If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. You could also get new content delivered directly to your inbox. Thanks for stopping by! “I have no choice but to dismiss the case,” the judge said. “You can refile if you want, but you may run into the same brick walls again. Or you can just let it drop.” After only a second of stunned silence I thanked her and left, hoping to make it back to the car before the tears came.
I’m certain that the law is meant to be logical but this felt only absurd. Originally I listed my ex-boss by title and business address as the defendant, reasoning that he was the one who hired me, fired me, and refused to pay me. I thought I was asking for him to pay me in his capacity as the president of EF.
Two court appearances ago the judge said I’d done this incorrectly. I amended the filing to show that I was requesting payment from EF, not from an individual person. I asked then if I needed to do anything else. “Just give it to the judge,” the clerk told me, so at the last court appearance I did. She accepted the amended form but we got no further with the proceedings because EF’s lawyer was missing one signature.
This time he had the signature but pointed out to the judge that the company had not been served. “You didn’t have them served?” the judge asked, looking coldly at me over her glasses. Of course I had them served, I said. Months ago. She shook her head no. I should have had them served again with the amended paperwork. But it would have gone to exactly the same place, exactly the same person, I protested. It would have asked for exactly the same payment. And that’s when she threw the case out.
I should have known, I told myself, weeping angrily while driving away. I should have known, or asked, or figured it out somehow. I felt too stupid to try filing again. I felt too stupid to deserve the money EF owes me. I felt too stupid to live.
After a few hours (and a visit from someone who cheered me up extraordinarily well with ice cream and orgasms) I realized I was being ridiculous. Cases get dismissed all the time. People who go to court every day for a living screw up in ways that make my misstep look brilliant. Even EF’s own lawyer failed to get a necessary signature. These things happen.
But what to do now? My mind’s not yet made up. I see the sense in re-filing the case with errors corrected, even though it means entering again into a system that I don’t understand and which might once again boot me unceremoniously out after taking more of my money. I also see the sense in releasing the debt to the universe and being done with the whole sordid mess.
I’ll wait a few days (or weeks) to let the emotions settle and then try to come up with some workable solution.
It is not necessary to accept everything as true,
one must only accept it as necessary.
Just before Christmas I enlisted the services of a sitter and headed to small claims court to ask for the money EdenFantasys.com failed to pay me for work I did in late September. I lined up with around one hundred other folks who were scheduled for an early morning hearing. I had no idea what to expect; I sat tight until I heard my name pass between the judge and a lawyerish dude. My ears perked up.
Soon they called me to the judge’s bench. The lawyerish dude had been hired by EF to represent them. He came prepared with a thick folder of papers, some of which he slid across to me. In approximately three minutes he outlined to the judge his objections to my claim, to wit: I sued the wrong person (Fred Petrenko, president of EdenFantasys.com instead of EdenFantasys.com) in the wrong place (my state where the work was done instead of New Jersey where EF is based) for work Fred claimed to have told me *not* to do.
No decisions were made; the judge directed us to come back next month for further arguments on the issues. I was stunned enough with the rapidity (and untruthfulness) of the proceedings that I failed to write down the actual date. I suppose I should call for it soon, eh?
So it seems that before our next date I need to be able to argue intelligently that I did indeed sue the correct person in the correct place. I am not quite sure how to go about doing this. I have the assurance of both the small claims court clerk and my divorce lawyer that bringing the suit here was the correct thing to do, but I’ll need to do some research in order to back up these assertions.
Proving that I charged for work he asked me to do should be easier. I have all our IMs and emails. Several of the writers I was working with have very kindly emailed me the details of our conversations, which I will show to the judge. And I have on my side the fact that Fred questioned exactly none of my hours until he fired me.
I found it disheartening to prepare for court and then end up with nothing accomplished. I’m completely frustrated at the idea of putting in even more hours in order to get paid by EF. And I’m livid (well, as livid as I can be while well-medicated) that Fred Petrenko continues to be untruthful about these issues.
Another person would give up this fight, I’m sure. I’ve questioned if I should. Already I’ve spent a couple hundred dollars in chasing the money. I hesitate to spend more. Certainly he’s already lost or spent more money than he owes me on his own effort, goodwill toward his company, and his lawyer’s time. Perhaps that alone should satisfy me.
But I don’t want to back down. I know I worked the hours that were billed. I know I did the work he asked me to do. And I know that I never sold links, as he’s accused me of doing. If I don’t hold firm, I encourage him to play these same games with every other person who ends up working for him in the future. I’d prefer that this not happen.
I sure could use some encouragement though. I don’t want to spend the money to hire a lawyer to sort through legal precedent for me. I’m going to have to do it myself, or else take suggestions from my lawyeristically-inclined readers. You know my email, right?
Also, I need some other advice. The opposing lawyer is mighty cute. Would it be wrong to flirt with him? A little? At the end of the case? I’m assuming Fred gave him this URL, so HI LAWYER. How you doin’?
