Finding the artist was easy - probably due to beginner's luck, but finding the right graphic designer for the websites is starting to feel like a quest for the Holy Grail. After losing the first one to her own writing dreams, it was a relief to find the second who was clearly skilled and talented, and with a wide range of experience. The only thing I didn't like about her during our meeting was a criticism - and an unnecessary, inaccurate criticism - about BANE's work. To me, it seemed she was undermining the work of another artist, as well as our collaboration going back and forth on getting Ella Bandita's expression right.
So for her to show signs of unreliability at the very beginning of our working relationship was... stunning, actually. She never acknowledged that she flaked and never apologized. She definitely tried to make up for it by doing up a mock website, but she also got ahead of herself. I'm sure this method has worked for her often in the past, while protecting her ego, but the way she handled it made me really uncomfortable. But she was talented and skilled and it's such a pain in the ass to look for another designer, and maybe communicating would help smooth things over. Yet I didn't have a good feeling about this. I saw a lot of butting heads and relying on somebody who has already shown herself to be unreliable and who has not proven her accountability - in a nutshell, somebody who'd increase my level of stress in an area where I'm the weakest - the Internet. I was thinking that I was embarking on not just 1 but 2 websites that would form the hub of my "online presence" that is not considered so necessary to market myself. And I was thinking this is going to be an ongoing working relationship. Do I really want to build a working relationship that is already off to a bumpy start? When I really don't have to?
So, I didn't. I was stumped. I had to think about it for 2 days - and finally decided after two days that this wouldn't work. She had to nudge me before I got back to her. She sent me an email asking if I'd gotten her estimate - the same estimate it took her three days to get to me. I think I was fair. I wrote her back and detailed to her my thought process in coming to my decision, and that I regretted it. I wasn't sure if I was even doing the right thing, but I just didn't feel good about working with her anymore. And it was her job to keep rapport with me. I'm the client. It's not my job to understand her and give her another chance if I don't want to. Later that evening, I posted on Craigslist in gigs - this time breaking the job down in two. In Creative, I advertised for a graphic designer for the book cover and interior - someone who could also convert the manuscript to the Kindle, Nook, iPad, etc. And in Computer, I posted for a website designer. Within an hour, the Book Cover post had been flagged and within a few hours, the Website Designer post had been flagged. I used much of the same verbage in those as I had used in the post where we met. Perhaps it was a coincidence, and somebody else other than the woman I just let go was the one who had my posts removed. But I don't think so.
How many times have we heard horror stories where somebody goes through trials and tribulations on the path to getting royally screwed, only to have the tale of woe conclude with: "And there were problems from the very beginning. I just didn't feel comfortable and wish I'd gone with that..."
Yeah. I'm feeling pretty good about the bullet I just dodged.
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