What do I do about the fact that I worked with a terrible person?

September 26, 2017 2:13 AM

Help. I inadvertently worked for a horrible human being. My name is on their project. Now what?

So...I'm a freelance "teapot quality control manager" who usually works only in the teapot genre, but very occasionally will do projects in other areas, like teacups and tea cozies. And like many freelancers, I'm always striving to ensure that my schedule is full, so a couple of years ago when I got an inquiry from "Client" re: coffee mugs, I responded by saying "I don't usually work in mugs, but I'm interested in trying this."

Client responded: "I want to hire you because you don't know the usual cliches of the mug business, therefore you will approach this project with fresh eyes." That actually sounded quite logical, so I accepted the project.

I worked on it per usual: mostly on my own, with a little input from Client. (We never met, which is the norm; everything is handled via email/digitally.) And I do think I came to the project with fresh eyes, and did some good work on it. Client was entirely professional but there was no friendliness beyond that. The project ended, my role ended -- and my name/credit is on the finished mug. I haven't heard anything back from Client (again, normal, unless she'd had another project for me to work on).

Now, a couple years later, I'm tidying up my CV and wonder if that mug sold well. I start googling...and lo and behold I discover that Client was part of a notorious crime and scandal: a deeply awful, decades-long child abuse (physical and sexual) situation very well known in the mug world, with multiple victims. Client wasn't one of the abusers, but was close friends with them, and was part of a disgusting cover-up and victim bashing. (I did cursory research and found newspaper citations, depositions, etc. so this is legit, not rumor.)

I've scrubbed the mentions of the mug project on my CV and website. But I'm left with this absolutely disgusted feeling that the project still exists in the world with my name on it. And here's where my metaphor goes awry -- the "mug" is actually digital, and therefore it lives on, is still for sale, in theory may be for sale in perpetuity.

If I contact Client and ask her to take my name off it -- two years later -- I'm worried that it'll stir up ugliness. What sort? I don't even know, except that I'm sort of afraid to correspond with her now that I know she is such a disgusting human being, who most likely hired me because no one in the mug world would work with her. I'm also worried that at some point later this will come back to bite me somehow -- "You mean you didn't know you were working for Hitler? How could you not know?"

Or maybe I just...forget all about it and pretend it never happened. The mug didn't sell well, and the fact that someone could potentially purchase it now is just happenstance. It'll live on as an ignored digital ghost. I don't go to mug conferences, nor market myself in the mug world.

Can you help me think about potential ways to approach this distressing news?

posted by anonymous to Work & Money (7 answers total)

My name is associated with a lawn flamingo (shall we say) company which indulged in cronyism and had a big scandal, though a financial one, not so bad as yours. You can find it but it was 15 years ago and it's never come back to me. If it's not your core business, I'd just leave it to time to sweep over it. Unless you've got a really highly distinguishable name, you could always pretend it wasn't you if anyone asks. But I don't think they will. You didn't know, and that's OK. Someone else sorted out the legal stuff so there's nothing you could have done except not work for them.
posted by LyzzyBee at 3:26 AM on September 26, 2017 [5 favorites]

I get it may be distressing but aren't you overthinking this?

How likely is that people in the tea industry will study the details of coffee mug projects of a couple of years ago?

I'm guessing you're not American (CV?) and so it is maybe a small industry where you are but if It it does somehow come back to you then just say you had no idea and never met them and once you realised you erased the project from your CV. The biggest direct effect this has on you has already happened and that is that you can't include it on your CV.
posted by epo at 3:35 AM on September 26, 2017 [7 favorites]

I am sorry this happened to you, it sounds upsetting. I think you have the right idea, "forget all about it and pretend it never happened".

If anyone does find it, I doubt they will consider you tarnished by having done this as a one-off, and as you point out, people are unlikely to find this anyway.
posted by richb at 3:40 AM on September 26, 2017

Forget it ever happened; if anyone asks about it, say something along the lines of, "I did a lot of freelance work for a variety of companies, I don't remember anything specific about that project." There are hundreds of thousands of people who worked for Enron that, presumably, are still employable in their industry today, because although they were adjacent to illegal things they were not the cause of it, so it bears little importance.
posted by AzraelBrown at 4:23 AM on September 26, 2017 [15 favorites]

This angst seems misplaced and out of scale. Is it possible this has something to do with your relationship with child abuse? Because you were not complicit in this crime, you had no knowledge of this crime, this crime has nothing to do with you. You did a freelance job for someone who turned out to be a terrible human. It's not you.
posted by DarlingBri at 4:23 AM on September 26, 2017 [6 favorites]

Well, in re "how come you did not know you were working for Hitler"

1. You weren't working for Hitler - while comparing oppressions is generally a bad move, you're talking about a "people with power within a field are often shitty people and hurt others" problem, not a "structured, public, highly ideologized plan to do evil" problem. It's more like finding out you did your dissertation with Dr. Sexual Harasser.

2. It wasn't like mug client was designing a mug specifically for child abusers so that you could not have taken the job without knowing. Many people have this problem. As a teenager I accepted a financial award from Famously Evil Republican Senator because he sponsored an essay contest that my school forced us to enter and that I won. I don't feel great about it and wouldn't do it now, but I also look back and recognize that I didn't understand that he wasn't just some local Republican hack.

3. Honestly, I would talk about this if it comes up, and I would establish a protocol for deciding when to decline a client. "I took that job because my contact with the client seemed legit. Since it was outside my field, I was not aware of the scandal in the coffee mug industry, but since then I've formalized a process for deciding when I will reject work, and have a practice of investigating any new client to make sure I feel good about working for them." Don't bring it up as some kind of "see what a terrible person I am" deal, but if it comes up in conversation, just say that you did the work, regret it and have created a process so that it won't happen again. I think that sets a good example, actually.

It would be different if you'd worked on a project that was ideologically bad in itself - it might be worth trying to take your name off. Or if you'd had a major role, or if it was a national scandal that you really should have known about. As it is "I accidentally worked for Evil Coffeemugs, Inc a few years ago, that was naive of me" seems reasonable.
posted by Frowner at 5:16 AM on September 26, 2017 [19 favorites]

You always have the simple and true justification that you were a freelancer with no knowledge of the client's larger business plan. You were not complicit. You were just hired to do a job. No one is suggesting that we string up the kid who used to rake Donald Trump's lawn.
posted by Dr. Wu at 8:53 AM on September 26, 2017 [6 favorites]