Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting someone who was just in the same(ish) position that I was in. For the sake of this article, we’re going to call her DeeDee. She was on a freelancer platform and had a bunch of clients who were berating her, treating her terribly, and actively causing her serious stress. I’ll be honest. There are moments in my life where I know I deserve the berating, but most of the time? Not a thing. Unless you botched something badly, there’s no need to berate a person, verbally attack them, or more.
Having worked with Deedee, I can honestly guarantee that she didn’t deserve any sort of beratement. She is one of the most talented people I have ever worked with. I had to sit her down and explain to her that she was being exploited. Like many freelancers (including myself), she hasn’t quite gotten her voice to demand her worth. She was allowing herself to get pushed around. There are so many freelancers and business owners who are going through this. You don’t deserve exploitation.
Here are 10 subtle signs you’re being exploited by your employer:
1. You’re not being paid the market rate
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The most obvious sign you’re being exploited is the pay rate you’re getting. If you’re not being paid the average amount for your work, you’re probably being exploited.
The only time this is not true is if you are doing it as a favor or as a reasonable trade. It’s rough. Every business wants “volunteers,” but most businesses can afford to pay their workers. Ugh.
In the U.S., full-time freelancers grew by 91% and occasional freelancers by 132% between 2020 and 2023. Today, 72.1 million Americans — around 45% of the workforce — do freelance work some or all of the time, according to MBO Partners.
But unfortunately, one other way that freelancing has become “normal” is the wage disparity. In full-time permanent work, a woman in the U.S. will only earn 84 cents for every dollar a man earns.
2. Your client or employer threatens you with sudden dismissal if you don’t prioritize them over everything else
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I remember working for an alternative fashion magazine in New York City. This was one of the most toxic places I’ve ever worked, short of a certain long-form social media platform that shall not be named.
A coworker’s dad died. Our sociopath boss told her not to attend his funeral. Work comes first. She got up, said nothing, left the office, closed the door, and let out the most earth-shattering howl I’ve ever heard.
She never came back to work. Exploitation does that to you. You are a human being with a life of your own. If you have a sick relative, take off and offer to do it later with the client. If you have a long-term client who seems not to care when your work hours are, now is a good time to reevaluate your time with them.
3. Your client or employer makes a point of showing how little they care for your well-being
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This is thankfully not that common in freelance writing, but it is scarily common in construction contracting. A lot of contracting firms will hire people who are straight out of prison for jobs, then put them in conditions that are deeply unsafe.
Among felons, these places are called “Body Farms” because they pick people who are desperate for labor and place them in areas that aren’t OSHA-compliant. The death rates are high, and many deaths are preventable.
Be careful when you see clients and employers skirt safety standards or avoid healthcare. That’s a sign that you’re being exploited. No job or gig is worth dying over.
According to research, the societal burden of insomnia in the United States is substantial, with an estimated one-third of all US adults experiencing weekly difficulties with nighttime sleep and an estimated 50–70 million people complaining of nighttime sleep loss associated with daytime impairment.
4. The work you do never seems good enough for them
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Did you ever have a boss who would nitpick what you do, to the point that you questioned your worth? When you bring it up, they suddenly backpedal and tell you to try harder, don’t they?
It took me about ten years to realize what this is. They’re nitpicking and critiquing you to make you feel like you can’t get any better than them. They’re trying to make you question your value to try to get you to lower your rates.
I had one client, actually the same one who I mentioned earlier with the chest pains, who did this relentlessly. Yet, when I told her that maybe I was not the right person for the job, she’d pep talk me to high heaven.
This is a slimy trick that exploiters use. This can create mounting stress, eventually leading to more burnout and struggles at work.
One study confirmed the “negative relationship between a toxic workplace environment and employee engagement,” adding that employees who work in a toxic environment spread those negative feelings to co-workers.
5. Your client dangles full-time employment but keeps changing the goalposts
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For someone like me, a full-time job is a dream. I would love a full-time job. I’ve had clients who knew this, and they’d dangle a W-2 like it was a carrot on a stick. Boy, I danced for that carrot, often at a grossly low wage.
Surprise! Once I met their requirements, the requirements for the W-2 would change. They never were going to hire me. And you know what?
