, bookmarked and labelled, contact lists established and notified and worked. My in-home community interviews have significantly raised the profile of, and improved community relations with this committee and the project, whereas before I started there was some serious animosity for this project amongst a section of the community members. As a professional I intend to hand over everything as it is, mainly to assist my replacement (who will be less qualified than I am to do this job, and will need all the help he/she can get). It obviously accomplishes nothing positive to go through all the background sources to yank out my post-it notes and bookmarks (annotated and cross-referenced), and/or to hold back my notes and conclusions from the various community interviews, or refuse to hand over the framework documents I've created so far. In demanding the entire 50% deposit back, I feel the committee is knee-jerking on their emotional response to the burden of having to find someone else. Sure, they didn't get their draft document, but that doesn't mean I didn't work for them for six weeks and produce measurable benefits for the project as a whole in that time. Asking me to hand back the entire amount implies that my time and the work I've done is of no value, which is false. It was not appropriate to try to argue it out with the woman who called me, since she was representing the committee's view as a group. I would like to send an email (BRIEFLY) stating my case. Obviously I am not good at the "briefly" part, so here I throw the door open for AskMefi suggestions. How would you phrase the "I worked on this for six weeks and you'll benefit from that work. Please don't be so ungenerous as to demand the whole deposit back. How about something for my trouble?" email? Please: no "get a lawyer" comments. I have zero wish to take this to that level. I just want to state my case to these committee members, send it off, and let their collective conscience be the final judge of what will happen. If, after reading my "please be reasonable" email, they decide that they still want the whole deposit back, I will give it to them. (Holy moley, this was long.)

• Answer:

  So here's my thing: I need out of this project. So give them their money back and walk away. The rest of your post is a valuable lesson learned. Be super conservative about contingencies - i.e. have a backup machine and plan properly for major life changes! This is freelancer best practice.