Not on game day, just for set up and tear down.

I lurk on this sub often so I get the frustration that artists feel when their clients undervalue their work. I’m not an artist but the memes and stories are entertaining to me. Well, I’ve now found myself in the middle of a not-so-fun “stand off” with an artist and I’d like to know, from the perspective of redditors here, whether I’m being the choosing beggar. I’m removing a lot of detail as negotiations are still ongoing.

Background: I posted on a sub asking artists if they were interested in rendering/sketching/drawing from a photo reference. I clearly posted my budget ($25). So, as I mentioned, I’m not an artist, and I don’t know what the terms are that people use in the industry. I have commissioned pieces before from a handful of artists on Reddit and I’ve never had any issues.

Situation: An artist, W, commented that they were interested, I saw their portfolio and liked their work, so I went with them. There was a contract and everything, with the work described as a simple sketch, draft of two people, and done as a cartoon. I was satisfied and paid in full.

Yesterday, I received a drawing that wasn’t coloured in. I commented my happiness with it, suggested minor changes, and said I couldn’t wait for it to be coloured. That’s when I got a long email explaining that a “sketch” is a drawing that isn’t coloured and that if I wanted it coloured, I had to pay an additional $25. You can imagine my disappointment.

I was never told from the beginning that colouring was extra. If this is something understood in the industry, I certainly didn’t get any memo especially since, as explained, I’m not an artist. I’ve since asked the artist if they’re willing to reduce their fee since I’d like the gift soon and I’ve already paid them the full budget I had set aside for this.

But am I wrong to ask for a reduction of the fee? Tbh I’m irate to have to pay more, but I’ll take it as a “punishment” fee since I should have been extra clear that I wanted a coloured sketch. But to have to pay 100% more is ridiculous to me.

I’m willing to hear others out on their opinions on the matter though.

Edit: So most if not everyone has made it clear that “sketch” refers only to a black and white drawing. While my only defence is that I am not American and we don’t really use sketch in that way, I did come here asking for judgment and so am willing to admit that I clearly was wrong from the start. I will learn from this mistake and will speak to the artist about it. Also, I know that it is Reddit and some people love being assholes online because it’s easy to do it when you’re hiding behind the screen, but I do thank those people that were critical yet kind and civil about it.

I don't know if anybody else has worked with dogs but german shepherds and especially huskies are some of the hardest breeds to train. Shots are expensive in our area the first year of shots is around 1k, car riding can be hard especially if they have motion sickness, and to have other dogs and kids?? That is ALOT for a new dog to come into. But please give it to me for free but pay for everything and train it too

Seriously wtf

My BFF makes significantly less money so I try to help her out here and there. But things are getting more expensive around here and since we meet up at least 3/4 times a week it was getting a bit out of hand.

I noticed that I always pay for everything(lunch,dinner), but if she buys me one coffee she would later ask for $3 back. Whenever she comes over for dinner I obviously cook or get take-out that I pay for. She not only started to invite herself for dinner 3/4 times a week, but whenever I came over hers for dinner I noticed she always wanted to get take-out and if I “could bring some over”. So I would also pay for it.

I am all for helping someone in a rough spot but with her I started to feel used. Like she didn’t come over for my company but to get free food. I could write a book about these “incidents” but I think you get a pretty good idea why I started to split everything 50/50 whenever I pay for something.

So what she does now is “can you pay and then I’ll transfer you the money”. Which she 9/10 doesn’t transfer and I ALWAYS need to ask for it. I hate this because she makes me feel like a beggar, asking for my own money back. Or like I am too cheap to miss $15,- but it isn’t just the $15. It adds up to an easy $250,- a month if I don’t ask for my money.

Because I hate to beg I don’t chase my money. I just keep track of what she owes me and every time she asks me to pay I reminder her she still owes me X.

Because I was on holidays we didn’t see each other for a while and next time we met up I reminded her she didn’t transfer the $50,-. She looked at me like I was crazy, she didn’t recall when or what. I always write it down so I showed her that we were shopping and the store didn’t take cash so I “had to” pay for her stuff.

She then accused me of not reminding her and how the hell was she supposed to know because I wrote it in my app but didn’t share it?!?!

Like, you ask me for money. YOU should be the one reminding me! Not the other way around! But you can remember that one coffee you bought me weeks ago and will subtract that from anything you ask me to pay.

Update:

Just wanted to make clear my friends isn’t poor and has no money for food. I would happily support a friend in actual need. She wants a certain lifestyle she probably can’t afford. She goes shopping all the time, buys expensive make-up etc. She can afford a basic lifestyle, she just probably can’t afford the lifestyle she is living now so instead of choosing between going out for lunch and dinner OR make-up and new outfits, she wants both and tries to save a penny left and right.

For context, I'm getting married and the mother in law lives across the country and can't afford to make it up here. I've offered to pay her way up here and even do all the planning to make my wife to be happy and I'd hate for her mother to miss out on her daughters marriage. But lord she's testing my patience.

I posted this story on one of my very first days of reddit. I think it was in askreddit but something today on my reddit feed made me recall this exfriend of mine. Also pls dont crucify me, my English is super horrible.