Please advise.
When I worked for the sex toy retailer mentioned here, I was asked to reach out to sex bloggers and other bloggers for the purpose of soliciting reviews of the site’s many products. When a blogger expressed interest in writing for the company, I was told to organize their information into a pre-existing Google Spreadsheet.
This document had been created by another EF employee and was shared between us and the boss. Into it we added bloggers’ legal names, shipping addresses, their blog URLs, item numbers of products we’d shipped to them, and details about any arrangements we’d worked out with them for publication of their reviews.
As time passed and my projects at EF grew, I also created other Google Spreadsheets with blogger contact information. These spreadsheets were shared with my boss and other EF workers. When EF let me go, I did not change the viewing permissions on these documents. I felt that they were my work products, and as such, they belonged to my boss.
So it was with great regret that I learned Wednesday night that somehow, access to the first spreadsheet mentioned above had been opened to other viewers. I’m not entirely sure how this happened. Here’s all I can surmise: A new EF employee surfed to a blogger’s URL directly from the spreadsheet, which left a hit on her stats counter. She clicked on the resulting link and was taken back to the spreadsheet. Apparently the EF employee’s spreadsheet login information was embedded in the link left on the blogger’s stats counter. I don’t fully understand this, and would in fact welcome a better explanation if you can provide one.
I do not think that this information was exposed intentionally. Nor do I think that it was viewed by anyone with nefarious plans. The only people who viewed it to my knowledge were other bloggers who were completely horrified to find themselves so exposed. Once people figured out that the information was indeed viewable and editable by anyone, access to the document was closed.
Nevertheless, I personally feel awful about this. I entered most of the private information onto that spreadsheet after it had been given to me in confidence by anonymous bloggers. I assumed that the information was safely stored and accessible ONLY to the people who had explicit permission to view it. Also, I assumed that my work product (ie, the various spreadsheets I worked on and created for EF) belonged to EF. This is why I did not close permissions or destroy the documents when I left the company.
Perhaps I should have done so, but I worried about giving my boss any more reason NOT to pay me. I have now closed access and deleted any spreadsheets I started for EF that contained private information.
I want to apologize most sincerely to everyone who trusted me to keep their legal names and addresses private. I feel awful for having had any part in promoting this company or encouraging others to do so.
***Information about this has now been posted on EF’s forums. Please note that more than simply blog URLs and email addresses were listed. Included on the spreadsheet were home addresses, legal names and products sent for review.***
“You start stories and you never finish them,” I hear you saying. “Whatever happened about that thing, or that other thing, or especially that funky vagina thing?” You ask me these questions through email, IM, phone and via anonymous and overwhelming psychic energy directed at me from every corner of the globe WHICH NEVER EVER STOPS AND WHICH GIVES ME A TERRIBLE HEADACHE PLEASE STOP THINKING ABOUT ME RIGHT NOW.
While I’d love to tell my little tales in exactly the manner I choose with no outside influence, I will agree from time to time to divulge additional details as you ask for them. Solely as a means to avoid donning the dreaded aluminum hat, you understand.
*The flu that flattened me last week has passed. While I was only officially ill for a day, it sapped my strength for at least three days. All offers of warm blankies, air kisses, cool hands placed upon my forehead and virtual chicken soup were much appreciated.
*Nothing is resolved with this situation. They attempted to “negotiate” with me a few weeks ago, but unfortunately we were unable to reach a means of payment that I felt was fair. I was told that I’d be paid if I completely dropped the small-claims case (er, no); that I’d get paid if I accepted their ad on my site for three months (um, NO); that I’d get paid eventually, on a schedule, if I agreed never to speak of the situation again publicly or privately (NO). A summons is in the hands of their local sheriff’s office and should be delivered soon. We go before a judge next month. I still hold out some hope that they can see fit to pay me for the work I did before we go to court. But I’m not very hopeful.
*I purchased some super-heavy-duty conditioner and a silk pillow case to remedy my hair issues. Both work wonderfully. My hair has never felt so smooooth. Unfortunately, one of my cats seems to have developed an unnatural attraction to the pillow cases, necessitating their frequent trips through the washing machine. Ratty hair? Solved. Kitty fetish? Created. Sigh.
*Recently I’ve been doing more work for Jane’s Guide. You can find my write-ups in the “New Reviews” section, where there’s been lots of reason for snark lately. Check it out.
*My fishy pussy is now just fine, thank you very much for asking. Flagyl may taste unspeakably bad, but it did the trick. I can now get nekkid without giving folks the impression that I’ve got this baking in my pants.
There. Did I cover it all? Feel free to remind me in the comments if I’ve missed something. ‘Tho I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that.
Continued from NodNightmares.com Parts One and Two.
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.
Continued from NodNightmares.com, Part One…
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.
Continue to Part Three
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.
Continue to Part Two
——
*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.”
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.
————-
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.
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