Freelance producer and a solo mom here. I gave my boss a notice that I needed to be remote for 2 days and be completely offline for 3 hours each of those days for family matters. This was acknowledged by them. The next day, I was let go from the contracted job. I felt obligated to share privately I had to appear in court as confirmed by my lawyer. When I was told my contract would end, they said they understood things happen last minute, but am expected to be at the office. Is this ethical?

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Fellow freelancer here. It’s definitely not ethical, but it’s legal. Unfortunately as a freelancer you can be terminated for any reason or no reason.

I know it’s not helpful to hear this now but here’s this is a possible approach for the next gig. Maybe it would’ve been easier to state you had two blackout dates and get another producer to cover, with detailed handover notes. Then you could’ve been available privately for that person if they had urgent questions (but not bill.)

On days where I have anything like a medical procedure I would just take the hit and not bill for that whole day.

It’s all give and take. So, by not billing you’d have lost some income but kept your boss on side. This way you lost the income anyway. And if you’re not billing then you aren’t even obligated to say what you were talking time off for.

I’m sorry this happened to you and hope the court case went in your favor at least.

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Sounds like you may have been better off without them. Hoping you find something better!

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Echoing others that it didn’t sound like it was the right fit. I will say, however, that freelancer producers are usually hired to solve scheduling problems not cause them. I hope you find something elsewhere.

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Not ethical. But I feel a lot of the times when agencies book freelancers they don’t mean to be nice or ethical whatsoever… a lot of the times we are brought in when things go wrong, to cover shit up or even to be blamed, so when things like this happen I’d consider it a relief and think on the positive side that you don’t owe them anything as you are just a freelancer.

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5yr mom and freelancer here of course family scheduling conflicts exist (even when your not a mom) and you were upfront about them. That being said I take the time where I need to and I don’t say anything about it really, I book the gig based on my project bandwidth and have a “going to pick my kids up from daycare be back online in 20” message vs making it an issue at the start. They do hire us for flexibility. It’s a trade off and not great when that happens. Honestly be maybe less transparent next time if you want to keep the gig. I’ve seen moms coming back from maternity be laid off it’s even more easy to get rid of a freelancer.

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What did the contract say on handling schedule and termination?

If their policy is to be in office then ya idk you can’t really just announce you aren’t going to follow it without repercussions (regardless of your personal reasons for not wanting to follow it) 🤷‍♀️ I’m no fan of strict RTO/WFH policies but I don’t think they’re really at fault here, just sounds like it’s not the place for you?

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