jerky flea

is jerky flea okay. is he sick. what is is taking him so long putting up the next artcle. when will it be up.

Thanx Karen for letting us have the scoop. I was wondering where JerkyFlea was keeping himself. I am cool w/ ya guys having someone sub for JerkyFlea cuz I love hearing and sharing about celebrity hair. I`m open to other opinions even though I am a big JF fan.

Dear Jennifer,

Yes, you are mistaken about the compensation to Mr. Flea. To clarify for you and for the record.......All of the people who write freelance columns/articles for HairBoutique.com are indeed offered financial compenation for their work. Most accept and a few want to trade for Marketplace items equivalent to the dollars they are offered. In fact, when people write reviews we also pay for the products that they test in addition to the money we pay them for the columns or articles.

We send all freelancers for HB.com checks upon receipt of their work. Jane Bullock, astrologer Danielle Dupree, hair expert Victoria Wurdinger, Tom Carson, teens Ryan & Eric, JerkyFlea and many others are all paid by me, personally out of my checkbook, for written contributions to the site. We have sent many thousands of dollars in compensation this year to several people who contribute on a regular basis to HairBoutique.com.

Although Jeff and I work full time at HB.com without taking any salaries, we do indeed pay our freelancers. Certainly not a fortune, but a lot more than most web sites pay. Mr. JerkyFlea is included in those entitled to compensation and a fee is on the HB.com books reserved for his columns. Mr. Flea and I personally have an agreement about how much I will pay him for each column he delivers.

We are trying to be extremely patient and understanding about the current situation but trust me, many of the emails I receive about the MIA Flea situation are from HB.com visitors who don`t understand and they are upset and believe that we (Karen & Jeff) are letting them down somehow. So while Jeff and I try to be very understanding with Mr. Flea and indeed I believe have been extremely understanding in the past, there are many who focus their unhappiness & anger at us....in the form of nasty emails. In fact, someday I am going to publish a book with those emails (I save all of them) so people can see the abuse Jeff and I have had to put up with for trying to do a good job and run a good site that is free and available to everyone.

As a person who has two full time companies and works 7 days a week, 20 hours a day and then gets email complaining if things are not constantly updated at HairBoutique.com I understand how time can be precious. I also have family in my life and I try to balance everything so that I have time for people that I love and am responsible for.

I have offered Mr. Flea many suggestions for ways to help him with this situation so that it does not impact his life with his family. Or at least minimize the impact. I would even be personally willing to help him write his column. I have offered to scan his photos if that would help. Understanding about the situation? I think we have gone way above and beyond that point and are still trying to be understanding.

Thanks for your comments.

Regards,
Karen Shelton
HairBoutique.com

Hi Jennifer,

Thanks so much for your reply. I appreciate it very much.

Yes, it is very strange that people complain about something that is free. I thought maybe HairBoutique.com was the only web site that experienced that phenomenon until I started talking to the webmasters at several other hair related sites. I was recently talking on the phone to one of the webmasters (both great folks) from NaturallyCurly.com (one of my favorite sites by the way, great place to visit) and she was sharing some of the bizarre emails that they receive. It was strange because we discovered that we both get similar emails, so I felt a little better. Yesterday I was talking on the phone to Mike Trobee of SalonWeb and All About Hair and I was laughing so hard that I was crying at some of the things he told me about some of his crazy email complaints. :-)

Just this week Jeff and I both received an angry email from an unhappy "bride-to-be" who was upset with us because one of our free 1,000+ links had been hacked (and we didn`t know about it) and it took her to a porn site. She was also angry because she could not find my email address. Never mind that it is in about 200 places on the site, she didn`t see it and so felt that we were trying to hide it from her. In fact, my email is on every links page at the bottom. :-)

Even though we have a disclaimer at the top of the links that says "use at your own risk", even though we run a robot program to see if links have been broken or altered and even though I am constantly updating the links....which are free....we can not always guarantee the links that we display. We also try and never link to sites that have obvious nudity or any remote porn. We have received a G rating from the people that rate sites for kids. Yet this women was really angry at us. Go figure.

Hacking happens all the time. Even to the major sites like Amazon.com. So for us to know every little site that might have been hacked by the porn hackers is unthinkable. Yet the email we received was rude and angry.

