cab21 Posted August 15, 2014 Posted August 15, 2014 http://happyplace.someecards.com/showtime/a-graphic-designer-wrote-a-fantastic-response-when-showtime-asked-him-to-work-for-free/ so i saw this article, the graphic article talks about being offended by the offer. is it legitimate to be offended if someone sees a offer as too low or high, or are offers that are two low or high simply business decisions that getting "offended" and emotional about is not in the spirit of negotiation and a free market? my initial assumption is that a buyer and the seller both want the greatest return on investment, so a buyer would start with a lower price than they are willing to pay and a seller with a higher price than they are willing to sell for. i don't see getting all emotional and offended by the other offer as providing much benefit. either the parties can agree on something or they can't, but the emotional stuff seems a little unnecessary.
Tyler Durden Posted August 16, 2014 Posted August 16, 2014 Yes, a negotiation can be offensive. Because there are two elements to a negotation, one is the offer and the other is how you present it. If they had presented the exact same offer in a different way like "This is a message to all graphic designers! We are holding a contest with a chance to win exposure on Showtime and a trip to Las Vegas! Scroll down for the details!" then the guy would have immediately recognized it as spam and ignored it and wouldn't have been offended. But instead they were all like "Hi Dan. We are representing Showtime! And not just Showtime, but a major event on Showtime! Like MAJOR! And we are approaching YOU because we are a fan of your work! We just think it's the greatest thing ever, we absolutely love it and we think you are an invaluable individual! So what we want to do is hook you and Showtime up! And Showtime will make a ton of money of course, we will also make quite some money because we found you, and you will, well, you know, you'll get a free flight alright." It's actually very comparable to the people who send Stef a message where they tell him that he's the greatest guy ever, who changed their life in ways that they could never even have imagined, whose podcasts just give them eargasms and fill them with joy, and then they donate half a buck. If you make someone a really great offer, you can tell them that they're great. But if you tell someone that they're great and then make them a lousy offer, then you're being offensive.
DaVinci Posted August 16, 2014 Posted August 16, 2014 I think I might be offended if someone offered me $1 to do a job I knew was worth $10 to do. If someone can't respect that you have skills worth a certain level that is kind of offensive.
Bortasz Posted August 17, 2014 Posted August 17, 2014 You should see a Polish job market. People are constantly offended by jobs offer that pay minimal weight for people with years of experience, higher degree. Or ask any graphic about putting something in there portfolio. All graphics that I know have problems with people that want from them free work, because they can put this work in there portfolio and find in the future better job. Recently I read about job offer for translating 1800 characters for 10 Polish złotych, or 2,5 American dollars. Also Imagine person who approach you and offer you 1 million for you first born. Word offended don't even start describing my respond to that offer. And offer is start of negotiation. Also in books, there are many examples of people negotiating in the bad will, because for them was more profitable to fail in negotiation.
shirgall Posted August 17, 2014 Posted August 17, 2014 If a party is offended by an offer insufficient attention was spent on understanding the interests behind positions and therefore the process of determining the proposal was missing key information on options.
cab21 Posted August 17, 2014 Author Posted August 17, 2014 looking at the email showtime sent, it looks like a spam email. i doubt they looked at the guys work at all, likely just had a list and sent everyone on the list the same email. so it looks like the problem here was sending sort of a Nigerian prince spam email out there, and trying to make it look personal and respectful, when it was really impersonal and not respectful. in reality, i think the person would not have gotten a offer in the first place if showtime was just looking for a specific person to commission work from, and that would have saved the guy the time of reading a nonsense offer.
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