Many many moons ago, I won a free venue space on this popular arcade restaurant. The package was good at least for 20-30 ppl max, we got game vouchers, free use of space and a discounted food package - the only thing I had to pay. The meal selection- a couple of finger foods, pizza and chips werent bad, like 200$ ish if I recall.

I never had a proper birthday party since I was a kid and thought this would be a great way to do so. I told my friend 'Kara' (not real name) and she became excited for me but she suggested why dont we do a joint bday party even though we are 2 months apart on dates. Her reasoning we had the same friend group anyway. So we agreed on a 10-10 split of invites. In which only 3 of them are from my work.

Issues started with her shutting down the invite list of our common friends. This girl was mean to her, she inst close to this one (but I was!), then shutting down my own co workers which she backed down when I gave her an eyebrow raise. Kara though made me feel guilty or annoyed when it came to my own invite list. Its important to note my coworkers are married or older people.

Then came the payment agreement for the food order. Gave me many excuses such as shes broke, why not I pay it first and she will pay her share later, even heavily implied I should just pay it and not expect anything from her. But even my choices like fries and nachos werent good enough. Nevermind that I always paid for our meals when we go out.

I realized quickly that she wanted the party to be HERS and I was just a wallet. The month we agreed to hold it to was her birthday month. The invite list she took over were all boys I barely knew & she wanted to flirt and show off to. This was something she did with me in the past.

I called her out on it and she keeps blowing me off. That was the last straw for me. And since no date, invites and booking to the venue was officially done (at least to my knowledge). I never booked the venue. Contract was in my name anyway so she can't book anything she doesnt have access to. I never gave any payment information or reservation yet so there was nothing she could financially pin on me. I celebrated my own birthday with a different friend circle and later learned that she was bragging that she was gonna throw this lavish party that thanks to me was never gonna happen. She did try to reach out to me and coax me to reconsider but I stood firm on my decision.

Now the clincher for this I vented the situation to another friend who has no relations with her to get a 2nd opinion if I was the AH. And he called me an AH because "a generous human should have given Kara the bday party since it was never mine to begin with. Because I won it it was really never mine." + some choice words that I was not a good person. That incident made me cut that person out of my life for years.

Back to Kara-this didnt stop her. And to be fair I should have LCed from her after the bday incident. But heres a few more things she did to me which stood out:

• Introduced her to my date only for her within minutes demanding he give her a massage...which he did. Me and him had a talk why that was all sorts of wrong & trashy. We never ended up together.

• Lied to me about her being abused at home so she can crash my home only so she can use it a place to hook up with guys. I took my keys back and ignored her. I started low contact-NC after this incident.

• I work with a lot of big named event and wedding vendors. Called me after years of NC asking assistance if I can get her a catering quote and discount for her wedding + doing all the coordinator grunt work for her. I dont get a discount really but I gave her the quote and some cost friendly options. When asked if I would be invited, she said NO. This is a family only wedding and it would be small. It was for 250 ppl. After this I blocked her from all my socials.

Looking back a lot of people warned me about her being toxic. I should have heeded the warning. I thought people were being mean to her and being a bully victim myself I had this messiah complex to be her friend.
I lost friends because of her from either her badmothing me or not wanting to associate with me because of her.

I thought of posting it at workreform, but maybe here is better

From an email after doing some worthless online course over a year ago ...

As a trainer for Project Management I have enjoyed mentoring many of you. I'm writing to you now, as it is time for me to establish my life's mission, by offering courses to simplify life and reconnect with spirit, in The School Of Simple Living.

The Simple Living Reset course and a summit with over 1000 people are both planned for October 2023.

If you haven't yet, watch my TEDx about BULLSHIT ;-) and getting out of the Hamsterwheel. While you are already there, feel free to leave a like or comment :)

There are a few spots for dedicated supporters that want to create an impact in the world and also work with likeminded souls in an enthusiastic environment on tangible goals, leading to a higher vision.

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MUST:

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Content writer & Social Media Manager (YT, IS, FB, Prescheduled Emails)

Webpage Administrator / Designer (UX/UI, Wordpress, SEO, Google Analytics)

NICE-2-HAVE

Virtual Assistant - meeting regularly with me, organizational tasks, researching, sounding board for brainstorming, prioritizing, strategizing

Tech-Wizard (connecting tools like zapier, airtable, gdrive, clickup, etc)

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Ideally, you are available for the whole period up to the launch of the summit and have an interest in a longterm relation with the SOSL. If only for a shorter period, which doesn't look very good on a CV anyway and is simultaneously creating relatively much onboarding activity, let me know and we can discuss. I'm very flexible though for specialized team members that are skilled in some of the non-cross-functional fields mentioned above or anyway, extraordinarily aligning with the mission of SOSL.

If you interested, let me know where you are standing in life at this point, how your availibility is looking like in and how motivated you are in building a start-up from scratch. In any way, let me know your availability per week and your personal interest and objectives in joining. Please write into the title, in capital letters, which role you are interested in.

There is a lot to learn, experience, and opportunities to create and discover, while seeing how a funnel is being build from scratch.

See you in the School of Simple Living; Ben Bharat Berwing

Trying to sell my elliptical on Facebook marketplace and met my first honest scammer