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Is this person being condescending?

Asked by trolltoll (2570points) June 11th, 2016

Sort of a continuation of my last question. I may be reading too much into this situation. Please bear with me.

I write stuff for money through a custom content-writing service, and I have recently been experimenting with self-advertisement. In December 2015, I met a lady who had an urgent deadline. Missing it would have resulted in cascading setbacks for her. She needed 18–28 pages written in 2 weeks, and she was looking for a writer on Craigslist.

She didn’t miss her deadline because I wrote the paper for her. My work was received well and I achieved the best possible outcome for her, considering she was soliciting writing services on Craigslist. And I did it for a bargain. I also saved her a lot of money.

I have completed two other projects for her since then. I have yet to receive payment for the second of those, which I turned in to her on April 6. I have not been pushing her about it, though, because it was only a couple hours’ worth of work, and I have kind of forgotten it.

She approached me again 2 weeks ago, the night before my scheduled 2-week vacation began. I told her I would be unavailable for 2 weeks, but she should get back in touch if she was still in need of my services after that.

She texted me 2 days ago to see if I interested in writing 3–5 pages by Sunday. I asked her to send me the source materials and formal instructions by noon the next day (yesterday), so I could decide if I was or not. She had only described the project to me through text messaging up to that point, and I couldn’t begin working on it until I had those documents, anyway.

She followed up with three emails yesterday at 4:30 in the afternoon. The actual instructions for the project were embedded in one of them. The time limit is not an issue for me, and the work is similar to the project I did for her in December.

After clarifying some issues, I verbally confirmed that I would complete the work for the first part of this project. Then I apprehensively brought up the issue of my pay, which we had not yet discussed. I had let her take the lead on that for the last two projects, including the one I haven’t gotten paid for yet.

I suggested a rate that I believe is beyond reasonable. It is more than half again the rate I charged her in December, but that rate was a mistake. I figured she would need some persuading, because she has shown some reluctance to be flexible about pay before. So I told her that the new rate was still below the market price for ghostwritten work of the same level, time limit, and quality. Which I believe is true. Self-advertising custom paper-writers charge a lot, on average.

I also sent her a link to a tool that would allow her to estimate how much she would pay if she had found a writer through a contracting agency instead. At such short notice, this would be the only guaranteed alternative for her, besides writing it herself.

The tool allows you to enter the deadline, number of pages, and academic level of writing, and calculates a base price. It can be easily used to show that I am asking for less than the lowest amount that a third party agency would charge her.

Her reply was this:

I honestly don’t have the time to research what this stuff costs nor benchmark. So, amicably trying to compromise. :0)

Is this condescending?

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