[consulting] oDesk

[Chris Johnson]

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 2:58 AM, Matt Chapman <Matt at ninjitsuweb.com> wrote:
> Good points, Bill, but why should I trust someone half a globe away, with
> whom I've never worked with before?

Then don't.  Hire someone in your own country or state, where you can
take them to court, if necessary, or hire someone you've 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.

I'd have to be starving before I'd willingly submit to oDesk.  My
"client" does not need to see what's on my screen every 10 minutes, or
know how many keys I'm typing.  I have a "punch clock" applet I wrote
myself many years ago.  I click "run" when I work and "pause" when I
decide to go read some website that someone posted on Twitter.  It's
none of my client's business that I do that.  My total time working on
their project is accurate, or even under represented this way (I can't
punch "run" when I'm thinking about how to solve their problems when
I'm not at my computer).

> 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. ;-)

If one is an independent, self-employed coder, I'd argue that one IS a
consultant -- just lower down the silo / supply chain than where you
work, Matt.  They face similar problems with getting paid, getting
value for their expenditures, etc.

But the nice thing about a market place is that most everyone can find
a buyer or a seller of a situation with which they are most
comfortable.  More power to them.  If Matt and a dozen coders he hires
are happy with using oDesk, that's great.  I won't argue they should
not use it.

> 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....

No worse than people in your segment of the supply chain, Matt.  The
sarcasm and nastiness is really out of place here.  Plenty of
"consultants" like yourself are guilty of over-inflating their
experience and skills, and billing for time spent not doing productive
work.  Poor work and business ethics are not limited to any one
segment of the marketplace.


..chris