For Exposure

“Look, Janeane, I can’t feed my kids on ‘exposure,’” Gus sighed into the receiver. “I told you my rates when you first asked about the job.”

“No, I get that,” Janeane replied. “But hear me out. I have access to a network-”

“Not this again…”

“A network that could use someone of your talents. If you do this job for me, I’ll make sure they all know how good your work is!”

Gus rolled his eyes. “Yeah, except they’ll know I’ve done work for free, and then they’ll try to undercut me the exact same way you’re doing now.” It wasn’t the first time Gus had had to haggle over his prices.

“No, no. That’s not true. Come on, Gus. Do me a favour, here, would ya?”

“Sorry Janeane, I just can’t help you. You know my rates; if you want we could work out a payment plan, but I can’t just do work for free.”

“Well, fuck you, then!” Janeane shouted. Gus sighed. This always happened. People came to you asking for freebies, or samples, and then got pissed off when you told them that wasn’t how the business worked. This wasn’t the first time this had happened. Hell, this wasn’t the first time this had happened this month. Gus gritted his teeth, thinking back to the college student who’d tried to sucker him into doing a job for him two weeks ago.

He hadn’t had any money, either, or so he’d claimed. Of course, that claim had been dramatically undercut by the kid asking Gus to meet him at a very expensive, extremely exclusive gentlemen’s club. Truth be told, Gus probably wouldn’t have accepted the job even if he’d been offered fair compensation. The guy was one of those trust fund frat boy dipshits, and those little shits had a tendency to stiff you and insist you did the job ‘wrong,’ whatever the hell that meant.

Gus shook his head, and returned his attention to the matter at hand. “Look Janeane, you’ve wasted —” Gus looked at his watch “— half an hour of my time at this point, and by all rights, I should be billing you for that. But I think we both know how well that would go over.”

“Fuck y-”

“Stop it. You’re better than this, so stop wasting my time. You know what I do, and you know my rates. They’re very generous. Below industry standard, I’m told, unlike my work, which is beyond reproach. And that’s why you contacted me. So we have two options here, as far as I’m concerned. Either you agree to pay me for my services, or I walk away. Hell, I’ll even waive the consultation fee, just this once, since you’re a new referral. Those are my final terms, so take em or leave em.”

Janeane was quiet for a moment. “Gus, look, my son… He’s very sick, so-”

“Okay, goodbye Janeane. Nice talking-”

“Fine! Okay! Fifteen thousand. That’s the highest I’ll go.”

“Fifteen thousand. That’s a D-tier package. No staging, no cleanup.”

“Fine.”

“I’ll have my assistant fax you an invoice. Once you’ve made the deposit, I’ll get right to work. Pleasure doing business with you.”

“Drop dead.”

“Technically speaking, that’ll be the other guy.”