Sars, I’m an attorney and a long-time reader.I’m not a collections attorney by a long shot, and since I don’t know where “Stiffed in the Sun City” lives, I can’t advise her on the specifics of the law, but in most places the lien that she has on Dolores’s house should give her the right to have Dolores’s house sold to pay the judgment.Stiffed is in the same position as a bank: if the debtor (and that’s what Dolores is, just like she didn’t pay her mortgage) doesn’t pay, the “judgment creditor” (Stiffed) can foreclose.The house gets sold, the taxes get paid (the government generally comes first), then Stiffed gets paid, then Dolores’s mortgage(s) get(s) paid off, and then — and only then — does Dolores recover what’s left of the equity.I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the law wherever she is gives Stiffed the right to recover “expenses of collection” — including any fees she has to pay to collections people, attorneys, whoever — and that money probably would get paid to Stiffed along with the $2000 she’s owed.

The important disclaimer: I’m not Stiffed’s lawyer, and the odds are good that I’m not even licensed in her state.But my recommendation would be for Stiffed to go see a lawyer about how she can have the lien executed and get her money.Who knows?The lawyer might even agree to take a look on a contingency basis (he/she doesn’t get paid unless Stiffed does) — especially if the fee’s not coming out of Stiffed’s $2000, but Dolores’s hide.

Tennessee Lawyer

Dear Sars,

I am writing in response to Stiffed in Sun City.While what happened
to her is horrible, unfortunately, it is something that happens
constantly to subcontractors as well as contractors.
I was in a similar situation a few years ago, and I would like to share
some advice with her if I can.

1. Let it go mentally.Mentally, she has to look at that 2K as
completely gone and as never having belonged to her.It sucks, but
chances are very slim that she will get the money back.I know she
was having medical difficulties, so she should definitely work with the
billing department and work out something that she can live with
payment-wise.

2. Join a society of freelancers.Many times (depending on what you
do) there is a nominal annual fee involved in joining one of these
organizations. This will be important for Stiffed, because she will be
provided with info on whom not to do business with, as well as
information on what to do with a client who is not honoring his/her
contract.

3. Apply a collection to the client’s credit report.If Stiffed is
legally running a small business, she has the right to report an unpaid
bill to all three credit agencies.I know, I know, this is coming off
as petty and in complete conflict with #1.However, this should
be looked at as a means of helping karma along.The one thing that
none of us can ever escape is our credit reports.If the client who
stiffed Stiffed wants the tradeline removed, she will either have to
wait the seven years (and deal with higher interest rates and flat-out
rejections), or she will have to settle with Stiffed.Chances are that
the client will wait out the amount of time it takes (which goes back
to #1), but at least Stiffed’s (is that correct?) voice will be
heard every time someone accesses her former client’s credit.

4. Report the client (if Stiffed hasn’t already done so) to whichever
freelancing society Stiffed ends up joining.If nothing else, Stiffed
will prevent others from falling into the same trap.

Big fan who wants to help

Dear TN and Big,

Thanks for the suggestions; another reader, Graduated From Law School, mentioned that “most state small
claims courts have ‘Writs of Garnishment’ that can be used to collect a
judgment.This motion, which should be fairly easy to file in small claims
courts, allows the judgment holder to receive a portion of the defendant’s
salary each pay period, in much the same way the state takes out wages for
child support.”Googling “writs garnishment” and the relevant state should turn up some resources for Stiffed.

Getting shorted by clients is a sad fact of freelance life, one that many freelancers and independent contractors don’t prepare for until after it’s actually happened because it’s just easier to trust people and hope for the best.You can’t really do that.The best things you can do for yourself before embarking on a freelance career:

1. Get a lawyer.Incorporating isn’t necessary, but because it can shield you legally and fiscally from crap like countersuits down the line, it’s money well spent.(You get a corporate seal, too.It’s cool, trust me.)Even if you elect not to do that, though, you need an attorney — one with a broad range of experience in small-business affairs, contracts, and probate so you can do everything under one roof.

2. Treat the accounting aspect of the job as you do your actual work — professionally.Buy a calculator, get over any lingering discomfort at talking about money, submit invoices promptly and on letterhead.Put a term on every invoice (“due within sixty (60) days of receipt”), and if the check doesn’t come within that time, call and ask for it.Tracking who owes you what and when you get it is part of the job, and if your shadier clients sense that you don’t treat it as such, you will get paid last, or not at all.

3. Develop a Spidey sense.Clients who flip out when you want your lawyer to look a contract over, get defensive, accuse you of accusing them of wanting to screw you over?Trouble.Clients who don’t care if you submit an invoice, repeatedly feed you excuses about suppliers screwing them over, give you personal checks?Trouble.Reputable clients don’t pull that shit.Learn to spot red flags.

