If You’re Good At Something, Never Do It For Free

My wife used to be a corporate travel agent. She handled software companies and airplane companies. She had done this for over a decade and was really, really good at it.

One day, out of the blue, she was let go. Apparently, she was talking to someone on the phone and let out a sigh. The bigwig on the other end took this as a slight and asked that she be fired. My wife was the only person who handled these accounts for years, so there were no notes or guides on how to handle these clients.

After this, I noticed that, day after day, she would get a call and instruct the person on the other end of the call how to do her old job.

Me: “What’s up with those phone calls?”

Wife: “They keep asking for my help because they don’t know what to do.”

At the end of the week, she’d put in at least twenty hours talking to her replacement, trying to help them out.

The following Monday rolled around, and she got another call. My wife was away from the phone and I picked up. As I suspected, it was her old employer. I can be a nice guy, but this had been pissing me off. They asked for my wife and I confirmed that it was her old employer.

Me: “She doesn’t work there anymore.”

Former Employer: “I just needed to ask her a few questions.”

Me: “Your company fired her for sighing.”

Former Employer: “I’m sorry about that, but we have a few questions.”

Me: “She spent over half her week last week talking to you. She doesn’t work there anymore. If you want her to train your staff, you will need to bring her in as a consultant.”

Silence.

Me: “The hourly fee for her consulting with you will be $45 an hour. I’ll be sending your company an invoice for the twenty hours she has already spent with you. After receipt of the $900.00 from your company, we can talk about further training. Any further communication will be also billed at $45 an hour.”

Former Employer: “Okay, thank you.”

They hung up.

I could’ve been nicer, but having worked many contract jobs in my past, I’ve found that if you keep helping them after you are let go out of a sense of loyalty, they will keep using you at no cost. I never sent the invoice; just having them not call gave us a sense of freedom and peace worth way more than the $900.

The best thing is that my wife wound up getting a job at one of the software companies she’d dealt with before, testing a travel agency app they were designing. She got a substantial raise, as well.

This story is part of our Best Of July 2021 roundup!

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