[consulting] oDesk

[Frans Kuipers]

Thanks Victor, I could not agree more.

This buyer is like the ones who are asking for a Facebook clone with a
maximum bid of $500 while the 'consultant' is selling his services at
$300/hour :-) Who said slavery ended centuries ago?

I really don't want to spend more words/time on this ridiculous discussion.


Frans Kuipers.



On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 8:01 PM, Victor Kane <victorkane at gmail.com> wrote:

> I too have been lurking here, but I think as the list goes on, it really is
> necessary to place things in the proper context.
>
> Perhaps the most telling phrase in your whole post is that which includes
> "buyer" and "my workers".
>
> The only control any self respecting contractor needs before making final
> payment are code reviews and acceptance (functional) tests. The "buyer" has
> to be professional also and specify the acceptance criteria.
>
> The attempt by you of posting here in order to normalize and pass off as
> perfectly acceptable a power "master"/"slave" relationship between those
> selling and purchasing labor power needs to be denounced, as several here on
> this thread already have.
>
> I believe personally that it is brazen of you to defend sweat shop
> conditions, where you as a purchaser of labor power get to pry into the
> private screen of someone selling their labor power to you!
>
> The whole aim here is to lower salaries and worsen working conditions, not
> to mention the anti-worker (and class rascist) assumptions of dishonesty on
> the part of workers.
>
> If someone is padding the bill or shirking their responsibility, a simple
> code review and functional test will show that up. Delegating work to others
> involves responsibility.
>
> I've said it before and I'll say it again: what we need here is a union!
>
> Victor Kane
> http://awebfactory.com.ar
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 5:01 PM, Matt Chapman <Matt at ninjitsuweb.com> 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
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>
>
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