Serious help with "boss" needed!

[Corinna]

As a sub contractor YOU work the strings not her, she has really found out how much shes getting for free and is afraid of loosing you. So she is trying to domainate you I wouldn't be surprized that you find when you look for new clients she has already started submarining you.
My hubby had a contractor (hardwood flooring) who tried this stuff to so we just had the office/home phone on a machine , got a cell that only family had the # for. This guy would call as hubby was trying to get the floors done, well not getting done, He would talk for an hour at a time . If I answered the phone he'd want Tim and then want to know where he was and if I told him what job (before I learned about him) he'd drive out and pester him there. Finally getting the Machine and no call backs until 11pm waking his 6 month old (rotten aren't we) he stopped using us no lose as in a year we got only 2 small floors and then all the people did was bitch about it. People with no money trying to have a expensive floor they can't afford,then trying to use the cheapest crapest material. We recently hear that he started his own flooring and what we have heard is not good, in fact we have be asked to redo his screw ups. We have pasted them on to another company who can afford to do them Bigger company.
You just have to put your foot down, if you lose her as aclient and freind you just replace her . I don't like working for freinds, I'm polite and freindly to our clients but we do not socailize with them. If we do work for a freind a contract is made up explaining all possiblity and the out comes, also if changes are made in the process they are noted and intialed by the client just so there is no problem. (on these job I usually spend more time on the site than others)
Hope some of these ideas help. You aren't alone in this kind of thing. Just part of owning your own buisness.

[catnapper]

Thank you Corinna, it does help.

You see, we started out as "partners" helping each other grow each other's business..... somewhere along the line, she lost sight with reality and forgot I am my own company, and I work with her, not FOR her.

This morning we had a conversation where she once again brought up salary and this time she wants to get me insurance. Insurance that *I'd* pay 100% out of my own pocket.

Last week, I mentioned dropping off a color flyer with business cards at my vet for my animal portraits. She said her cat had a vet appointment and that she'd hang one of my flyers upo at her vets when she went. Okie dokie... so I mailed out a flyer and some business cards. Today she told me she went to a chamber of commerce meeting and showed my flyer around. WHAT?!?!? She's supposed to be there selling OFFICE FURNITURE, not my artwork! So now she wants a 50% cut of my portrait fee!!! I feel as if I don't get paid ENOUGH for my artwork... now just because she handed out MY CARD, she thinks she's able to demand a 50% referral fee? And she did this WITHOUT my knowledge? She's stepping WAAAYYY out of line here, now that she's trying to horn in on my artwork! Then she got pissy at me when I told her I did NOT want her handing out my flyers and making people contact her for MY artwork.

Of course she did not mention the whole printer/ink incident. I have the feeling she whined ot somebody else about how unfair I was, and the other person said "um, do you know how much ink costs?". Usually when she drops a subject, its because someone else pointed out I was right and she was wrong.