As a struggling performing artist/actor aka private contractor/self employed/or to some unemployed/freelancer, my life entirely revolves around special occasions & events so my schedule is always wide open until confirmed as "booked". Obviously my art & personal business services pays me more than BA work because my rates were designed to make up for the Friday/Saturday work night while mid-week email sorting pays me nothing. Marketing firms, talent agencies, and professional event planners all seem to take for granted the fact that they are paid to communicate by phone or email and expect everyone that isn't paid until they first communicate about cost/location/availability/expectations, then get confirmed as booked and that's only if they get booked (the vast majority are a complete waste of time), then communicate some more, and finally arrive on time to complete the contract, to communicate as if they have all the comfort and reassurance of a regular steady paycheck. Truth is we work all week long for nothing hoping for the occasional winning weekend before we run out of rations. This is hard and stressful as sometimes we might be hungry and without coffee or we develop mental avoidant blocks towards our bad news blues why even bother box and the thankless task of always responding to never hear back and nothing ever as to why we're rejected so we know when it's safe to disregard.
It really would be great to at the very least remove the people you don't plan to hire from your mailing list. Also if someone tells you they only can or want to work in a specific location or on specific days or for a certain role or for a minimum pay rate, you find a way to compute that info and only email them about good fits for their interest instead of everyone in the state, for each and every location, date, time, and shift!? The companies who over flood my inbox with irrelevant crap eventually get transfer into my permanent spam folder because it gets old real quick always applying to never be hired or opening mail about promotions and work in Los Angeles or Vegas or 4 hour shifts a 5 hour drive away in Spokane. My favorite is all the agencies who insist on scheduling an interview using some new untested technology like the latest app that swears to fix all their problems when I'm the one who has to try to download, sign up, check the email to confirm, then record my 12 min video that fails to upload after trying for 12 hours to meet the 24 hour deadline. This is 12 hours without a phone or a life, mind you, and not getting paid for it! 😳 Not every good idea has a good outcome. Believe me, I know! Everything sounds reasonable before you put it into action yourself under the worst condition you can imagine then you find them more difficult than humanly possible AND people act like you're incompetent but keep you on their mailing list anyway in case of an emergency.
My second favorite was the one agency (lucky there's been so many I can't remember any of their names that didn't work out and over spammed) that wanted us to find clients for them too for an exceptionally low percent of commission instead of starting our own business employing our broke starving artist friends so we can kanoodle with all our major corporate marketing department heads. That one was really like "wow, a $50 bonus? I'll get right on it! thanks" Never insult a freelancer's intelligence because they very well might be plotting to take over your company and if you're pretentious either fire you or send you to Costco to work the "bomb chika wa wa" campaign offering samples of Axe Body Spray. 😂 (longest 5 hours of my whole entire life... nothing but glares from momma bears fearful that I might attack their sons & husbands with uncontrollable animal lust. the genius who came up the think tank wonder there really needs to trade places or not be paid so much)
