How to avoid previous employer who is nagging me to do their job?

Question

I used to work for a very small family-owned startup with minimum wage, zero benefit, and it was very exploitative and toxic in nature.

The family had other businesses and they used to run the startup on the side, more like an experiment. My colleagues and I were humiliated on multiple occasions including once when I had to take a few days off for some family problems, which they were aware of. We were asked to leave the job multiple times as we were very much replaceable by freelancers. So we were told.

I waited patiently quite long for the next best opportunity. In the meantime, all my colleagues left due to the mistreatment and I was alone in the team handling multiple people's work. I was the last one to leave, to their surprise. Ironically, they suddenly realised that they can't find another employee for my place very soon. I left them anyway and joined my new company, but these people have been trying to contact me every week for almost three months, trying to persuade me to do their job as a freelancer.

I tried ghosting them, told them I signed several contracts that forbid me from assisting any other business, but in vain. They are reluctantly sending me lists of tasks as if I'm still on their payroll. I'm avoiding them now. I don't want to do anything for them and have the stress again which I left them for, and also as I know them, they are not going to pay a fortune. How do I get rid of these people without being super rude?

Answer 1

I tried ghosting them, told them I signed several contracts that forbid me from assisting any other business, but in vain. They are reluctantly sending me lists of tasks as if I'm still on their payroll. I'm avoiding them now. I don't want to do anything for them and have the stress again which I left them for, and also as I know them, they are not going to pay a fortune. How do I get rid of these people without being super rude?

If you tried ghosting them but it was "in vain", then you aren't doing it right.

Just stop responding. Don't answer any texts, emails or phone calls. Block them if it makes you feel better.

Eventually, they will go away.

(The "not going to pay a fortune" is completely irrelevant if you really do want to avoid them.)

Answer 2

How do I get rid of these people without being super rude?

I have a question for you. How do you get rid of pushy telemarketers and spammers without being super rude?

You politely decline their request and you hang up the phone. Then you block their number. If they continue by email, you just mark their emails as spam (or you make a filter for their email address that automatically skips your inbox). It's really not that difficult. And you can do all these things without "being super rude".

Answer 3

You have a couple of options, probably more than I'm going to list here

• Block or otherwise make it so you don't see calls or texts from them, continuing to ignore them.
• If you do have some spare time and are willing, give them a VERY HIGH price per hour for the work you will do for them. Make sure you have a written contract, and are paid quickly for any work you do. They will either accept, and you get money, or they will decline. Make sure, if you do this, that the price is actually high enough for you to be willing to do the work; and you have someone competent to help you with the contract. Don't accept a counter-offer for less money.
• Contact a lawyer and have the write a letter to them, asking them to quit contacting you for work. (This will burn bridges, but might still be worth it.)

Answer 4

I tried ghosting them, told them I signed several contracts that forbid me from assisting any other business, but in vain. [...] How do I get rid of these people without being super rude?

At the risk of stating the obvious: Tell them in unambiguous words

• that you are not interested in continuing to work for them (without giving a reason),
• that you are not going to change your mind and
• that they should please stop contacting you.

No excuses, no "it's inconvenient right now", no "sorry, my contract doesn't allow that", but a simple NO. If this happens on the phone and they ask for reasons, simply repeat that you are "not interested". You owe them no explanation, and they are the ones being rude by pestering you.

This has the following advantages over the things you have already tried:

1. If you give them a reason, you invite them to argue. If you don't give them a reason, they have nothing to argue against.

2. If you explicitly tell them to stop contacting you, they know what you want them to do.

3. It's a lot less rude than just ghosting them.

After that, I'd give them one more reminder ("I told you to stop contacting me", no "please" this time) and then ignore/block communications from them. Yes, ghosting people is about the super-rudest thing you can do in inter-personal communication (in my opinion - I am aware that not everyone agrees and that this is a cultural thing), but you gave them warning in advance, gave them one reminder (which you weren't obliged to do) and they left you no other choice.

Answer 5

Send them an quotation, with a high hourly rate.

Tell them you can help them, but as you are no longer on their pay roll and you dont want to work for free, you have to charge an hourly rate.

A high hourly rate of (eg)150$, billing every started quarter, paid in advance, for all work relating to developing (eg designing, consulting, documenting, etc). Give an estimation, but make sure you add a clear note that it's exactly that, an estimation. And make sure you give them a realistic but high estimation.

It is not about getting the job, it's about setting a boundery, the intention is to scare them off with your rate, to not be the path of least(or cheap) resistance. You want them to reconsider. You've given your terms, they probally can get it done cheaper, great!

You might want to discuss this with your current employer, keeping them up to date. Explain that you have no intention of working or them.

