>Anyone who has been a freelancer has dealt with the random, uncalled for threats from clients to give you a bad review or try to suspend your account.
It's amazing, isn't it? These are people who require outside expertise (they're hiring you after all) and yet do everything they can to make you feel small and worthless. It's utterly backwards.
I wonder how many of these abusive people are "idea" guys?
Regardless, utterly embarrassing on the part of Upwork. Glad they're being called out. I hope the internet has its way with them.
This has more to do with low barrier to entry in any online platform. For any job there could be zillions of bids, going down spiral. All claiming they can do the job. It creates a sort of situation where people don't realise that their task is to find needle in a haystack
As someone who has worked on oDesk and made good money. You also need to do client filtering.
>do everything they can to make you feel small and worthless. It's utterly backwards.
Backwards? That's a bizarre word to use to describe behavior that is NEVER appropriate.
Are you implying that the freelancers should be making the employers feel small and worthless?
> I wonder how many of these abusive people are "idea" guys?
Honestly, I have no idea what you mean by "idea guys" and the implied correlation to "abusive people"?
From reading your comment, it sounds like you missed the point completely. This is not a freelancer vs. employer or developer vs. idea guy situation, this is a simple case of narcissist vs. victim.
The situation can be reversed and be just as abusive and horrible.
An outside expert doing everything they can to make an "idea guy" feel small and worthless!
The point is not whether the employer has the right to push around the freelancer, or the respect you think an employer should have when needing outside expertise.
The point is everyone is a human being that deserves to be treated with respect. It is too easy to not consider the other person when working through a platform like Upwork or on the internet at large...This is a cautionary tale about the importance of remembering that there is a human being on the other side of the screen!
Shouldn't respect be a two way street? His comment implies it should be a one way, just the opposite way of this evil Kevin guy.
Edit: Just to be clear, I am drawing my assumption from the second part of his post that tries to correlate "idea guys" to "abusive people", almost as if he equates idea guys that try to hire developers as somehow "less than" him.
>almost as if he equates idea guys that try to hire developers as somehow "less than" him.
I used "idea guys" in quotes because I'm referencing a specific type of person who you may not be familiar with, but I'm sure many other people here are, especially in the freelancing world. If you read the post, you can spot the cliche.
Having an idea, no matter how good it is (and believe me when I say I'm not one of those "ideas are worthless" guys) only gets you so far. At some point you need talented, skilled people to help execute on it. And it's far easier for the execution guys to crib an idea than it is for the idea guy to copy the execution skills.
Basically, the "idea guys" like to place themselves at the top of the pyramid, and think everyone else owes them something.
Thanks for clarifying. I mistakenly assumed you were referring to "any non technical person with an idea (who can't build it himself),"
...as opposed to jerks who overvalue their contribution, thinking everyone else owes them something for just coming up with the idea.
In general, I think the bias flows both ways. Some developers think ideas are worthless and that idea guys/business and marketing folks contribution is somehow worth significantly less than a developers contribution. Other "idea guys" think their idea gives them the keys to the kingdom.
You really need both to succeed.
In reality, there are lots of ways for both sides to make significant contributions to bringing ideas to life, outside of writing the actual code or ideation.
It takes a village...
I think we were both coming from opposite perspectives, but share similar views. I was "lashing out" against the guys who undervalue business guy contributions, and you were against the guys who undervalue the developers contribution...
I just heard on a podcast that, "Every Mark Needs their Sheryl"
You're doing the equivalent of yelling "white lives matter too" at a guy saying "black lives matter".
Almost all freelancers respect their clients, and bend over backwards to please them, even if they don't get the same respect back. A client that understands and respects their freelancers is rare.
It's amazing, isn't it? These are people who require outside expertise (they're hiring you after all) and yet do everything they can to make you feel small and worthless. It's utterly backwards.
I wonder how many of these abusive people are "idea" guys?
Regardless, utterly embarrassing on the part of Upwork. Glad they're being called out. I hope the internet has its way with them.