Yesterday was Halloween! It may surprise some people, but Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. As a big fan of both scary stories and chocolate, whoever came up with the idea to combine the two is a genius in my book.

But while I’m very much enjoying my annual tradition of eating leftover candy today, the spooky atmosphere has me thinking about monsters.

Of course, creepy creatures like witches and ghouls don’t actually exist. But I think everyone has a professional horror story to tell — whether the perpetrator in question is a co-worker, client, or customer.

But I think, in the freelance world in particular, there are a few “monsters” you need to look out for. Most complaints from other freelance workers usually deal with one of three kinds of clients:

Vampires

Ever since Twilight, I think we’ve collectively forgotten how scary vampires can be. But if you’ve ever dealt with one in your professional life, you’ll know that they aren’t all sparkles and eternal declarations of love.

Professional vampires are the ones that bleed you dry. The ones who send you nine or ten emails in a workday, and twice as many on weekends. The ones that call you while you’re in the middle of a busy job to tell you about their latest idea (which they rarely follow through on). It gets to the point where you start to wish that they needed an invitation to talk to you.

I’ve never worked for a vampire personally, but I know someone who has. I have a friend who once got contractually locked when she was fresh out of college into a draining, over-demanding project that kept her constantly working (and not seeking other clients) for months.

The worst part was, they had agreed on a flat rate at the start of the project, and the fine print didn’t allow her to charge extra for all of the edits and extra work that the client demanded. While it was a learning experience, it was a costly one — when all was said and done, she earned well below minimum wage on an incredibly professional project.

Werewolves

We all know about werewolves — normal people who become hideous creatures on the full moon. Maybe I’m stretching a bit here, but I think they have a professional equivalent.

Professional werewolves are the ones that seem one way, but then wind up being another. The employers who say they want to hire you to do one thing, but then give you something else. The employees that look great on paper, only to fall apart once they get on the job.

As a specific example, I’ve gone to interviews with a number of werewolves. They post on job boards, usually disguising themselves a public relations positions. Except when I get there, it turns out that their idea of “public relations” is actually selling a product door-to-door in a poorly disguised multi-level marketing scheme. (You know the type — “You’ll start out in door-to-door sales, but in just 2 months you can be making millions!”)

In my freelance life, I’ve definitely had people approach me asking for a writing job, only to discover later that they had ulterior motives, and I know I’m not the only one. (One freelance friend told me a story about a guy pretending to need her services so that he could get her number to flirt with her.)

In the interest of fairness, I feel the need to point out that freelancers can be werewolves, too. I’ve warned against pretending to be an expert in something you aren’t for that very reason. If you pretend to be a pro at, for example, web design when you only know basic HTML, you might discover your client checking the calendars to see if it’s a full moon.

Ghosts

You can probably guess what a professional ghost is. After all, I’m borrowing from popular terminology — everyone has probably been “ghosted” at least once.

For the uninitiated, “ghosting” is when you suddenly stop responding to someone for no reason. While it’s usually used in relation to dating, I’m pretty sure everyone’s met a professional ghost at least once. Maybe they were an employer, or an employee, or a potential colleague or referral. You hit it off, you think things are going great, but then they don’t respond.

Unfortunately, this sort of thing is sort of par for the course in the freelance world. A quick google search will reveal countless articles offering advice on how to deal with these tricky clients (specifically when they turn into ghosts around billing time).

Why does this happen? I think it comes down to people not understanding the importance of what freelancers do. Or maybe they don’t understand that for a lot of us, this is a career, not just a hobby.

Whatever the reason is, don’t be a monster to your freelancer. After all, we’re human too.