What do you call it when you ask someone to work for free? Exploitation? Extreme stinginess? An internship? Either way, it’s pretty obvious you should never do it in Hong Kong if you don’t want to have your cheapskate ways shared with literally tens of thousands of people. Mates’ rates are one thing, but asking people who aren’t your mates to lower their rates until they’re non-existent… not a thing.
A local mother organising a group birthday party recently contacted two photographers asking if they were available to work the event. The audacious lady in question, Rachel Mok, wanted Deric Wong and Marco Chong to photograph and film a total of 45 families, in return for “likes and shares on FB”.
Visual reenactment, courtesy of The Oatmeal
To his credit, Wong handled the situation like a pro and declined Mok with a short, and slightly incredulous response, saying “Haha, sorry. Those kinds of jobs are not for me.” Despite thanking Wong, Mok apparently took it on herself to try and sweet talk him by offering to let him “release the photos on [his own] Facebook”. Psst, Rachel… the saying is “a picture is worth a thousand words“, not a thousand dollars.
Wong replied “My lowest fee is HKD15,000, we can discuss it over the phone if you like”. According to Apple Daily, Wong did receive a call later at around 1am, but the woman on the line only shouted “Bastard!” before hanging up. We get the feeling she wasn’t open to negotiation.
In what we think is an attempt to win the Guinness World Records for Deepest Hole Dug and Most Bridges Burned, Mok then continued to insult Chong by saying “You can’t expect to be paid when you’re first starting out”, and blasting him as “unprofessional”.
We’re concerned she doesn’t know what this means, so, Rachel – a professional is someone who does something as a paid profession. So maybe an unprofessional person is exactly what you want. Just our two cents, which we will generously put towards your photographer fund.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
