As if I needed prompting!
This is what was said to me just a few months after I lost my job in 2009…. just at a time when I was job searching and trying to find a way to make a living.
I knew this person, and they knew my circumstances. They were then, and still are, working in the public service for over 20 years. Take a 2 week foreign holiday every year, change their car annually, and are on a damn fine salary and pension.
I remember standing in front of her, wondering is she in the real world at all? I was too dumbfounded to even respond.
Looking down over the valley
In the past few months I have been angered by people who have approached us and asked us to work for ‘free’.
We both do our fair share of volunteering and are glad to do it.
However, like everyone else we need to make a living. Hence the reason I put this up on the blog and on the website. And, yes, it is tough out there.
There are weeks here when we wonder where the funds are going to come from to feed the pigs.
And yes, we know we are lucky too, as we have a very good life, and are luckier than some.
We’ve had people approach and ask us to share how we built the market for the pork. How we cost and price our product? One person even wanted us to write the Business Plan for his pork business!!! I kid you not.
However, perhaps the worst – and I had to calm down substantially before I could write about this – was being approached by a Government agency twice in recent months and asked to write blog posts for FREE!
On the first occasion I decided, in an effort to stay calm, to ignore the email – the topic was not even relevant to any of you, so why would I write about it?
The second time around – the agency was asking me to promote another commercial business – but again I would do so for FREE. Of course, I would – NOT.
The topic, by the way, would have put me in a difficult position with some other local producers.
I calmed down, and waited overnight to make sure I was calm. I wrote back and politely said that writing blog posts is what I do to promote our business, and that I occasionally will write a sponsored post, if it ‘fits’ into what we do here. I explained that while I would be delighted to advise the company on how to use social media, etc. to promote their business, naturally I would have to charge a fee.
To say their response was ‘out of order’ is putting it mildly. They were actually rude and totally out of line.
You can probably sense that I am still angry!!!!
This all coming from a government agency whose whole remit is to ‘support and assist’ small businesses.
Is it any wonder this country is in the mess it is in?
A Year In Redwood 