Problems with EdenFantasys.com

Collected entries about my ongoing issues with EdenFantasys.com:

Part One

I’ve tried and failed to write other entries, but with such an ugly situation weighing upon my head I can’t, at least not until I write these entries.

Beginning in early 2007, I worked with a company which sells items of a sexual nature*. Initially I wrote reviews for them, then later I also began providing “expert help” to site users.  The site owner during this period was quite generous to me, allowing me to write about expensive products as well as listening to my feedback on the site and their many excellent programs.

In August of this year, he asked if I’d be interested in taking on more tasks for the company: namely, in providing PR for them and in helping them develop a brand-new blog.  I made sure that the owner was clear that my formal education was in the areas of literature, education and the sciences, NOT in marketing.  I was under the impression that the main reasons he chose me were because of my many connections in the blogger world and because I’ve got a reputation as a dependable, honest person.

He offered to pay me a straight salary for my work, but I refused.  I explained that my working hours were often limited by other tasks (such as writing, taking care of children, grocery shopping, breathing and showering) and that I’d be much more comfortable with an hourly rate as well as a limit of approximately 15 hours of work per week.  He agreed, then suggested a rate of pay that was, to my mind, quite satisfactory.

I asked him how he’d like me to keep track of my hours.  We settled on a Google Spreadsheet that we’d both have access to; in it I listed dates, tasks, and number of hours completed.

After my first pay period, the site owner was happy enough with my work that he gave me a pricey product as a bonus and increased my hourly pay by a third.  I was working far more hours than I’d anticipated, but I found it to be absolutely exhilarating to make beneficial connections between the site and people who could spread the word about the good things we did.

Because of the geographic distance between the company’s main office and my…er…kitchen table, the boss and I communicated solely via IM and email.  My IM program logs every conversation and I save email religiously.  This was important to me because I could refer back to our oft-times fast-paced IM conversations later, when I was working on my own.

I did not do my work perfectly.  I am not trained in the art of SEO, and I readily admit that I made mistakes.  In the beginning, my boss gently pointed out my errors and provided written instructions on how to do better.  In every possible case, I corrected the mistakes on my own time, without billing additional hours to my employer.

But soon, gentle corrections were a thing of the past, and our working relationship took a difficult turn.

*While I’m choosing not to link to them in this post, I’m guessing that regular readers know the company in question quite well, as I’ve written for and about them so extensively in the past.  Thank you to Jack from WritingDirty.com for providing an appropriate antomyn with the suggestion of “Nod: Then Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.”

———–

Part Two

The blog project I worked on was difficult for both my boss and myself.  I’d like to think that I have a pretty good handle on how to run a blog, but consistently I did things in a manner that displeased him.  I was disorganized, or too vague, or focused on the wrong parts of the project at the wrong times.  Additionally, there were numerous instances where he gave me instructions that were later contradicted.  When this happened I’d read back in the IM logs or email to make sure I’d understood correctly the first time.  I had.  But I figured that as the boss, he was entitled to change his mind as much as he liked.  As long as he continued to pay me.

Another of my projects caused a good deal of strife.  At my suggestion, my boss looked into printing at company  expense a large order for a group of bloggers.  In return, the company would receive abundant advertising in their final creation and in the announcements leading up to it.  We discussed the details via IM, then he summarized the points of the deal for me.  I wrote an email to the blogger project lead and my boss, reiterating what we’d discussed.

My boss answered back to both of us he “agreed” to the deal.

Unfortunately, printing costs far exceeded what he’d estimated.  Over the next several days, my boss went back and forth between backing out of the deal altogether or offering a far lower than expected amount of money to the blogger group.  I argued against backing out of the deal on the grounds that this group of bloggers was capable of netting the company loads of positive PR if we carried through.  Or negative PR if we failed.

Disgusted with the ongoing negotiation, the boss eventually settled on a donation that was but a fraction of the total printing cost.  I was disappointed in the decision because I knew how much great press the project could have gotten us if we’d stuck by our commitment, but I did my best to smooth things over with the blogger group.

