[consulting] oDesk

[Matt Chapman]

Good points, Bill, but why should I trust someone half a globe away, 
with whom I've never worked with before?

Also, I am definitely arguing this from the buyers side, because that 
position seemed absent in the discussion. As a seller, I would also take 
your position, and probably wouldn't be eager to accept a client who 
insisted on my using oDesk either; but then, I'm not on oDesk as a seller.

Again, the question is, do you want to be a coder or a consultant? If 
you just want to write code for a living, you're probably going to have 
to put up with intrusiveness like oDesk, until everyone knows you're as 
good as you claim to be because you wrote Views or DrupalEd or 
something. ;-)

Put another way, trust is a fundamental part of the equation when you're 
hiring a consultant. But when you're hiring a coder, I don't need to 
trust you; I need to know that you know where to put the commas and the 
semi-colons, and that you'll write a proper module instead of sending me 
a patch for index.php .

I think it was kind of intrusive that my boss expected me to show up at 
9am and wear pants when I worked in the corporate world. But that's what 
I had to do to get my paycheck. I had to save up a few paychecks before 
I could fire my boss and win the privilege of working in my underwear 
without anyone intruding.

Oh, but I forgot, contractors are different from employees. It's OK for 
them to over-inflate their experience and bill me for time spent 
learning what they said they already knew how to do....

Best,

Matt



Bill Fitzgerald wrote:
> Hello, all,
>
> Been following this, lurking quietly until now -- some quick thoughts:
>>
>>
>> It's part of the difference between consultants and coders. Coders 
>> might not need oDesk; consultants do.
>
> No one "needs" oDesk. Work was getting done before oDesk, and will get 
> done after oDesk.
>
> <snip>
>> I happen to think oDesk's tools are an even better solution in many 
>> cases, hence I think it perfectly reasonable to ask a freelancer to 
>> use them.
>
> At the risk of stating the obvious, we all will structure our 
> businesses in the way that makes the most sense for us. A potential 
> client mentioning the use of oDesk would be a huge red flag, and would 
> likely cause us to turn away the work. For the same reasons, I would 
> never hire a person where I felt I needed oDesk as a guarantee. It's a 
> level of intrusiveness that strongly implies a lack of trust.
>
> It reminds me of the line from Office Space: "But you know, Bob, that 
> will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired."
>
> Cheers,
>
> Bill
>>
>
>