Sabotage

Nice try, dude.

I’m sure we’ve all had to deal with people undercutting our efforts.

This behavior is generally rare, but it only takes a small percentage to really rake you over.

Many years back I was project manager on a million dollar gig, something that required I handle a team of creators and do the hiring and firing. I don’t do this often, and I generally don’t enjoy it. I’m usually a creator working alone and working with a team makes me climb walls and wail.

Nothing makes you appreciate a good editor like having to traffic like an editor.

The deadline was crazy tight, and it was obvious that we would need a solid and reliable crew to get the gig in on time. The deadline was crunched even further when management asked for big changes due to stuff that had nothing to do with the creative team, and there was no way to meet quota without hiring even more people. So I did.

One of the freelancers was angry that I’d hired other people to help handle his workload. He claimed only he had the right to the job!

I pointed out that the contract guaranteed him no quota of work, and that it was work for hire: I had the right to hire other people.

I’ve run into this situation several times over the years - people who sign work for hire agreements clearly don’t have a clue what that means.

News flash: you, work for hire creator, are not running the show, and you can be hired and fired at will. That is all. It doesn’t even matter if you did a good job. All that matters is if you can’t deliver or are not making the boss happy, you can be replaced. You may be a good person, you may be good at your job, BUT in work for hire, the client is the creator for all purposes of copyright law.

No, this tragic tale is not about a Wonder Woman job, or even about a comic book publisher. So you know.

I’ve signed these contracts 100 times over the years. I work on Wonder Woman. I don’t own Wonder Woman. I come. I go. Other people work on Wonder Woman after me. If the next editor doesn’t like my stuff, I don’t work on Wonder Woman for three years. Then another editor hires me.

Hi Ho.

Also, he was already running very late.

Without telling me, he’d taken on other work that had been moved back, so his schedule wasn’t clear for our job.

This isn’t a crime, a lot of creators need extra work, and can’t jockey around a changing schedule. I didn’t resent him for this, just had to relate to him that while I was aware he needed the other gigs, we needed our job in by a dead-on last date.

Someone’s life was on the line, which is not me making drama. There was a strong possibility someone key to the project would not live long enough to see it completed.

No, not me. I’m not talking about Good Omens. This was a long time ago. I’ll bet real cash money you have no idea what this project was.

It was imperative I hire more help to cover what the freelancer I’d hired could not do.

He calmed down and eventually agreed it was the right thing to do. I told him to get the project specs to the other creators, and go to work. There would be hefty bonuses for the rush job and on-time delivery.

All communications were via email. All could be verified later. There was no misunderstanding.

All seemed well.

Until the day before the project was due.

I get this note: “Gee, Colleen. I just happened to be on the FTP site for the project, looking through (we’ll call her) Daisy’s files, and all of them are formatted incorrectly! How terrible!”

How terrible, indeed.

1) An FTP site (which most companies don’t even use anymore) is like a Dropbox for a publisher, and if there is one thing you should not be doing, it’s going into other creator’s files and having a look around.

Ever.

2) He’d had the opportunity to review all her files directly when she first delivered them. But he waited until the day before the project was due to say something, and that only after poking around other people’s files.

Nice.

3) He was the one who gave her the specs in the first place.

The wrong specs.

I’d had killer migraines at the finish line and had been without real sleep for days. The stress was brutal.

Everyone else was at the end of their rope trying to bring this in.

And this dude deliberately sabotaged the only other woman creator I’d brought in to help do his job.

At 11:59 on the clock.

DAY BEFORE DUE AFTER EVERY DELAY THE PROJECT COULD HANDLE.

She had to pull an all-nighter to redo the files and finish the rest of her job, taking time out of her day job, we barely made it, no time whatsoever to spare, and I was faced with the decision to give this guy a real come down when he might, I dunno, pull another whammy on us. God knows what else was going on with the project that he could pull to screw things up.

He had the password to the FTP site, had access to the files, and I have a suspicious mind.

I decided the best thing to do was to just stay calm, get the thing in, wait until all the files and documents were approved and safe with the client, and just quietly walk away from the human atom bomb.

I never confronted him, but the other people on the team knew what was up. I even paid him his bonuses, just like I paid everyone else. And those bonuses were generous. I paid more for that gig than he could have made at Marvel or DC. I always pay other freelancers well.

When someone is backstabby, you have two choices: confront and deal with the blow-up which will never end (someone who pulls this shit is going to lie about it forever, and try to destroy anyone who might be in the know, and I have been there, and a couple of these people are still at my throat decades later,) or quietly disconnect and hope to fade from their radar.

Maybe they will move on to ruin someone else’s gig some other fine day.

I got the book in and changed those passwords fast.

My strategy of stay calm, say nothing, and walk away seemed to work - at first.

He wrote to me repeatedly asking for more work.

I honestly had none to give him. I don’t work as a project manager often, and haven’t in years. I’m usually a freelance creator myself, not doing the hiring.

He turned in very solid, quality work, and maybe if he wasn’t so insecure around other artists he might be OK to have on other projects at some point.

I can be very forgiving.

Until...

Then he wrote to me asking if he could get extra copies of the final project. I’d already given him his contracted quota. I told him he could get more, and gave him the same price I’d been quoted by the manufacturer.

I also apologized that I simply could not get it for him at a better rate than that. I added that if I’d had money to blow on the gig I’d be happy to give him more, but the budget was tight and there was nothing more that I could do.

I didn’t tell him this part, but the team got paid more per hour than I did.

He blew a gasket.

That’s right, he went absolutely ballistic that I had the temerity to tell him the price of the final project he wanted that he was asking to buy!

Let me repeat that…he was upset I told him the price of the product he was asking to buy.

Why, he said that was so unprofessional of me, talking about money, and prices, and how much it cost! He didn’t care about my money problems!

He wrote frequently about his own money problems while working on the gig.

I mean, dude, I have all your emails.

Freelancers do that, they complain about money, it’s like breathing. I couldn’t care less. It’s not a character flaw.

You know that Oscar Wilde quote? “When bankers get together for dinner, they discuss Art. When artists get together for dinner, they discuss Money.”

When I talk money as project manager where budgets are something we have to discuss and be transparent about with the team, that was unprofessional, according to him.

OK.

He then went on a wild rant about my unprofessionalism on his FB page, and some weeks later, declared he was giving up art for good.

Sure.

So after his sabotage did not work, after he got paid in full - plus bonuses, and I almost always pay ON RECEIPT - while screwing people over, after he was handled with kid gloves, after he got everything he wanted except a cheaper price on a product...he had a tantrum anyway.

I suppose it would be of no surprise to anyone to say that he spent a lot of time on his blog trashing other artists, talking about how much better he was than them, and how much he deserved jobs other people got, (the page was later wiped, and when it reappeared later, he abandoned this habit. Regardless, the page has been inactive for awhile).

He can blow off steam. It’s human, everyone needs to vent once in awhile. But in public and when everyone can identify the subject is not a great strategy. Might be a good idea to leave that sort of thing at the bar.

Anyway, he gave up art for awhile. Came back. Gave it up again. Came back. Gave it up again. No idea what he’s doing now.

It’s been well over a decade, and I do him no harm with this post. If you’ve ever heard of him I’d be amazed.

Whatever.

Anyway, nice bridge you burnt, dude.

How do you handle a saboteur?

You don’t work with them anymore.