That’s illegal, according to the IRS — especially if you have to wear team uniforms and stuff like that. It’s a type of fraud that involves false employee classification to exploit workers and also save money.
6. Your client makes you feel like they’re doing you a favor just by hiring you below market rate
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Don’t ask me why, but there is a very odd pattern among exploitative people I noticed. They tend to make a big deal about hiring you for a job — any job they have.
Usually, the worse the job is, the more they tend to show how important it is that they hired you. Oh, 90-hour weeks? Oh, they’re giving you an “opportunity to earn more.”
Oh, pay to work? Yep. They’re doing you a favor because they know it’ll help you grow. This is particularly noticeable with MLM sales companies.
7. Since you started working for them, you’ve begun to question your sanity
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Does it ever feel like you’re crazy for subjecting yourself to the treatment you’re getting from your clients or employers? Do you feel crazy about expecting a living wage? A day off? Empathy?
Did you agree to do X, Y, and Z but not A, B, and C? If so, why is C suddenly on your to-do list? Did you do that? You could have sworn you didn’t agree to that…
If any of that rings true, you might be the victim of corporate gaslighting. It’s a sign they’re making you feel crazy for exploiting you.
Feeling tired for absolutely no reason is a sign of burnout. According to research, there are three dimensions to burnout, one of them being exhaustion.
Your exhaustion is likely due to stress, leading you to feel tired regardless of the amount of sleep you get. To avoid this, find ways to decompress before bed. The Sleep Foundation recommends mindfulness meditation, deep breathing exercises, taking a warm bath or shower, or journaling to relax your body.
8. You get busier and busier and busier despite your payouts not increasing
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MLMs do this a lot. The higher your rank is in an MLM, the more work they put on your plate. This is a technique picked up from cult leaders, and it’s a way to distract you from sitting down and thinking about your situation.
When you’re too busy with menial tasks to do things you love, you’re also too busy to think. Exploiters will keep up your busy work just to keep you running in place, knowing that they can slowly make you eat, sleep, and breathe their work. That way, you won’t notice that you’re still not getting paid much.
9. Your client or employer is verbally abusive or has threatened to blackmail you
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Oof, this is bad. A sizable number of people assume they own the person’s soul upon hiring them for anything. And boy, do these individuals get on a power trip. This usually means they exploit workers — but not always for labor.
Sometimes, they keep you on staff to just make you feel like a punching bag. And these are the very people who tend to be the most venomous, toxic clients to have.
I had one who was like this. I remember telling her that I was having chest pains. I just got the news that I was not going to be able to keep my apartment, but it didn’t matter to her.
She yelled, “I don’t care! You can have pains all you want, but you are useless. Do this now!” I quit on the spot, and that’s when she started to sputter. All of a sudden, she wanted me to remember that I needed the money and that I was still “a treasured part of the team.”
Yep. That’s what a personal punching bag client sounds like when the contract gets cut off by the bullied individual. They never really cared about the work. They cared about hurting you.
A study published by the Journal of Cognitive and Behavioral Practice explained that the harmful effects of emotional abuse have been studied in children, romantic relationships, and families. Still, little work has explored the phenomenon of mental health professionals experiencing emotional abuse from their clients. Issues regarding the appropriate termination of emotionally abusive clients are discussed, considering the ethical obligation not to abandon clients.
10. People around you have warned you that you’re being exploited
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There’s a reason I always tell people to read negative reviews about an employer. While everyone can get a positive review with a little bribery, negative reviews generally only happen when things go wrong.
They tend to be the ones who warn you about the true nature of your potential boss. The same can be said of reviews from workers about clients on sites like Upwork.
More often than not, others will notice exploitation before you do. If your friends and family have been saying things like, “I don’t like how that client is treating you,” listen to them.
On the surface, freelance writers seem removed from the capitalist labor process, according to a study by York University. Freelance cultural work has relations of exploitation at its core.
Historically, piecework has been a method of lowering wages and lengthening the working day. In a survey of 200 freelance writers across Canada, 45 percent of respondents reported earning under $20,000 (before tax) from freelance writing in 2009, and 71 percent of these writers say that freelance writing is their main job.
Ossiana Tepfenhart is a writer whose work has been featured in Yahoo, BRIDES, Your Daily Dish, Newtheory Magazine, and others.
