I Got Something to Say

The title of this post is a quote by the character Jerri Blank from Strangers With Candy. I feel like I should share with my readers some things. I wrote a post a while back called When Blogging Relationships Go Bad about my horrible experience with a company I worked with on my blog. You can read the post here if you are not familiar with what I am talking about. The long of the short of it is, I was working with a company that promised me a full sponsorship to BlogHer in exchange for advertising, posts and even a Twitter party that ended up being a nightmare. I turned and looked the other way while she bashed other bloggers and even a NASCAR star. I did think it was wrong but I didn’t stick up for my fellow bloggers. I feel bad because I should have been the voice for the masses;I thought that she was being mean and rude. I regret that.

After a while I tried to let it go and not let it bother me. I have received numerous requests and comments asking me to tell who it is. I have remained silent as a professional courtesy but in light of the increase of new bloggers, I have decided to break my vow of silence and share with you all so you don’t get taken as well. It was Bea’s Gift Baskets. There I said it. Like I said there are quite a few new bloggers out there and I want to warn them, I don’t want anyone to be treated like I was. It still hurts; even more so with everyone starting to talk about BlogHer and BlogHer related events like the parties. It also still hurts that I spent all that time working on the posts and twitter party that wasn’t review related. They got free advertising. I got nothing but disappointment. I am sure you are thinking well you got those gift baskets at least that is something right?

I went to the dollar store, it is kind of new and yes, it still had eau du Dollar store smell. I was browsing around by the food and I saw an item that was supposed to be “gourmet” in one of those gift baskets. I was like wow; those are the exact same chocolate covered pretzels that were in one of my gift baskets. I just thought well they could have sprung for the Flips if they wanted to be cheap. The Flips are like 3 dollars a bag versus the dollar store ones. It makes me wonder how many more dollar store items are in those overpriced gift baskets.

There is nothing wrong with the dollar store, I shop there. I love the dollar store, but if you are paying 90 dollars for something you should at least get 50 dollars worth of food, a 20 dollar basket then the company nets 20 bucks or something along those lines. Maybe 40 dollars worth of food but there shouldn’t be items that you can get at the dollar store. I just think that is unethical and deceitful. That of course is my opinion.

I just wanted to share this with my fellow bloggers and readers. Maybe even the weary traveler passing through my blog. I don’t want to see anyone taken by Bea’s Gift Baskets like I was. So, how can we prevent this from happening?

1. Make sure you get everything in writing. Granted I had everything in email and that would have been fine, but when you are dealing with something like this extra forms like contracts are a good way to go. I know she didn’t mention contracts once until after she pulled out and didn’t want to do what I consider the right thing.

2. Don’t turn the other way or put up with others that talk bad about other people. Chances are they are bad mouthing you to someone else. You should work with companies that conduct their selves in a professional manner.

3. If your gut tells you it is too good to be true, it just might be or if the person gives off a weird clingy vibe you should probably walk away. Always trust your gut and your heart.

4. If a person you are working with is lying to others, 99% of the time they are lying to you.

5. Talk to others about their experiences, I know that everyone can make up their own minds about things they want to do, but listen to what others have to say and keep it in mind for when you make your decision.

I hope you find these tips helpful and keep them in mind in the future. Thanks for reading!

When blogging relationships go bad..

After recent events, that have to do with my blog, I am starting to wonder if all of my efforts are worth it. I really enjoy blogging and reviewing products and doing giveaways but, I am starting to question these things. I have many wonderful relationships with many pr agents and businesses which I am grateful to have. There is one “business” relationship that I had for three months; I really worked hard on everything I did for them. I put business in parentheses because it seemed like it was much more personal as this person emailed me almost daily. I went above and beyond what a normal product reviewer would do, I spent hours upon hours doing things that weren’t really in the scope of my job. It was almost like I had become an employee of this company. I was promised multiple times that they would fully sponsor me to go to BlogHer 10.

I spent my time writing posts for them that were not product reviews. I posted and posted for them. One I had to go back and edit because they stopped their relationship with a foundation. That meant I had to rewrite part of it, so it would make sense. I tweeted about the business multiple times. I also researched for them. I gave them free advertising for three months. I wanted to make sure they got their money’s worth. BlogHer is not cheap by any means.

I prepared a Twitter party and then held the Twitter party on a very devastating day, the last thing I wanted to do was have fun at a Twitter party. I wanted to be there for the community that I belong to. I wanted to mourn a loss of a fellow blogger. Yet, I sucked it up, I superglued a fake smile on my face, and did my job. Little did the guests of the party know that I was crying between my tweets. I was so upset, it turned to frustration because I had not had the help that I thought that I was going to have. I had to deal with other things between the others that were helping me. I had to deal with the sponsor making rude comments at the guests. I thought that overall it was a success. Anyone who has ever hosted a Twitter party knows how difficult they are to run and how stressful they are.

After all the hard work I put in to the company, and after all the nice things I did, I am left with nothing in return. They informed me out of the blue after emailing me as if nothing was wrong and after they sent me a Christmas present and then bailed on me. There were many questionable actions shown by the owner of the company. Many that made my stomach turn. I should have known but I trusted them. Some of the wrong doings were but not limited to insulting other bloggers, forwarding their pitches to me and making fun of them, lying to others, and just plain rudeness.

I was so excited to be able to go to Blogher 10. I talked about it all the time. I was like a kid at Christmas. I know it’s probably not all I think it is, but I want the experience of going. I want to go and learn and meet up with my friends that I have made in the last six months. I want to be able to have some time where I am around adults for an extended period of time without other people’s kids. Everyone deserves a break.

I want to represent a company or companies and use my voice to promote them. For me it is more than just a trip to New York. It is a way to break out of my shell and bloom in to the blogger I want to be through the training and the possible networking I will gain from this experience. It is not a trip it is an adventure and an experience. Now, I am not sure I can even have that experience because of the hurtful things this company did to me.

I am sure one or two of you are thinking, it’s just business. Well, it is not. It is extremely personal and extremely hurtful. It would have been completely different if it was just someone I did a few product reviews for and they just changed their mind. It was something I invested my time and heart completely and fully in this company and I thought that I was doing a great job. I was completely floored that someone would have the nerve to just do this to me after she knew I worked so hard and did so much. It is just so wrong to this to me or anyone. I have spent a lot of time crying. I have gone back and forth between crying and being angry. I feel like I failed and there was nothing else I could do. I felt helpless, I immediately reached out to my friends and I want to thank them all for their continued support. They mean so much to me.

Please don’t walk over bloggers. They deserve the respect and kindness just as much as anyone else. We work very hard for our blogs and for the PR and companies. Only a blogger would truly understand the time and effort we put in to our work. I am sure that most of the companies appreciate all the work bloggers do. It is like when you work really hard on a bunch of projects and once they are completed they call you in their office and fire you.

I am pretty sure I want to keep blogging. I am trying not to let one bad apple ruin it for me. My only regret from blogging is working with that company. I am still extremely upset about this whole ordeal. I feel like I wasted three months for nothing more than empty promises and many lies. I hope that this post brings caution and awareness to others especially bloggers. I hate having the mentality of not being able to trust the people I work with, and now questioning everything and wondering if the same thing will happen again.

So, here I am again back to square one, for looking for sponsorship to BlogHer 10. If you are interested in possibly sponsoring me, please use my contact form or email me. I will work very hard to promote your company. I will post an informational post in the future. I just wanted to get this all off my chest and perhaps help me work through the complete disappointment and hurt that I am feeling right now. I hope that this post helps someone too.