They were not very happy.  In fact a few of them were quite seriously put out.  One of them refused to work with the company on future projects in large part because of this situation.

When my boss found out how annoyed they were, he blamed me.  He claimed that I’d “misrepresented” his desires to the bloggers, and he removed me from future PR projects.  Furthermore, he cut my pay for the new blog project on the grounds that I was unqualified to handle it and had bungled things from the start.

I regretfully declined to work for the lower rate of pay.  I prepared a list of our current projects and finalized my time sheet.  I sent all of this to him on the morning of Monday, September 29th. At that point I was disappointed to be done with the blog project and irritated at being blamed for the failure of the blogger printing project, but I was not altogether unsurprised that we’d ended up as we had.  He’d seemed unhappy with my work during the final two weeks I was with him, and I could certainly understand how he’d want someone with far more PR experience than myself handling his projects.  He was utterly within his rights to fire me for reasons rational or not.  It’s his company and he’s got the prerogative to work with whomever he wishes.

The pay period was scheduled to close just two days later, on October 1st, so I expected to receive my final check by October 10th at the very latest.  I figured I’d collect my money, then move on to other projects with hardly another bit of energy expended on thoughts about the company.

But that didn’t happen.

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Part Three

On the afternoon of my firing, the boss emailed me to question the number of hours I’d recorded.  He asked me to “remove” hours spent on blog design because he felt they were “unproductive.”  I refused, on the grounds that all my hours were carefully logged and entirely appropriate.  When he emailed again to ask for a piece of contact information he thought I’d left out of my records, I told him that I’d be more than happy to get him all the contact information he needed, once I had his assurance that I’d be paid in a timely manner.

His immediately sent back a two-letter reply:  “FU.”

Then he followed it up with a threat to withhold all my pay until I removed said hours.  I sent back an exhaustive list of our IM conversations and email wherein he’d instructed me to take certain actions in regard to the blogger printing project and the blog; also I pointed out the extensive changes logged by our shared Google Documents that corresponded to the hours I’d billed.  I told him that if I was not paid the billed amount in a timely manner, I would contact my lawyer and write about the situation.

Subsequently, I found out that he’d emailed the bloggers in charge of the printing project and explained the situation from his point of view, which was … well … not at all similar to what our IM conversations and emails showed.  In fact, he’s now told a number of our mutual contacts that I was fired for “selling” links on reviews of the site’s products that I’d arranged with bloggers.  I’m not quite sure what this means, but I can say with complete confidence that I have done no such thing.

As of this writing, my former boss is over a week past due in paying me approximately $1200.00 in wages.  Oddly enough, he did pay me $137 that he owed for commissions ($300 in commissions will come due next month).  I have followed through on my promise to contact my lawyer; she’s advised me on how best to file in small claims court to collect these sums.

This is an unfortunate situation.  My former boss has created a website with amazing features; in some ways it’s one of the best sex toy sites out there.  But there’s more to running a successful online business than simply having a great selection, awesome pictures and tons of information on the toys and sexuality.  Success is based on treating both employees and users well.  I surmise that if I was treated this poorly as an employee, then others who use his services are also in danger of receiving poor treatment.

It strikes me as particularly ironic that one of my first tasks was to work on a new “mission statement” to be posted on the site.  My former boss emphasized that he wanted the statement to focus on the honesty and community-minded nature of the site.  Now I very much regret writing something that doesn’t reflect my experience with the management.  I also regret encouraging others to participate in the site’s programs, for fear that they’ll end up in a situation similar to mine.

To be clear:  I’m not upset about being fired.  I’m upset about not being paid for work I did in good faith for the company. Firing is a reasonable response for a boss to have when unhappy with an employee’s performance.  Not paying her, however, is neither a reasonable nor legal response.  And it’s one that I will do everything in my power to correct.

I very much hope that company will see the light of reason before the information goes to a judge.  When they do end up paying me appropriately for the hours I worked, I will write about it publicly and update these entries to reflect the changes.