[consulting] oDesk

Tue May 5 02:48:49 UTC 2009

The difference is, I couldn't do what my mechanic does if I had to, and 
I don't really understand what he's doing.

If you're being hired by a hair salon to do their website, or if you're 
quoting a fixed fee, yeah, tell 'em to fly a kite.

But if you're sub-contracting for an hourly rate to a tech consulting 
firm or an online publishing firm, or someone else who knows more than 
how to spell PHP, I think it's reasonable to expect some accountability 
for your time and the accuracy of your self-proclaimed expertise. 
Whether you are an employee, a contractor, or a mafia loan out doesn't 
really matter.

Do you believe your mechanic when he tells you it took 40 hours to 
change the serpentine belt? Or do you get a second opinion? What if your 
mechanic is in a country where you'd have no legal recourse to recover 
your pre-payment if he's a con artist? What if you have a contract for 
10 times the value of his work that depend son him being able to do what 
he says he can do? I'd sit and watch, or I'd demand to review the work 
before making payment. Since most web contractors require some up-front 
payment (or a third-party payment guarantee like oDesk), the situation 
is vastly different.

By the way, I'd strongly advise all freelance developers to demand 
significant up-front payment if you can. In this economy, there are 
companies that will be overly optimistic about their financial state and 
talk you into worthless deferred payment and profit sharing 
arrangements. I just had a company that I had been working with for more 
than a year terminate a contract with ~$10,000 owed to me, and I now 
realize, they have no realistic means to pay it.

In the same week, I had a sub-contractor error cause a client's site to 
be offline for 3 days.

When you're a consultant, it's easy to get screwed from both ends, so 
yeah, I want to be able to monitor my hourly sub-contractors. The only 
exception is when you've earned my trust, usually by performing one or 
more projects for a fixed fee, paid on delivery.

Best,

Matt
Ninjitsu Web Development
http://drupal.org/user/143172

Brian Vuyk wrote:
> Just touching back on this issue, since I just had a client who wanted 
> a job done on an hourly rate, and wanted me to make my desktop 
> available by VNC or RDP so he could monitor it...
>
> I understand that as a buyer, you like to be able to see what the 
> people you have hired are doing.
>
> At the same time, I think there is a bit of a disconnect between how I 
> view my business, and how you view the people you've outsources work to.
>
> Specifically, I view myself as a business performing a contract for 
> you. I don't view myself as 'your worker' or 'your employee'. I work 
> for my business, which has taken your contract. You are not my boss; 
> you are my client.
>
> Would you ask your mechanic to set up a webcam in his garage to 
> monitor him working on your car, or your lawyer to set up a webcam in 
> his office? If you did ask, what do you think the reaction would be?
>
> All this said, if a service provider is willing to allow the client to 
> closely monitor his work, great. I just don't think that there should 
> be an expectation of it.
>
> Just to be clear - to me, this is an academic discussion. I quote 95% 
> of my work ahead of time to avoid any possible 'use-of-time' issues 
> with my clients.
>
> -- 
> *Brian Vuyk*
> Web Design & Development
> T: 613-534-2916
> Skype: brianvuyk
> brian at brianvuyk.com | http://www.brianvuyk.com
>
>
> On 04/07/2009 04:01 PM, Matt Chapman wrote:
>> Brian Vuyk wrote:
>>> You are all right in probably not worth it. I may just try with a 
>>> small job and see how it goes. Like I've said, I don't like the 
>>> monitoring system, though!
>>
>> As someone who often hires people to do things I could do myself, but 
>> lack the time for, I dare say that many Drupal developers are worse 
>> than lawyers when it comes to billing practices. I've seen a 10 hour 
>> bill for two lines of code changed to upgrade a module from D5 to D6 
>> from a developer who was supposedly experienced in such work. Perhaps 
>> he got hung up on researching writing the jQuery he used to check 
>> *every* checkbox on the page for the requirement that one checkbox 
>> should be checked & disabled default.
>>
>> And the lower the hourly rate, the more likely they are to pad the 
>> bill. I'll gladly pay 4-5 times the minimal rate for someone who 
>> works as efficiently as I do. I'm not going to pay that kind of money 
>> to have someone learn on the job. $8/hr is about right if you're 
>> making it up as you go along, and you live in a country where the 
>> housing costs a third of mine.
>>
>> So, as a buyer, I'm a big fan of being able monitor my workers and 
>> make sure they've been truthful about their time and their skills.
>>
>> I get that research is part of the job; I'm not going to balk at 
>> screenshots of api.drupal.org... but if some dev is surfing youtube 
>> on the clock, I'm going to exercise my right to withhold payment. As 
>> for me, I don't bill my clients for research time unless they want to 
>> do something that really never has been done before. I spend about 10 
>> hours per week on researching on my own time so I can stay up to date 
>> on the latest progress in Drupal & related technologies.
>>
>> Also, part of what the freelancers get from oDesk is an insurance 
>> policy that they will be paid for their time if the end client balks 
>> unjustly; as someone who spends way too much time trying to collect 
>> from delinquent employers, I know how valuable that is.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Matt
>> _______________________________________________
>> consulting mailing list
>> consulting at drupal.org
>> http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> consulting mailing list
> consulting at drupal.org
> http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting
>   