4. When you work for yourself, you will run across people who will not expect to have to take you seriously, for a variety of reasons.Take yourself seriously, and demand that your colleagues do the same.I can tell you from disappointing experience, people still exist who just assume that a female under the age of forty who runs an internet business will not have the first idea what she’s doing.Some of those people learned the expensive way that a patronizing email from house counsel isn’t going to get said female to slink off in tears without her goddamn money.

Don’t take from these items that everyone is out to get you, because it’s just not true.But freelancing isn’t a hobby; it’s a job, and you have to treat it like one.

Hello Sars,

I recently told my parents, “Thank you so much for
taking care of the baby and me.” My father’s response
was that I should have said, “The baby and I.” Which is
correct, and what are the rules for using “I” vs. “me”?

Thank you,
Me, Myself & I

Dear Me,

“I” is the subjective pronoun.”Me” is the objective pronoun.As their names imply, one is used as a subject, and the other as an object.In the example you give, “the baby and me” is the object of the preposition “of,” and is therefore correct.

“The baby and I” would work as follows: “The baby and I really appreciate everything you’ve done.”In that case, “I” is the subject (well, it’s part of a compound subject, but — same thing).

Quick cheat sheet: Use “I” when it’s the subject of the sentence (“I think,” “I drove,” et cetera), and in sentences using the verb “to be” (“it is I”), when that verb is not in its infinitive form.When the verb “to be” is an infinitive (“it’s supposed to be me”) and at all other times, use “me.”

My Dear Sars,

You appear to have a lot more sense and sensibility than any of my friends,
co-workers, family members, or total strangers that I may encounter, so
hopefully, you can help me.

Ten years ago, I broke up with “The Boyfriend.” Okay, maybe “broke up” isn’t
the right way to describe it; “got tossed out on my ass” more accurately
describes the inevitable meltdown that occurred following two intense years
with this guy. I have no problem admitting that yes, I deserved everything I
got and I have no hard feelings. Quite the opposite.

See, after ten years of
total communication blackout, I want to drop a line to this guy and tell
him that I’m sorry for everything I put him through during our relationship.
During a brief post-breakup interlude, he expressed remorse that he caused
me a lot of heartache in ending the relationship, but at the time I wasn’t
capable of more than grudging acceptance. Now, years later, be it maturity
or just the benefit of hindsight, I’ve seen the error of my ways.I’m not
some twelve-stepper that feels compelled to make amends to all that I’ve
wronged, but this is the only ex that I don’t have a cordial relationship
with and I would like him to know that I do regret everything that happened.
Not that he was an angel, mind you, but the bulk of the responsibility for
things not working out rests heavily on my shoulders.

I have no desire to
get back together with him, and I don’t know if we could even be friends at
this point, but I would like to at least be friendly with him. He was (and
hopefully still is) a really bright, interesting, compassionate guy and if I
had it to do over, I would have put the brakes on it when he decided to slip
over the line from friends to more-than. But he seemed just too good to be
true and I was feeling really vulnerable and blah blah blah excuses-cakes.

So my question is, do I leave the past in the past and let him rest in peace,
or do I email him out of the blue, deliver a simple “I’m sorry,” and allow
him to do with it what he will?

Ever Apologetic

Dear Ever,

Go ahead and email him — but when you say you’ll allow him to do with it what he will, mean it.He may not respond, or care to get into it beyond a terse reply, but if you’re prepared for that possibility and okay with it, go for it.

Dear Sars,

I’m really upset right now and I can’t find a single unbiased friend or family member to talk to. I’ve never felt like so much of an angsty teenager! I’ll try to make it brief…

I’m going into my sophomore year of high school. Last year I became close friends with a guy, who I’ll call “George.” Our friendship, I realize now, was based on our mutual contempt of a girl in my class, I’ll call her Kate. George and Kate went way back, but I had never met her before.

I go to an extremely small Christian school, where it takes all of five minutes for a rumor to spread, and two minutes for a salacious one. It soon became common knowledge that Kate was, basically, an evil vindictive slut.

I realize now that I helped to perpetrate this rumor, and it makes me sick at myself. Because it’s simply not true.

Near the end of the year, I became extremely close with Kate. I now consider her my best friend. And I thought that George was okay with her also. But he’s always been a little wary of our friendship. At the start of the summer me and George and Kate did a lot of stuff together and everything seemed to be fine.

At my school, Sars, being an individual is frowned upon. Everybody is forced into the same chaste little virginal mold. Kate does not fit into this mold. She’s fooled around a lot in her past (though she’s still a virgin), she smokes up a lot, and she cusses like a sailor, all of which contributed to her being expelled. Kate’s family life is shit and she’s clinically depressed, which explains a lot of her erratic behavior.