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Personally, I have had a lot of people with the "hey, you work with computers right? Can you xyz?". Politely telling those people I value my spare time is frowned upon and often met with a grumpy attitude. Using this method¹, they often respond with a "Ah reasonable. Gonna have to think about it", only to never return. This is a very common technique (for IT people).

^{1 if you're not dealing with companies 60$/hour often is enough to get the message across.}

Answer 6

It's a bit extreme, but you might talk to the police or your local political representative about what options are available to stop this "harassment".

Answer 7

I have the feeling that part of the problem is that you need to be more assertive, which is a problem I also know too well. With unreasonable and bad people, if you tell them no but are not assertive enough, they interpret it as "this person is weak, I can get him to do as I say". What might help you is a change of perspective. Here I leave you a list of thoughts that helped me. Feel free to pick the points that help you or even get creative:

• It's ok to be rude to people trying to harm you on purpose.
• Are you taking responsibility for other people's feelings? If so, remind yourself that it's their business, not yours. If someone gets angry because you told him "no", it's their problem.
• Saying no to those people is saying yes to yourself: to your peace, your time, your well being, etc.
• Think of telling them no and blocking them as some king of protective shield against their rudeness.

There is also a book called The Gift of Fear: And Other Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence, from Gavin de Becker. You can download it in pdf. It contains a chapter dedicated to situations when some harasser doesn't take no for an answer. It basically says what Joe Strazzere already wrote here (not answering them, block them), plus what you shouldn't do (be very careful to involve the police, because then you create a strong relationship), plus why such people do what they do (they are nor reasonable, they twist your words in their heads).

Answer 8

The important, and kinda neglected in other answers, part is:

told them I signed several contracts that forbid me from assisting any other business, but in vain.

Next time when they try to contact you in writing / mail, reply with something like this:

I am forbidden from assisting you per my contract with [company], signed on dd/mm/yyyy. Please do not ask me to breach my contract. If you will continue to do so, I will feel obligated to report this to [company]'s legal division and ask them for assistance.

This is not rude, this is factual, if cold, and shows you are serious about your contracts. Fear of a lawsuit from your current employer, and clear information that they might be entering illegal territory, should work like a really good deterrent.

And if it won't work as a deterrent, then by all means you should ask company you have a contract with for assistance. They deserve to know who is approaching you asking to possibly break your contract with them, and will be best equipped to assist you in the matter.

Answer 9

I had this problem with a staffing firm that would call me multiple times a day, even after I made it quite clear to them that I didn't want them to contact me anymore. Eventually, I contacted the police for assistance getting them to stop (which was successful). In my case, I was able to email the police department in the area where the company was headquartered, which was quite helpful. You can also file a harassment complaint with your local police department.

Before you try either option, make sure that you are quite clear with them that you don't wish them to contact you anymore. Keep copies of any communication and make sure that you get it in writing - for example, email (preferably with a delivery and read receipt requested, so that you can prove that they received it) and/or certified mail (again, so that you can prove that they received it). Also be sure to keep records of any phone calls or emails you receive from them so that you can prove that they continued to contact you after you asked them not to.

You can also block their email (e.g. have Outlook auto-delete their emails, or perhaps block them with your ISP) and use a call-screening app to reject any calls from them.

Answer 10

If you really want to burn the bridge, which it sounds like you do, and asking them to stop contacting you hasn't worked, ask again in writing by both electronic and physical means with an invoice for a letter handling fee for your time (much like some businesses like banks charge for sending you a "payment is late" letter). Each time the contact you send a revised invoice.

They will probably stop contacting you quickly. If they don't, then a few letters in the total will likely be enough to raise at your local small claims court at which point tell them you will take that route if they don't either pay the outstanding amount or stop contacting you. The goal isn't to actually make money off this, it is to stop them because they don't want it on public record that their business was taken to court, even the small claims court.

Of course the validity of this option depends greatly on the law of your locality.

Answer 11

Discuss the matter with your current employer as you have here...

...Now is there any mileage in the new employer stealing work from the previous employer. Clearly the previous company are at the very least struggling, so why not look upon it as an opportunity to get more work? Leave it to new company to do the pitching. Don't do anything underhand.

Answer 12

I would respond to them with an offer to freelance for an hourly rate that is high enough that you'd actually enjoy doing the work. If that's 10 times what they paid before - fine. If it's 20 times - no problem. It's a free country, they can choose to accept your offer or not.

After that, whenever they contact you, point to the offer and ask if they accept or not.

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Clarification: I mean what I write: Quote them a number where you'd actually want to do the work if they actually accepted. If it's $1000 per hour, quote them that. Don't explain the price. And if they really take you up on it - make sure they pay in advance.

Answer 13

An expansion of @thursdaysgeek's last answer, but cheaper (even free).

Use your new company's legal team. Tell them you are being harassed by your former employers and need legal assistance on how to tell them to cease and desist. Your new employer's legal team will be more than happy to protect their own staff from harassment from another employer.