TORONTO (QP) 11:42 AM 28 Monday 2011 – Nino Ricci has learned that as of Friday, March 25, 2011, a cheque from Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper for an invoice that had gone unpaid for six months began wending its way toward him through the reliable services of Canada Post. Average Canada Post delivery times suggest the cheque should reach Ricci’s home, which is located about a fifteen-minute cab ride from The Globe‘s offices, only a week to ten days after he sent out an open letter to The Globe calling attention to the missed payment and expressing fears for the newspaper’s finances.
“I’m certainly glad they didn’t waste any money on a courier,” said Ricci. “That was what I was afraid of at first, when they were so apologetic. But it’s only costing them the usual fifty-nine cents.”
Ricci was also extremely pleased to learn that The Globe and Mail would NOT be including in their cheque to him a late payment charge he had added to his most recent invoice to cover interest charges on expenses he incurred on The Globe‘s behalf as well compensation for deferred income and for the time and energy he has put into seeking payment. The Globe‘s payment policies, Ricci was informed, do not permit it to make any compensation for late payment.
“This is wonderful news!” said Ricci. “I didn’t even know you were allowed to have policies like that! You can be sure I’m going to be setting my own in place right away, so I won’t have to be paying late charges any more to any of my creditors.”
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Well done, Nino, but what a wretched state of affairs! It’s hard to know whether to accuse the Globe of arrogant self-interest, or to pity them for their fall into a place of such low self-esteem. Your genius lay in balancing both possibilities.
It’s about time profit-rich corporations put their Prada-shod feet down on the issue of late-payment charges to ink-stained wretches, especially those who don’t have the good grace to wait into infinity to be paid what they were originally owed. Freelance writers asking for more? Call the beadle…(and congratulations, Nino, on that cheque he just waddled over to finally put in the mailbox…)
In America, we’d have sued ten ways to Sunday.
Brilliant. 🙂