And Her Qualifications Were… What, Exactly?

I do social media for businesses. One of my biggest clients, when their contract came up for renewal, told me they’d decided to hire someone and move the work I do for them in-house. They sent me the job description to see if I’d be interested in applying. There wasn’t a salary on the job ad, and they’d told me they were trying to make a saving on what they were currently paying me. I decided against working in-house for them; while they’d been pretty good all round, and they’d paid well and on time, I didn’t fancy taking the pay cut. 

When it came to the end of our contract, they disputed my final bill because they thought they were paying in advance (rather than in arrears, as stated in the contract). They continued to dispute it, despite me demonstrating why the invoice was valid repeatedly, in a number of different ways. Eventually, they agreed to pay it if I came in to fully hand over my work to their new hire. I agreed. 

Me: “Okay, so this is what I’ve been doing on the Facebook account.”

New Hire: “How do you do that? I’ve never used Facebook.”

Taking it in stride, I went back and explained a few of the basics for Facebook that she’d need to know. 

Me: “…and this is the Twitter account.”

New Hire: “Cool! I’ve never used Twitter.”

After a very long day of explaining the very basics of social media to this complete newbie, the client asked me to set up a LinkedIn profile because — you guessed it — the new hire had never used that before, either.

I declined.