Source
r/Upwork•
InvisibleWindows

Am I Being Too Sensitive?

A little background.

I specialize in IT automation but have a lot of general IT knowledge so from time to time customers like to pick my brain which is fine because I'm able to leverage that into more work. I recently was working with a client that asked me to automate something for him it required a bit of back and forth because quite honestly he didn't understand his own environment. After completing the work for him he had quite a few questions unrelated to the work...actually more than a few.

I figured, hey this could turn into more work. After asking all these questions - some I didn't answer right away - he closed the contract and gave me not a bad review but a middling review due to my availability.

Part of me wants to block the guy because while my intentions were not 100% altruistic I did answer his questions which was a courtesy. Another part of me is like, well I got paid and it's not like it was a bad review.

Posted Feb 26, 2020, 12:48 PM UTC

104
gaop•

It appears that he is in the wrong, but you should probably move on for your own benefit.

No sense wasting your time and energy on this guy.

16
decay_disintegrate•

There are clients that just don't understand the difference between the outlined work and extra courtesy work. Best case for some of these is just what happened to you, you got paid and got a positive if average review. Worst case they dispute and give you a negative review because they weren't satisfied with the work that wasn't even in the contract. For those, the best thing I've seen people do is respond to review with an outline of what the work was and what they expected extra, so others can see that the client was being unreasonable.

In your case, just move on honestly.

5
BlueTheNeko•

Why would have had a bad review in the first place? I don't get it

3
VarunGS•

Reviews are based on expectations

If you make yourself constantly available and helpful, then the moment you're not, you will get a bad review

If you set clear terms from the beginning and make it clear that you won't take on free/altruistic work, then the client gets what they paid for and come out happy most of the time

Managing expectations = key to freelance

3