I hate “catch-ups”

Last week, I read this tweet by John Loeber:

Sometimes, an acquaintance will reach out to me to “catch up” casually. There’s nothing I like more than a nice wide-ranging conversation with no agenda, so I usually say yes.
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Then, 30 or 45 minutes in, they try to be very sneaky about this, they bring up — oh-just-by-the-way — some commercial request: an intro to so-and-so, maybe I’ll consider buying their product, funding their company, whatever, and it’s so disappointing: the last half hour was a fake conversation, a plying motion to prepare for some sale, none of the personal interest was real.
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I understand that there’s a certain school of thought in favor of doing this, but I don’t like it at all. I much prefer when people reach out straightforwardly with their commercial request and none of the social fakery or time waste.

The tweet hit close to home, because I’ve had similar experiences.

“Do you want to catch up?”

A few years ago, “Morgan” (not their real name) messaged me to ask if I wanted to catch up. Their request was out of the blue, but they were someone I looked up to, so I agreed.

Morgan had mentioned they were working on a new business venture, but I didn’t think too much about this then. At that time, I had just started doing freelance writing full time, so I also wanted to update them about my new endeavours.

For the first 20+ minutes of our phone call, we talked about many things, including how I was writing for various clients. I was excited to share what I was up to.

That was when Morgan started asking if there were possibilities for me to introduce my clients to their business’ services. They were quite pushy about it, and I did not like that at all. I lost interest in the discussion immediately and stopped trying to make conversation.

We wrapped up the call about 5 minutes later. I ended with all the niceties, like “Let’s catch up again soon!”, but I was really happy to jam the “end call” button on my phone.

I never bothered reaching out to Morgan again. I was disappointed in them, because it felt like they had no genuine interest in catching up and was just trying to get business via me.

Hidden agendas

Apart from this incident with Morgan, I was recently (and separately) making casual conversation with a freelance writer and an agency owner, when quickly into both chats:

• I sensed the freelance writer was trying to fish for info on my clients to get projects from my clients for themselves. I deflected the writer’s persistent questions and avoided contacting them again after that.
• The agency owner pitched me their services, which I politely turned down. I thought they’d at least reply to say something like “No worries, let’s keep in touch in case if things change in the future” to keep the relationship warm, but they didn’t. It was complete radio silence after that. Lol.

All these “catch-ups” left a bad taste in my mouth. So, I aim to do things differently.

If I want something from someone, I ask for it upfront

This makes the objective of my reaching out clear and saves everyone time. After that, if they can and want to help me, that’s great. If not, that’s fine.

It also means that if I ask to catch up, it’s because I really just want to catch up and see how the other person has been. If I’d wanted something, I would’ve said so at the start.

I know that this is business and that we all want to get ahead in our careers. But we can make a living while still being someone others genuinely want to hear from.

More freelancer news

“Freelancers in Singapore, how often do clients delay payment, and what actually works to prevent it?”

A Redditor posted on r/askSingapore to ask the above questions. And these questions are clearly hot topics, because many users replied. Here are some suggestions that stood out:

• Taking milestone payments, e.g. 50% upfront payment and releasing the final files only after the client has paid the remaining 50%
• Not taking on more work until you’ve gotten paid for previous work
• Going through your payment terms with clients in person in case they don’t read your contracts

Fortunately, I haven’t had to chase clients for payments too hard. Late payments were often due to oversights by the finance team, and so once I sent a nudge, I got the payment soon after.

Probably one of the worst late payment incidents I encountered was repeatedly chasing for payment from a client who, ironically, claimed to support fair freelancing practices HAHAHA I shan’t say more in case I out them. 🤡 (I got paid in the end.)

Singapore marketing agency allegedly owes freelancers over $100k in pay

Speaking of late payment, the Qurious Group marketing agency apparently owes more than 50 freelancers across Southeast Asia (including Singapore) over $100k total from Dec 2025 to Apr 2026.

According to the agency’s director, the agency experienced a large revenue drop in late 2025, with some major clients also paying late.

The agency tried to get a loan to keep up with its payment obligations, but the loan wasn’t approved. So, the agency is winding up.

The director says he is committed to personally paying everyone off. That said, he didn’t want to get any formal repayment arrangements in writing.

I looked at the agency’s website, and the agency offers unlimited tasks (e.g. idea generation and social media ads) and revisions for a flat USD 699/month. 🤨

​Read more about this news here.​