Dear Advertising 🗣️ Stop Trying To Make Fetch Happen!

Lowering freelance rates on contract extensions is not a thing.

Recently, I had a call with a young creative who wanted to interview me. Let’s call her Tina. One of her questions was about money. I love it when I get asked about money, because I have a lot of opinions about it. I talk about it without hesitation, because I am a Latina in advertising, who got in it “late” in the game. I don’t have the luxury not to talk about money if I want to afford rent, in a city, as a single person, as a woman, and as a Latina.

Tina was hired on at $25/hr freelance rate straight out of college. She probably should have received a little more considering the type of money that flows through this city and agency, but we’ll save that for another piece📌. At the end of her contract, the agency wanted to extend her but decreased her rate to $22/hr. Their reasoning was something to the effect of, “There is going to be a lot more work down the line so you’ll be steadily employed.”

Let’s take a pause ☝️…

Ok, one more ✌️…

Breathe Kat 🌬️…

THAT MAKES NO F*&KING SENSE 🤬! My blood boiled when I heard the justification she was given and that they even dared approach her with a rate decrease considering the rate. She was already making an arguably questionable wage and the agency lowered it FURTHER after she had already proven competence!

Where is the logic? Did Milo take it 🐶? Where are the ethics 👀? Are they under your seat🪑? Where is the common sense 🧠? Behind your laptop💻? Oh, you can’t find it? That’s because it’s not there.

I‘ve had this happen to me, advertising agencies trying to lower my rate at the point of extension. The reason I was given (at one agency) was, “Finance sees extensions as an opportunity for a rate decrease.” “Opportunity” is a terrifying word to use in this context. You see it as an “opportunity” to compromise my ability to support myself? Cool. #terrifying #capitalism

Luckily, I had enough experience, felt respected enough, and felt empowered enough to say, “That’s absolutely not something I’m willing or able to do.” Not everyone can do this, because when you are fresh out of college with little experience, still finding where you fit in a corporate world, you might not feel you can say no. I wouldn’t have said no to a rate decrease starting out either. I said yes to everything as a newbie, but looking back, I realize I probably could have said no to a little more.

I get angry when I’m approached with a request for a rate decrease, but I was FURIOUS when I heard this happened to Tina, a young woman just starting out in the industry. The agency, finance, and resource departments should all be ashamed of themselves. At any point through the ranks I wonder, did anyone think it was wrong to take advantage of a recent grad, a young woman, a POC?

For the record, a contract extension, is ground for a HIGHER wage, NOT A LOWER ONE. Here are 2 reasons why:

1. Turnover is a literal cost. It costs time (and time is money) to find someone new and onboard them. Making sure they aren’t crazy, know how to gel with the team, and are capable of doing the job can be difficult. It’s and added value for the agency to keep an employee, therefore, the employee is literally an added value as well. Money is saved by keeping people who are already a good fit.
2. Extensions are proof of value. If an employee has already proven to be a fit and you want to keep them, that makes them monetarily MORE VALUABLE, NOT LESS (#commonsense). Their wages should go higher, not lower. Someone explain to me how a good employee is worth less money when there is a proven track record of competence? Anyone?… 🦗🦗🦗 …That’s what I thought.

To agencies, to advertising, to FINANCE, to resource departments,

I don’t care if this is an old practice, a new one, or a “standard” one, contract extensions are NOT grounds for rate decreases. STOP TRYING TO MAKE FETCH HAPPEN! In the LEAST, they are grounds for rate maintenance, but more likely grounds for an increase. Those rates are people’s livelihoods and there are people behind them! Lift your heads from those charts your heads are buried in. Be better!

To young agency freelancers,

If you must ever take a rate decrease upon an extension, I encourage you (in the very least) to verbalize to agencies that this practice is illogical, is unethical, and that maybe that decrease should come from the annual bonuses of their C-level staff (pretty sure they don’t need another vacation home). Maybe put your own spin on that last one. Have a little fun with it 🎉.

Xoxo 💋,

Kat