I could see that much in the gray of the unopened email and I knew that the news I'd expecting for a month — that I was fired from a freelance publicity gig — had happened.
In threatening legalese is a list of all my failures and a demand for the return of monies paid me as well as a refusal for this month's fee for which I'd been putting in nine-hour days.
I so, so do not want to complain or justify. Self-justification is one of those character lapses I can control. I ask that you take it on trust that the list of my crimes against the world of yoga was
screwy.
Here is what I had done wrong: gotten one name mixed up. It went out in 50some letters. It would not affect the project in any way. I had also not mapped the points of the agreement over the five months I was supposed to work on the project. My client (I love this: her initials are BS) expected it all at once. And one day, out the seven I worked, I was involved in a family project and my phone died and she couldn't reach me.
Did I mention I went to Catholic school for nine years? The first five of those years were pre-Vatican II. I keep score against myself the way addicts line up at blackjack tables. A misplaced comma is a breach in my pride. I fully own up to what I did. There's a slot machine of extenuating circumstances. To mention them would be whinging. Won't go there.
OK. Enough on the Confiteor.
I'll add one thing: I was proud of the work I was doing. For an esoteric project, I was getting results.
And there enters humiliation. I feel dirty, from being fired and from the List. I feel like a failure who shouldn't have been born. I feel like I deserve it. I have a history of bosses who have gone out of their way to demean me and I can't get over the feeling it's some kind of karma that attaches me to sadistic employees. Was it that time I wanted to show Sister Mary Francesca (a.k.a. Franny-Franny-Machine-Gun-Granny) a painting of a Pietà and when I raised my hand, she snapped, "What is it this time, Kuffel?" Did my bad-boss-karma begin in being too eager when I was nine-years-old?
My brother is bothered by my inability to let the past go, to get over things. If it bothers him, how do you think I feel about this parade of people who have wronged me? The other day I mentioned having had nightmares the night before.
"Oh, I hate that," he said.
"I have them every night."
"You what?"
"Every night I dream about people who've hurt me. They can come in any configuration — you know, like dumping a jigsaw puzzle out. And I beg them to take me back or stop hurting me. It's the anti-depressants."
"That's why you don't let go. It's all in your subconscious."
Whatever. I do know that I could write B.S. a letter that one of those feel-good websites that feature biodegradable vibrators insists will vanish troubling past relationships. I could take it out and burn it. And tonight or next week, B.S. and Sister Mary Francesca will be scolding me in my sleep.
I told the company that I will not return wages and that I expect payment. Then I went online and consulted, for only $5.99 a month should I choose to extend my membership!, a lawyer. I am due my money. I won't take them to court but I have some legalese to throw at them. Also, they're idiots. All of the queries I put out to promote the project came from my private gmail account. Just…think about that…
Two take-aways:
I'm thrilled to be away from the chaos that company lives in! There are so many other things to do besides live in dread.
Second — and this is serious. Not enough has been written about client-source relationships in the gig economy. Try Googling my money question and you'll come up with silence of a slot machine that hit apple, orange, banana. (It's been a while since I hit the slots.) There's a lot of complaining and a lot of reportage about working from home, but nothing to help in a situation like this.
Somebody should write about that.