[consulting] consulting Digest, Vol 62, Issue 12

[Gotham City Drupal]

Yeah, well you're bacon now, buster!!!
(Just kidding) :)

"That said, I'm still an app developer for now, one of you. I'm not bacon, so 
don't flame me.  :)

-John"

Seriously though - people, I work 60 hour weeks whenever I have the work. I worked 80 hour weeks for 18 months straight, because I did client and Dev work all day and managed their (terrible, required) offshore team all night. I'm not averse to work, I'm just averse to being expected to work for free. I'm also not talking about asking outrageous rates here - my rates are USA market-normalized (for the whole country, not just NYC). It's just true that if people who are good at what they do don't charge what they're worth, soon nobody will want to do it anymore, and there will be very few good developers left - nobody to mentor new people, grow the community, or do all the other things we all do for free already to make Drupal into the unique, vibrant and growing Community that it is. 

I don't need to go into detail about what it takes to be really good at this job. To care about quality, standards and the professional responsibility that makes for really good (anythings). But maybe it bears repeating that people don't expect doctors, lawyers, architects or other professionals to work fulltime for free. Pro Bono work has an honored and respected place, and I'm not only all for it, I'm all over it. But I believe it's important to be clear about these kinds of expectations and state them up front, not buried at the bottom of a long list of requirements. It's just good manners not to waste people's time. Plus, when you state them up front, you get responses from people who are enthusiastic about working on your project for the love of it - a quality you definitely want on your side when asking people to contribute their professional skills for free to your project. You'll get better people and more enthusiastic responses that way too, in my experience.

Best of luck,

Kelly Bell
917.446.1555

On Mar 22, 2011, at 18:48, consulting-request at drupal.org wrote:

> That said, I'm still an app developer for now, one of you. I'm not bacon, so 
> don't flame me.  :)
> 
> -John
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