Being friends with her has got me into a lot of stuff that I would never have done without her, including taking methamphetamines for the first (and last) time, and cussing more in public. She’s offered me pot more times than I can count, but she has come to realize that I’m interested in my future enough to stay out of that stuff.

Needless to say, a lot of people from school hate Kate because she’s nothing like them. I’ve cut off ties with these people for the summer because they bore me to death. But George is still friends with them.And here’s where it gets complicated.

For a long time I was convinced that I was in love with George. I have recently realized that I’m not, on account of the fact that he’s too much of a coward to ask me out. He’s completely aware of my feelings for him (thanks in part to the rumor mill at school). He’s admitted that he likes me, but he doesn’t want to ruin our friendship by dating. (Bullshit.)

Since I’ve spent a lot of time with Kate, I’ve picked up some of her mannerisms, which George has noticed. While we were talking today he informed me that “everybody” thinks I’m turning into a clone of Kate. When I asked who “everybody” was, he listed off a list of people that I had considered friends.Obviously George has the social skills of a simian who has lived in captivity its entire life.

How can I attempt to salvage my relationship with George and all my so-called “friends” from school without jeopardizing what I have with Kate? And how can I make people see that, though I love her, I’m still not like her? If I don’t fix this whole mess, school will be unbearable this year.

Please help me,
Not a Clone

Dear Not,

Who cares what George and his cronies think?So you’ve changed a bit as a result of your friendship with Kate — what’s it to them?

It’s one thing for them to express concern about the friendship’s influence on you; the meth thing is worrisome.But if you’ve told me the truth about it here — you tried it once, and that’ll do you — it’s not really an issue in the second place, and in the first place, I think it’s more about George et al. feeling threatened than it is about them genuinely caring about you.

So, you know, tell ’em to stow it.It’s easy to say that, and a lot harder to do it and live with it in a high school setting, but I think you should do it anyway.George and your other “friends” don’t have to like Kate, but you do like her, and I don’t think you want to become the kind of person that grovels for the approval of closed-minded jerkweeds at the expense of a person whom you truly value.Tell the Georgettes exactly that, and if they don’t get it, it really is their loss, which I think you’ve started to see already.

It doesn’t mean the Georgettes won’t try to make life difficult for you at school, but the rumor mill can work just as well for you as against you, and…well, let’s just say that the bed-wetter label is tougher to shake than a bad credit report.If you know what I mean.And I think you do.

Sars,

Quickest back-story ever: I met a guy online; we live thousands of miles
apart and have become pen pals.We have a lot in common.We’ll call him
“Bob.”In one of our early e-mails, Bob asked if I had read his “novel.”The
next day, he emails me a link to read his “novel” at fanfic.net.

So, what’s the problem?I’ve read some really bad fanfic, but this one
takes the cake.It’s not Mary Sue bad; it’s Sam Finn bad.He’s written
himself into the world of the TV show (using his real name and everything)
and had the main character invite Bob to live with him.Bob then writes
himself as this super-smart person who solves every problem without ever
breaking a sweat, and makes the real main characters second fiddles to
himself.(Think Jonathan in “Superstar” to the power of 100!)He has
massively long paragraphs about his real life in there too, like when he
tells the main character that he [Bob] has to call his dad and sister [who
live apart], and about his move from one state to another, and how he’s
thinking about moving again, and how he likes his job and got to meet Sarah
Gellar, and what books he’s reading and how much he enjoys that the
characters need him and blah blah blah get-on-with-the-story-already-cakes.

So basically, I’ve stopped reading it.Now, he’s bugging me to review it.
He asks in his emails, and I reply to everything else he’s said except that.
How can I nicely say “I’ve stopped reading your story because it sucked”
without hurting his feelings?I don’t want this story to hinder our budding
friendship.

Sign me,
Unable to think of a clever name that isn’t a thousand words too long

Dear Unable,

Oh, dear.Okay, I think the trick here is to say that fanfic isn’t your thing generally.You respect how hard he’s worked on the story, how important it is to him, blah blah blah, but fanfic isn’t your cup of tea, so you haven’t kept up with it — and you don’t plan to.Hope he takes the hint and drops it for good.

If he doesn’t, your next move is to read just enough to let you offer knowledgeable comments — and by “comments” I mean “compliments,” because skin does not come any thinner than that of the average fanfic writer.Say you really liked it, use a couple of specific examples from the text, and change the subject.

It’s kind of annoying, but he’s your friend.Sometimes you have to sugarcoat things for your friends.

[9/17/03]

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