The magazine I recently resigned from had a little bit of a mess last year involving a grant that was supposed to be $20,000 but instead was $7,000. Then the mess deepened when the $7,000 was promised to a webdesigner who didn’t have a contract. The then-waist deep pool of SNAFU got even deeper when the webdesigner invoiced the LA office for his less-than-satisfactory work (remember he didn’t have a contract to adhere to, so there was no definition of “satisfactory.”), and the publisher admitted that he had already spent the grant money, incorrectly assuming that more would be on the way.

Then the webdesigner began a campaign of calling me, the editor in a different city, to demand payment. I was always like “I can’t really help you: I’m two states away and I have nothing to do with the finances. Nothing. Talk to the publisher, talk to the publisher.” This went on for months before subsiding last November when I assumed the webdesigner had finally been paid.

I just got a call this morning from that same webdesigner, complaining that he still hadn’t received a portion of his pay, and “I’m not calling the publisher any more. I’m done trying to get him to call me back.” (right, so he calls ME.) It was SO satisfying to say “I resigned from my position at the magazine. Thank you, goodbye!”

*deep soul-filling sigh* That felt really good. It is nice to have myself separated from the magazine’s fucked up business practices. Being a freelancer ROCKS (well, besides the taxes, but that’s a different story.) I have no company loyalty, no company ties. It’s just me and my words, people. And we like it that way.