My wife charges me to edit documents?

[Anonymous]

I received this email from my wife yesterday. I asked her to edit a CV for my cousin. He's applying to grad school in the US. I am not originally from the US. My wife says her labour is not free. She also said this about breastfeeding too but she did not ask me to pay her for that. We switched to forumula after a few months. Isn't this a bit cold? In the past, I have asked her to edit many of my PhD documents but she says it's better to hire someone who is a professional writer. I just wanted her to proofread the documents. She's a SAHM to one baby and says she's too busy.

Here is the email she sent me:

This is the document I revised. The content was very difficult to understand at times due to the issues with grammar. I did my best to rewrite the content for clarity and meaning. I also deleted a few sentences that didn't make sense. In the future, I would ask you to give me at least 1 week to make revisions. My rate for this document is $12. I gave you a special discount as a first time client. Going forward I will charge $25 for up to 1000 words. If you need the document edited within 24 hours there is another $20 charge. Thanks, and please recommend me to all your friends.

~Your loving wife

[Anonymous]

Hahahahaaaa hahaaahaaa

That is hilarious, I love your wife!

Haaaahaahaa

[Anonymous]

Tell her the hot neighbor down the street is only going to charge you $10 dollars a document. Thank her for her time and ask her what’s for dinner

[Anonymous]

Hahahahaha

[Anonymous]

It sounds like she’s joking, OP.

[Anonymous]

I think she's suggesting she has better things to do with her time than edit your documents.

[Anonymous]

You wife has a great sense of humor. I suspect this comes from you asking her for a quick turn around when she was already busy with the baby. You just put one too many things on her plate. Her response is awesome.

[Anonymous]

I think this is fair. It's not appropriate for you to send her a mangled document (and it IS mangled from the way your wife describes the grammar) and expect her to do it for free.

Don't make more work for your wife to do.

[Anonymous]

I really want to go for drinks with this woman.

[Anonymous]

Be appreciative of somebody that can effectively use humor to address an issue, OP! She's giving you a heads-up instead of "nagging."

She RULES!

[Anonymous]

I would negotiate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would negotiate.

uh oh

[Anonymous]

Also, this wasn't a document for YOU, this was something for your cousin. Does she have any sort of relationship or friendship with your cousin? Did you volunteer her time without asking her first? Did you say you'd review/edit it, and then ask her to do it?

Team Wife over here.

[Anonymous]

Totally fair. Her charges are reasonable, too.

[Anonymous]

Why aren’t you editing documents for your own cousin, is my first question.

Second, if he can’t do a basic CV coherently, why is he applying for grad school?

Your wife is worth the $12 if you keep swinging her stuff to edit.