One thing I have learned having a web site for the past 4+ years is that many people have an amazing "sense of entitlement". People get angry with Jeff and I because we don`t have enough photos in the Gallery (we have close to 2,000), they get angry if we don`t have more links, if a link is broken, if they can`t find something, if we don`t sell a certain type of product. We also get emails every week from people asking us to do their homework, science projects, research assignments and cosmetology papers. I had one student ask if she sent me a wig would I color it for her to turn in to her high school cosmetology class.

Yes, people get upset when there is no new JerkyFlea columns, when teen boys Eric and Ryan don`t publish more often, when I don`t have articles about certain styles, when I can`t tell them who makes certain products and on and on.

I think my all time favorite email was from a guy who found HairBoutique.com and sent me a long email asking me about 20 questions about his hair that he wanted help with. He finished the email by saying that he had no intention of coming back to the HairBoutique.com site because he didn`t want to pay for "Net access" so could I snail mail him all the answers.

I have a special email folder that it titled "X Files Emails" and I keep all of those rude, angry, nuts, bizarre and hilarious emails from people in the file. Since I get an average of 250 emails a day from HairBoutique.com visitors I currently have about 500 Xfiles emails in my file. :-) Yes, 250 emails a day. In one month my in box has over 1,000 emails. Yes, I try very hard to answer the majority of the emails but I don`t always make it and people get angry about that too. :-)

Thanks again Jennifer for your feedback. It was one of the good posts that make me feel like a lot of people understand and appreciate what Jeff and I are trying to do.

I want to do the right thing here. I want to be patient and understanding about Mr. Flea and his busy life. I also want to provide HB.com visitors with the best I can do with the resources I have. So it is a tough situation and I just want to do what is best for everyone.

I have paid a published author to write a tongue-in-cheek article that is similar to Mr. Flea`s celebrity tongue-in-cheek articles, although on a different hair related topic. I also have two volunteers in the wings writing a celebrity hair article. I am going to pay them and we can decide if we should let them fill in while we wait for Mr. Flea`s next column.

Thanks to all who understand.

Best wishes & Happy New Year to all.

Karen

To Karen,

I agree w/ Connie. I like JF`s column but it is a small part of Hairboutique.com. Do what you can to make this hard situation work for all & I am sure most of your visitors will be happy. Thanks for the scoop.

Karen, do these people know what gorgeous hair you have? And when I say gorgeous, naturally, I say long and gorgeous! Hopefully, you have no drastic haircuts planned for the new year!

Karen,
I just wanted to add my appreciation of this wonderful site, and my agreement with everything others have said. Thank you for taking the time to make HB the best hair site!
Happy (and hairy) new year to you - and hope that you get closer to your goal in 2001!

Best wishes,
Chris

Hi Jennifer,

Thanks for your feedback. I appreciate it very much. I wish I could sick you on some of my emailers. :-)

Yes, you and I do have differences of opinion. The key word being opinion. :-) I also very much respect your opinion even if I don`t always agree and I know that you also respect that I have my own opinions and I don`t ever claim that I am right. Just that they are my personal opinions based on my personal experiences.

By the way...I recently looked up "opinion" in Webster`s dictionary and according to Mr. Webster it is "a view, judgment or appraisal formed in the mind about a particular matter".

I appreciate that you express your opinions and I very much appreciate the fact that you understand that others may or may not agree with you. Unfortunately not everyone is as understanding as you are about people who don`t agree with them. In fact, I have to add a chapter about that subject in my "book". LOL.

Unfortunately some people feel that because they have an opinion about something that it is absolutely right and everyone else is wrong if they don`t share the opinion.

Which is why I think HairBoutique.com is so valuable to consumers over all. It is because everyone is welcome to give their opinions about everything from whether hair should be long, short, curled, straight, dyed, not dyed, spiked or whatever. There is really no right answers. That is also so valuable because in the past the hair & beauty industry would try to mold and shape what consumers thought. All you have to do is look at the history of hairstyles to realize how consumers are often lead to the latest hair whim like little lambs. I think the Net has been so incredible because it empowers consumers to get together and compare notes and opinions and get some new information from which to make their own judgments.

Here at HairBoutique.com you are invited to read all the various opinions and then form your own. Which is what makes all the work and effort that Jeff and I put into the HairBoutique.com worthwhile. :-)

I also want to tell you that even when I don`t agree with you about your opinion, I will stop and seriously consider what you said. Also, I will go back and research the topic and sometimes will modify my opinion. Sometimes not, but I want to thank you for keeping me on my toes so that I can provide the best possible "stuff" here.

Happy New Year to you Jennifer and thanks for your input. I appreciate you very much.

Best wishes,
Karen