If you follow sports, sooner or later, in almost every league, we encounter a situation where a football, basketball or baseball player, or any representative of team sports, overperforming this season, comes to the conclusion that the current contract is too small for them. And a real soap opera begins, with only one goal – to change the terms of the contract to better ones.
A familiar situation, isn’t it? On the other hand, if a sports star has the right to negotiate on an already signed contract, why can’t a “mere mortal” do the same? For example, a cat sitter who doesn’t like that the client places too many responsibilities on her. However, in such situations, as described in the story by the user u/Son_of_Kierkegaard, the end is almost always predictable…
More info: Reddit
The author of the post had been working as a house/cat sitter for another lady for several months
Image credits: Hải Nguyễn / Pexels (not the actual photo)
The author’s main duty was to take care of an elderly, sick cat, but the client also demanded chores from her
Image credits: Son_of_Kierkegaard
Image credits: kroshka__nastya / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The author got $25/day for this work and she started to realize it was actually too cheap
Image credits: Son_of_Kierkegaard
So finally, the author wrote to the client claiming that from now on, her rate is $40/day plus an extra $15 for bad weather – and immediately got fired
So, the Original Poster (OP) tells us that she has been working as a house/cat sitter for one lady for several months now, and her main responsibility is to take care of her elderly, sick cat. When the author negotiated with the client about payment, the contract she signed didn’t specify a daily rate, and basically only listed her duties.
Currently, the OP charges $25 per day, but almost every day, her range of duties in caring for the cat, as she admits, expands. For example, on Halloween, she had to sit outside and pass out candy, instead of just putting a bowl outside. The owner of the house also wants the author to vacuum and dust despite having a cleaner, and whatnot.
When the lady recently texted the OP a request to give the cat blood pressure medicine by hand, her patience snapped. She wrote that from now on, she was raising her rate to $40 per day, plus an extra $15 per day if it snows. The thing is, the client’s house is on a steep slope, and, according to the author, she greatly risks her health by getting there in bad weather.
However, if the author expected the client to agree to her counter-conditions, then she didn’t know her client well. In a response, this lady called the OP’s behavior “extremely unprofessional,” stating that she had tried to involve her poor cat in “manipulation.” After that, the client declared that she no longer needed the author’s services, leaving our heroine wondering whether she had done the right thing here.
Image credits: Son_of_Kierkegaard
Image credits: Son_of_Kierkegaard
Image credits: Son_of_Kierkegaard
Image credits: Son_of_Kierkegaard
Well, let’s say right away that, when agreeing on this work, the original poster clearly sold herself short. At least, specialized resources for finding cat sitters claim that the average national cost of a 30-minute cat sitting service is $30.20 nowadays. For half an hour – not for a whole day! And even if you consider that the author, apparently, is not a professional cat sitter, this doesn’t change the situation much.
So, Vety says that the average overnight rate (10-12 hours) for a hobby cat sitter these days should vary from 40 to 75 dollars. And this is without taking into account the various chores, which, as the author found out, should also be part of her responsibilities. In other words, our heroine really needed to monitor prices before agreeing to these terms. But what to do when the contract has already been signed?
And in general, where is that fine line that allows, for example, an NFL wide receiver to bargain with the front office about revising the terms of the active contract, but the cat sitter is forbidden, shamed and dubbed “blatantly unprofessional” for doing actually the same? At least, most of the commenters to the original post criticized the OP for this deed.
Moreover, what is most interesting is that the main point for which the author was criticized by the responders was her tone of voice. Many people in the comments sincerely wrote that they understand her as an employee, but if they were a client, they would also fire her for such a message.
“She’s demanding but she’s right, it’s incredibly unprofessional to hike your rates at the last second like this,” someone concluded. And what do you, our dear readers, think about this story?
People in the comments, however, mostly criticized the author for being unprofessional by changing her rate last minute
Image credits: Alex Green / Pexels (not the actual photo)
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