Professional Boundaries

I am very busy.  That’s probably obvious; I’m a workaholic, when you come right down to it.  I try to conduct myself in a professional manner regardless.  Proper conduct in business relationships is very important to me.

I do, however, have certain boundaries, after which point I will refuse to deal with someone.  Specifically, if we are to do business together, you will have to treat me with respect (and you have every right to expect me to do the same).  I have refunded clients’ money before when they were unnecessarily insulting.  I am not paid enough to absorb unwarranted abuse.

A couple of months ago, a fellow who styles himself as a ninja historian (a historian of all things ninja — not a ninja who is also a historian) asked me to review his latest book.  The book is a lengthy one and I have been working very hard to meet various obligations, but I agreed to do the review.  I told him, very explicitly, that it would take me some time to go through the book thoroughly.  As I am not an expert on ninjitsu, I also lined up the assistance of the most knowledgeable Bujinkan member I know.  What I intend to do is run several points by him for his feedback once I’ve had a chance to go through the book itself and compile my list.

Today the would-be historian in question asked about his review and said that I was “not upholding our agreement.”  I told him that I would get to it as soon as I possibly could — but that accusing me of lying was a good way to guarantee that I did not do it.  I had made it clear that the review would take time to complete.  We did not set a date for completion.

The author has never been one of my fans, but he knows that my review at The Martialist would provide good exposure for his book, even if critical.  When I explained that accusing me of lying is not acceptable, he demanded I ship the book back to him in the United Kingdom.

I don’t tolerate attitude like this.  People submit products to me all the time, and it can take me months if not more to get to all of them.  I do, however, write all reviews eventually.  I try very hard to make those reviews objective, even if the author or creator of the product has been less than friendly to me.  I will review absolutely anything that you wish to submit, but please don’t expect to set the terms of the review after the fact.

Those are the boundaries.  That is where the lines are drawn.