Tennessee News Bandit

This client is not only bad for your business but bad for your emotional well being.
I will not name names or the business, but simply say it is a woman who runs a newspaper in East Tennessee, a very small paper in a town of misfits and criminals. I lived in Knoxville, so she could not find anyone in her town to do the work, she drove 40 miles to Knoxville and placed an ad in the Metropulse magazine to find her victims.

I began working for her freelance at a low rate, but the job averaged out around $300 every other week.  Later it was more. Her work ethic was haphazard, arriving at my home in the middle of the night on a thursday when the paper had to be done by Monday morning, then she got sloppy, arriving on Saturday night, so this meant working with no sleep til monday. She did this in order to reduce the hours, but I kept track of sleepless hours and charged her anyway. My husband found her creepy and weird, I did not realize how creepy she was. Eventually, she got tired of driving to my home and wanted to build an office in her home 40 miles away, and wanted me to come there to work an entire weekend. I balked at this, it was too expensive and tiring. Finally she gave me an ultimatum and told me, no job less I work from her home. So I was destitute. I agreed, which was a mistake. I spent four weekends working at her home, her home was nasty, smelled bad, she had a dog that ran under my legs as I worked, wimpering, I finally realized the dog was beaten and was scared of the owner. The second weekend of working at her home, she refused to let me leave at midnight, I told her I had worked all day and I had an hour drive home, I refused to work longer.

She started screaming at me and threw folders and papers at me from across the room, hitting me in the face. I left, crying the whole way home. I was so upset that my husband wanted to call the police. I was afraid to call the police when I left her home because she knows all the police in her town. Next day my husband with his tape recorder came back to work, I did my work and she paid me.  I continuued to tell her I did not like to work at her home, she refused to listen. Next visit was worse, she had me work on her paper and demanded I go see how she put the paper together and send it out. I had to go, this was an all night work, I was told to stand and not sit the entire time, meanwhile   it was at the police station in her town, downstairs office, she dissapeared with an officer for 3 hours and then came back and started beratting and yelling at all her workers. The officer stood there and watched as she verbally abused and treated her workers with horrible language, yelling and screaming at them.They were all people who could not find jobs, some had records, she had hired because they were cheap, one was a very old woman 65 years old who had trouble, she beat her up verbally because she had trouble understanding.

It was to say the least one of the most horrible experiences I have had in my life. I later found out she used the police force in her town to get labour, in other words, people in jail, were hired to put her paper together.
I worked that night and vowed this was the end, never again. I was driven home by this crazy woman down dark and unlit streets where she drove in the middle of the streets and nearly hit every car on the way home. When we finally got home she accused me several times of mocking her, when I was sleeping. She turned to me several times and said to me, “wake up you focking bitch, why are you smirking at me?”

I was on the verge of either killing her or pressing charges. I instead got home and fell into a deep sleep.
The next issue of working for her was my bringing my husband with me. I had to, and it was the last time I would ever go to her home. she paid me,  The last time I gave her all my files and told her  to go to hell. She told me I was an unbeliever in christ and I would go the hell. This coming from a woman who was regularly harassing and treating her workers with horrible verbal and emotional abuse.

I sent her several emails telling her how she was mistreating workers, she later had her local police call me with a cease order. I told the officer what I had been through, he laughed, and told me he knew she was a lunatic. He said leave it alone.

Her sister was and instigator in this whole cherade, she got me the job, without telling me what a nightmare it was, I later told her to stop the nonsense and be honest, she told me I had anger issues.

I developed a thryoid problem during this incident, it is when your body reacts to stress in a negative way, it means you are under such unbelievable stress that your body shuts down. She did this to me, I could not function after awhile and would stop in the middle of the road on the way to her home and fall asleep, the stress of dealing with her would shut my body down. Because we were so poor I needed the work, but my body would shut down in order not to deal with her.

I do hope I find her in jail  at some point. If you need any information on this horrible person, please do write to me.

LESSON LEARNED:

This is a really bad story. Don’t be afraid to speak your mind with your clients. It’s easy to keep your mouth shut but over time you’ll go crazy. If you don’t think you can do it over the phone, do it over email, but do it.